F-Zero



"Don't blink and drive."

F-Zero is a long-running Nintendo franchise based around races taking place at speeds exceeding the speed of sound..

A key mechanic since F-Zero X is the single energy bar which is used for both the ship's shields and boost power, so taking damage limits your ability to boost. More to the point, every boost takes you one step closer to blowing up.

An anime series entitled F-Zero: GP Legend aired in 2003, but was cancelled in the U.S. before completing a full season. In Japan, it aired as F-Zero Falcon Densetsu. It ran for the whole series in the east, and ended with a Grand Finale (possibly the grandest of them all; just search "Falcon Punch" on YouTube).

Captain Falcon went on to become a member of the Super Smash Bros. roster. Along with the good captain, this series also has a huge cast of other strange and bizarre racers. How bizarre? Captain Falcon is probably the most normal one.

An in-progress compilation of the many characters can be found here. All tropers are encouraged to help out.

"Black Shadow: "Falcon, you've come to die? I needn't have wasted time looking for you then.""
 * Acrofatic: His impressive swordsmanship in the anime notwithstanding, Samurai Goroh is implied to be a competent fighter, is quite muscular, and is able to perform multiple back handsprings despite being obese.
 * Action Girl: Jody and Lily, seeing as they're combat-machine pilot affiliated with the para-militaristic Galactic Space Federation. In particular, Jody has had an eventful and active childhood, while Lily has been training since shortly after her birth and has even seen combat in a few skirmishes. There are hints that Mrs. Arrow is also one of these, particularly of the Action Wife variety. Lisa Brilliant shows her mettle as the wife of Samurai Goroh in the anime.
 * Adaptation Dye Job: In GP Legend, many characters have their hair colors as slightly lighter shades. The most noticeable change comes from, whose hair is now brown instead of black.
 * Affably Evil: Black Shadow in brief flashes. He says the below line as politely and calmly as could be.

"Deathborn: "Falcon, shall I tell you something before you die? Captain Falcon: "Not if I can help it. I'll destroy you yet!""
 * All Amazons Want Hercules: Jody Summer may or may not have a crush on Captain Falcon. Possibly either played straight or subverted with the Arrows.
 * All Love Is Unrequited: John Tanaka harbors a crush on Jody Summer, who (if John's bonus movie in GX is anything to go by) is in love with Captain Falcon. Averted with the Arrows, who are a Happily Married couple.
 * All There in the Manual: Pretty much the franchise's only source of story or character info before GX with its character profiles and story mode.
 * Except for the anime, and that (with a set of additional games) takes place in an alternate canon.
 * Alternate Continuity: Three. Maximum Velocity, GP Legend (the anime) and GP Legend (the game).
 * Amazing Technicolor Population: Somewhat inevitable seeing as aliens are involved, but several characters have alternate colors that give them even weirder skin tones.
 * Amazing Technicolor Racetrack: Phantom Road in GX. Rainbow Road from X also qualifies, though it was much less technicolor than the original Mario Kart 64 version.
 * Amazonian Beauty: Mrs. Arrow in the games.
 * Ambiguously Gay: Baba. He wears an outfit with leopard prints and wails like a girl if he falls off the track in X. GX's voice acting gave Baba an effeminate voice and several... questionable comments. And then there's his bonus movie in GX... the less you know, the better.
 * As of now (i.e. GX), it seems that Baba has traded in the "Ambiguously" for "Camp".
 * Jack in the anime. It's not nearly as bad as Baba (and he does retain his key characterization), but still. Either that, or he's Camp Straight.
 * Animal-Themed Superbeing: Captain Falcon and Beastman fit types two (Animal Alias) and one (Animal Abilities) respectively.
 * Animal Motifs: Captain Falcon... we don't need to spell this one out for you. Super Arrow's seems to be avians, while Beastman's is a dinosaur.
 * Anime Hair: The frontrunners would be James McCloud and Jack Levin in GX, the former's hair being redesigned to make his parallels with that of Fox's father more obvious. James even has white streaks going through them. Jack's hair is taken to ridiculous lengths in the anime. Antonio Guster reveals in his interviews that he hides a mohawk under his helmet, and it's blue. Kate Alen has a pretty funky afro, but no one ever seems to talk about it.
 * The Anime of the Game: F-Zero GP Legend, known in Japan as F-Zero Falcon Densetsu (F-Zero The Legend of Falcon).
 * Announcer Chatter: From X onwards, but especially in X. "YOU GOT BOOST POWER!" "WATCH YOUR BACK!" "TOO BAD. YOU LOST YOUR MACHINE." "OFF COURSE! RETIRED."
 * "YEAH! THE FINAL LAP!" "WHOA! YOU'RE WAY OUT IN FRONT!"
 * Mr. Zero himself seems to indulge in this himself throughout the anime. He's much more subdued in the games.
 * Arch Enemy: Captain Falcon and Black Shadow, the Arrows and Zoda, Beastman and Bio Rex, Ryu/Rick and Zoda in the anime, etc.
 * Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: "Everyone you meet is food. Eat all the food put in front of you. And brush your teeth properly." - Bio Rex
 * Artifact of Doom: The Reactor Mights from F-Zero GP Legend, which provide the F-Zero machines they empower with enhanced performance capabilities but can end up tampering with the machine if left unchecked and are intended to be used with the Big Bad's Dark Reactor.
 * Artificial Gravity: Many of the tracks make good use of this. A few of them actually overlap themselves with the two tracks being face-to-face.
 * Ascended Extra: While GX did this with racers that had debuted in X, the anime goes even deeper into some characters. Jody, Jack, and Zoda in particular.
 * Ascended Fanboy: Draq was mostly a rather over-enthusiastic F-Zero fan, until one day his shipping company received two racers with no destination or return address; when this happened, Draq immediately jumped on the racer, entered the league, and now he's running to use the prize money to buy his own racer and start an F-Zero museum. His buddy Roger Buster, while also an F-Zero fan, is more the casual fan type (i.e. not an F-Zero nerd like Draq).
 * To a lesser extent, Lucy Liberty from GP Legend is a female version of this trope, with her official bio stating that she's a huge fan of the sport.
 * Ascended Meme: The Falcon Punch, which originated in Super Smash Bros., is used by Captain Falcon in the Grand Finale of the anime.
 * Attack! Attack! Attack!: When Mr. Zero asks Beastman to describe his racing style, these are his exact words.
 * Author Avatar:.
 * Autobots Rock Out: Happens a lot, especially in the anime, where the themes for Mute City and Big Blue, as well as Hiro-x's "The Meaning of Truth" accompany many a heroic moment.
 * Awesome McCoolname: A lot of the racers. Naturally, Captain Falcon is a standout here.
 * Ax Crazy: Zoda. It's taken to horrific levels in the anime.
 * Back-to-Back Badasses: Ryu/Rick and Captain Falcon, numerous times.
 * Back from the Dead: The Skull.
 * Badass: Obviously, Captain Falcon is the prime example, but you can make cases for several other characters in the games and anime.
 * Badass Boast: Many characters get this in their post-race interviews. Deathborn gets a sinister (and extremely long) one in the penultimate chapter of Story Mode. Falcon then one-ups everyone when he tells off.

"Deathborn: "AAAAAAaaaaaaargh! No, it can't be! How can I lose! Nooooooooooooo!""
 * To put that last one into perspective, Captain Falcon finds the suggestion that even can best him on the track absolutely ridiculous. And to back his bravado, he wins.
 * Badass Cape: Super Arrow, Phoenix, Black Shadow, and Deathborn.
 * Bonus points for Supes, as he is literally The Cape (trope).
 * Badass Driver: Virtually everyone.
 * Badass Grandpa: Silver Neelson. Clearly, not even age will stop this man.
 * Badass Longcoat: Antonio Guster.
 * Badass Long Hair: Samurai Goroh in the anime. Also, there's.
 * Badass Long Robe: Berserker, The Dragon to Don Genie in the anime..
 * Balance Between Good and Evil: Most notably in the anime, where.
 * Bald Black Leader Guy: Michael Chain. However, he is too much of an ineffective thug to cross over into Bald of Evil territory.
 * Barbie Doll Anatomy: When . Of course, it's still Bowdlerized in the dub.
 * Bare Your Midriff: Kate, Princia and Lily. For male examples, Dr. Clash (unintentionally) and Blood Falcon in his Master video (his suit shrunk in the wash).
 * Battle Couple: The Arrows. Mrs. Arrow's comments in GX imply that the two routinely fight crime on and off the track.
 * Beauty Mark: Lisa Brilliant.
 * Becoming the Mask: Beastman uses an intimidating facade and costume to hide the fact that he's extremely shy from any potential enemies... but he might actually be turning into a real Badass gradually.
 * To a lesser extent, Captain Falcon himself would count, since as a bounty hunter wanted by many criminals, he usually hides his face with his helmet. Subverted when the player beats a harder-difficulty cup, which then he reveals his face.
 * And again with Falcon's "Bart Lemming" identity. Falcon may be a paragon of strength and courage, but as Bart he's gentle, soft spoken, and even a bit of a goof.
 * Belly Dancer: Princia invokes a bit of it at the Settings screen before a race and during her ending. She even wears suitable attire.
 * Big Badass Wolf: Leon, averted in that he only resembles Wolf O'Donnell. He pretty much acts as an anthropomorphic Expy of Fray Tormenta.
 * Actually, given his affinity for cats, Leon is probably some sort of humanoid feline (it's more noticeable in his artwork from X). In the anime, Leon is more or less a Big Badass Wolf (or at least, moreso than his game counterpart).
 * Speaking of Wolf O'Donnell, James' episode in GP Legend has him mentioning a friend who sacrificed for his sake. His friend's last name was O'Donnell.
 * Big Boo's Haunt: Port Town in the original.
 * Big Brother Mentor: Bart Lemming, in regards to several characters, Ryu/Rick being the most prominent. . Jack also takes up this role to Ryu/Rick, in addition to being Vitriolic Best Buds with him.
 * Big Eater: Bio Rex. His reasons for entering the GX GP? To sait his voracious appetite for big ribs. And, as GX can attest to, he seems to have an affinity for liquor.
 * Big No: Most of the racers have this mixed in with a Death Cry Echo in X. Deathborn pulls one during his Villainous Breakdown after Captain Falcon wins against him. He then drives off of the course and blows up in a sea of lava.

" Zoda: "JI ENDO!""
 * Bishonen: Jack Levin, especially in the anime. Leon (in human form) is also one in the anime.
 * Black Knight: Black Shadow. It Makes Sense in Context, F-Zero being something of an Affectionate Parody of Western Super Heroes, Toku, and/or Lucha Libre and all.
 * Blood Knight: The lyrics to Captain Falcon's theme song in F-Zero GX seems to be from the point of view of one who idolizes Captain Falcon.
 * The Skull and Mighty Gazelle are in-game examples. The latter is a tragic deconstruction, however, as he lost his fiance when she gazed in horror upon his cybernetic body. Thus, Gazelle turned to racing as it was the only thing he had to live for. He seems to have gotten out of this funk by the time of GX and even has a new girlfriend.
 * It's hinted that Black Shadow and Blood Falcon love to destroy other machines at a whim. Blood's actions in the anime seem to affirm this. Pico is no better. Several times has he been called one of the more violent and bloodthirsty racers. Lest we forget that Pico is widely believed to be responsible for the big accident several years ago that caused the races to amp up its safety measure solely for his aggressive nature on the track, regardless of whether or not he was guilty.
 * Blood Sport: A relatively tame example.
 * Bonus Level of Hell: GX's penultimate chapter in Story Mode. Of course, Falcon gets out of there in one piece.
 * Bounty Hunter: Captain Falcon and Samurai Goroh double as these outside of the races. The only time Falcon is ever seen on the job is in a short comic included with the original F-Zero. This comic, to date, is the only time that Falcon uses his gun. Ever.
 * Bowdlerization: Several, but the more prominent ones are changing the name of Blood Falcon's Hell Hawk to the Blood Hawk and renaming Miss Killer as Luna Ryder. The latter actually works to a degree, considering that Miss Killer drives the Moon Shadow, but it's also a case of Never Say "Die".
 * Boy Band: Jack Levin was once a part of one before joining the F-Zero races.
 * Brain In a Jar: Look at Deathborn. Look at him! Also, in the anime.
 * Brainwashed and Crazy:.
 * Bring My Brown Pants: The normally monotone and calm Mr. Zero is scared witless if he has to interview any creepy, menancing, or downright evil characters. Oddly, he remains calm with Don Genie.
 * Still, some fans see Mr. Zero as a Badass simply for having the guts to interview said characters. Black Shadow himself is also impressed, and even offers Mr. Zero the chance to work for him. Whether or not this counts as Badass Unintentional or Mistaken for Badass is up to you.
 * But Not Too Foreign: Samurai Goroh is Japanese-American. Presumably, his son is also mixed.
 * Butt Monkey: Samurai Goroh seems to be one in GX. He's caught in the explosion of his Fire Stingray, is booed by the crowd at the GP, and few racers appear to like him outside of his son and Princia, who has taken a fancy to him.
 * As you can see in the picture at the top of this page, a giant-sized R.O.B. appears on the Port Town courses, most notably Port Town: Aero Drive.
 * Card-Carrying Villain: Whoever is labeled a "villain" in the games will carry not a card, but a poster. Just check out the interviews Deathborn and Black Shadow give to Mr. Zero in GX.
 * Career Killers: Pico, a former mercenary, doubles as a hitman outside of the races.
 * Cast from Hit Points: The boost feature from X onwards.
 * Cast of Snowflakes: Rarely will two characters with much in common be playable in the same game, even if they have a direct relationship with each other. This doesn't count Blood Falcon, who is a direct clone of Captain Falcon.
 * The Cast Showoff: Ai Maeda was not only the seiyuu of Kate Alen in the anime, but also sung both of the series' ending themes, "Resolution" and "Forever". This is not the first time it happened.
 * Well, in-universe, Kate is a singer...
 * Character Development: In GX, most of the cast was given quirky personalities in order make them seem more realistic. The GP Legend anime then turned this on its head by redefining a good portion of the cast or flanderizing what was already there (for example, Beastman became a game hunter who was in only for the money). In fact, some of Captain Falcon's seemingly Out Of Character Moments from Super Smash Bros.. became an actual part of his anime persona.
 * Characterization Marches On: In the games, there isn't much to go on from Captain Falcon except for his righteousness. Then, Super Smash Bros.. turns the guy into a campy, over-the-top brawler with a Falcon Punch. Come the F-Zero GP Legend anime, Captain Falcon is a fusion of both personalities (being a stoic hero as Captain Falcon, but something of a lovable and well-meaning goof as Bart Lemming) and even uses the Falcon Punch in the Grand Finale.
 * Chekhov MIA: In the anime, Andy Summer, Jody's supposedly dead older brother is actually.
 * Child Prodigy: Terry "Digi-Boy" Getter. Clank Hughes in the anime. The latter probably remained the same after the Time Skip, but we'll never know for sure.
 * Christmas Cake: Jody Summer and Kate Alen. As of GX, they are respectively 25 and 30; both are single. In contrast, the 27-year-old Mrs. Arrow is Happily Married.
 * Cloning Blues: How Blood Falcon came to be. Things only go south from there as it's implied in the games and revealed in the anime that Blood Falcon isn't the only clone of Captain Falcon.
 * Clothing Damage: A male example comes from Captain Falcon's GX ending movie. After saving Mrs. Arrow's baby from a speeding locomotive, his pants rip, revealing his Goofy Print Underwear. This leaves Falcon in an awkward and compromising position as Mrs. Arrow chuckles at his misfortune.
 * Collision Damage: And it shows on your vehicle. Sorta.
 * Combat Stilettos: Averted. While several women wear high-heels as a part of their racing attire, none of the females are ever shown in the midst of a brawl.
 * The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: Hoo boy!
 * This is the case in the original F-Zero where the other racer car could not die even when falling out track and in F-Zero: Maximum Velocity on Master Difficulty, where a machine that tops at 410km/h can keep up with your machine at 450km/h. Both will have the tendency to always have someone on your tail no matter how good you do.
 * Conspicuous CG: It is a rarity to see the F-Zero machines traditionally animated in the anime.
 * Cool Car: Pretty much everyone, although some are cooler than others.
 * Cool Helmet: A good deal of characters have 'em.
 * Cool Mask: Several characters get one, but the prime example would have to be Super Arrow, a bona-fide Superhero.
 * Cool Old Guy: Despite being a bit cranky in his old age, Silver Neelson is considered a great mentor. With just the aid of a few drinks, racers could get a year's worth of racing advice in a single evening.
 * Cool Shades:
 * James McCloud, Samurai Goroh, Antonio Guster, Mrs. Arrow, Michael Chain all have them. James and Mrs. Arrow lose 'em in their X endings, and Mrs. Arrow's are missing completely in GX save for her bonus movie.
 * Jody Summer has a pair while riding in the Super Cat (see What Could Have Been in the Trivia section).
 * Cool Starship: Captain Falcon has one in the form of his Falcon Flyer (which according to Super Smash Bros.. Melee, is his primary form of transportation). It finally gets an on-screen appearance in the anime. Samurai Goroh and his crew also are in possession of one, and in a CMOA for Goroh, he uses the ship's mammoth space katana attachment to hack away at the villains.
 * Corrupt Corporate Executive: Don Genie.
 * "Corporate Executive"? The guy's a mobster for God's sake!
 * Critical Annoyance: The ranking system in the original F-Zero: Fall below a certain position and the game's beeping will blare in your ear 'til you make it back to an acceptable spot. Or fail to do so and explode.
 * Critical Existence Failure: If you so much as rub paint with another machine when you're at critically low health, your machine a splode.
 * Cursed with Awesome: Machines with E-ranked grip aren't as bad of the vehicle parameter system tells you. In fact, these machines are able to exploit several Game Breakers, allowing them to take massive shortcuts and gain ridiculous bursts of speed.
 * Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: Gazelle looked as if he were going this route (see "Blood Knight" above), but he seems to have avoided this come GX. Played straight with.
 * Cyberpunk Is Techno: In a toss-up from X's rock-heavy soundtrack, the majority of the songs found in GX are techno.
 * Damsel in Distress: Jody becomes one in Chapter 5 of GX's Story Mode and has another moment in the GP Legend video game. Pretty much every female suffers from this in the anime. Otherwise, they can all fend for themselves.
 * Dark-Skinned Redhead: Lucy Liberty. Princia might also qualify, but her hair appears to shift from brown to red to a chestnut hue somewhere in the middle. Her bonus movie has her significantly paler as well.
 * Dating Catwoman: To a degree, this is the relationship between Rick/Ryu and Miss Killer. It jumps between this, Foe Yay (mainly, Miss Killer's resolve to face-off with him during a race), and Fatal Attraction at multiple points..
 * A Day in the Limelight: A few characters get this treatment. Even some of the villains.
 * Deadly Walls: Some scenery objects in GX will cause your machine to explode instantenously upon contact. Even if you're only going 10 km/h.
 * Death Mountain: Red Canyon, especially the track that you race Samurai Goroh on during GX's Story Mode.
 * Dem Bones/Our Zombies Are Different: The Skull, with added technological and necromantic flair.
 * Diabolical Mastermind: Black Shadow plays this role in the anime. He ocassionally gives off Evil Overlord vibes too. Either way, he pulls out the magnificence.
 * Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat: This can happen to the player if they're not careful; one wrong move while attacking the CPU-controlled racers, and you could find yourself careening off of the track.
 * In X, attacking bleeds off speed even if you don't hit anything--not to mention that the surest way to take out an opposing machine is to shoulder-check it into the boards, which can bleed off a lot of speed, especially if you miss. And if you do miss, and end up ahead of the target, said target will often slow way down in order to avoid another attack. A burning vendetta against a particular driver can easily cost you a race...
 * Luckily, GX modified the side tackle significantly, removing the speed penalty and changing the control input. This resulted in it being both easier to spam and easier to toss yourself over the edge with...
 * Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?:.
 * Dirty Old Man: Silver Neelson in the anime, although he manages to repress it for most of the episode focusing on him. Bonus points: He was an attractive guy back in his (distant) prime.
 * Disappeared Dad: Both Dr. Stewart and Jody's fathers are dead. Both race in honor of their dads and the stats of Stewart's Golden Fox are even D-A-D.
 * Also Jack's dad left the family when he was four years old.
 * Distant Reaction Shot: The famous scene in the anime has the light from the explosion of Black Shadow's Dark Reactor engulfing an entire galaxy. Usually, it's made to look like Captain Falcon's Falcon Punch created the all-encompassing destruction.
 * Divergent Character Evolution: Not actually necessary, because Captain Falcon clone Blood Falcon already plays entirely different from him. The scientists working for Black Shadow realized that they wouldn't be able to beat Captain Falcon using an identical machine.
 * This is actually inverted with the original four characters in regards to the increasing amount of newcomers (see Jack of All Stats below).
 * Dogged Nice Guy: John Tanaka to Jody Summer. May also cross over with Stalker with a Crush, considering that he's at F-Zero solely in order to protect her (and propose to her if he wins) and named his Robot Buddy J-Love 1. Guess what the "J" stands for.
 * In the anime, Leon may count in regards to Lucy Liberty, seeing as he risked transforming into a werewolf (and subsequent capture by Beastman) to save her. A possible subversion, as Lucy seems to slightly reciprocate his feelings. Sadly, we'll never know, considering that Leon appeared for all of one episode, and there'll never be a sequel series.
 * Double Unlock: How GX works. Luckily, currency is easy to come by.
 * Down to the Last Play: In X and onward, there can be some pretty thrilling moments in the last straightaway as everyone who is playing to win uses up every last drop of their energy to boost past the competition, knowing full well that one scratch = dead after doing that (in some games, your blown-up machine can still drift past the finish).
 * The Dragon: Blood Falcon to Black Shadow, and Black Shadow to Deathborn.
 * Dramatic Wind: For some reason, most of the cape-wearing characters get it at the Settings screen in GX/AX.
 * Drives Like Crazy: Go fast enough, and you will be doing this.
 * Duels Decide Everything: You know that really annoying goody-goody-two-shoes who keeps foiling your dastardly plots? Well then, have we got a proposition for you!
 * Dumb Blonde: Averted with Mrs. Arrow, who has had a classy upbringing in terms of music and linguistics and is held with the same intellectual regard as Octoman, Mr. EAD, and Dr. Clash. See, she's more than a pretty face.
 * Inverted with Princia, who is something of a ditzy brunette.
 * Dude in Distress: Ryu Suzaku/Rick Wheeler towards the end of the anime. Might actually be a Badass in Distress, as he and Captain Falcon continue to undermine Dark Millon afterward and Ryu/Rick even gets his own CMOA (well, sorta) in the Grand Finale.
 * Early Installment Weirdness: The very first game. Only four playable racers with not much personality to go on besides the manual's mini-comic, other racers were portrayed as generic recoloured vehicles, the tracks were all flat with no loops to speak of, and the boost feature here was where you'd be rewarded a boost each time you finished a lap rather than it being Cast from Hit Points.
 * Earn Your Happy Ending:.
 * Earth Is the Center of the Universe: Not quite. Several planets in the game are of good importantance, but Mute City (which is a futuristic New York City according to the anime) is regarded as the most advanced and sophisticated city in the universe, thus making it a very populated center of trade and commerce. All of GX's Story Mode appears to transpire on Earth.
 * In Maximum Velocity, Bianca City is said to have taken over Mute City as the most important city in the galaxy. It is also located on Earth.
 * Emergency Transformation: How Mighty Gazelle came to be.
 * Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Michael Chain listens to a combination of Heavy Metal and Opera while racing because it reminds him of his (deceased) mother and father.
 * Every Ten Thousand Points: F-Zero has an unusual racing game example: As you cross the checkpoint, you gain points in proportion to your standing. You get an extra life every 10,000 points.
 * Everything's Better with Dinosaurs: Bio Rex.
 * Everything's Better with Monkeys: Billy.
 * Everything's Better with Princesses: Princia Ramode.
 * Everything's Better with Rainbows: Rainbow Road (yes, that Rainbow Road), natch. The energy meter becomes a rainbow when you obtain Boost Power. Subverted with the Rainbow Phoenix, which is actually red and pink.
 * Everything's Better with Samurai: Guess who!
 * Everything's Better with Sparkles: A lot of the bonus movies in GX will blind you with their... Oooh! Shiny!
 * Everything's Deader with Zombies: The Skull.
 * Everythings Funkier With Disco: James McCloud's bonus movie from GX. He tried a somersault when he should have done a barrel roll.
 * Everything's Squishier with Cephalopods: Octoman. His anime counterpart is a bit more sinister, but both versions are used for Comic Relief.
 * Evil Counterpart/Evil Knockoff/Evil Twin: Blood Falcon. Obviously, he's the Shadow Archetype to Captain Falcon.
 * Evil Gloating: Black Shadow, Blood Falcon, and Deathborn love this trope.
 * Evil Is Hammy: Subverted in that the the heroes are just as capable at chewing the scenery as the villains are.
 * Evil Laugh: The villains and dregs of society. Sometimes comes across as Narm, especially in GX.
 * Evil Sounds Deep: Deathborn.
 * Black Shadow in the anime, not surprisingly.
 * Same goes for Blood Falcon in the anime.
 * Expy: James McCloud.
 * Eyes Always Shut: Dr. Stewart and John Tanaka from X onward. Dai San Gen in GX.
 * The Faceless: Several characters.
 * Fake Difficulty: There is some of this in the original, at Master Level. The CPU Golden Fox cruises at 478 kph. The player controlled Golden Fox maxes out at 438 kph.
 * GX. Mission 7. FUCK. If you unlock the Pink Spider without AX, you win.
 * For some reason, there are generic cars in the original that are not in the race: they're just there to get blown up. Judging from the sequels the Grand Prix is not an underground racing league at all. Was it also mentioned that the opponents slip right through them?
 * Fangs Are Evil: Despite being a clone of Captain Falcon, Blood Falcon has prominent fangs and even a different voice.
 * In addition to Blood Falcon, Zoda sports a pretty sharp pair of these in the anime.
 * Fan Service: Beating the Grand Prix on Master difficulty in X or beating Story Mode in GX nets you a quick shot of Captain Falcon with without his helmet. Several of the mini-movies unlocked by beating the GP on Master in GX count as well.
 * Fanservice Extra: The circuit models in X who appear in the main menu. They're a group of busty, purple-haired, masked beauties in midriff-barring tops (with "F-Zero" conveniently written in bold, uppercase letters to guide your eyes right back to their chests) and bikini bottoms. Should you win the Joker Cup on Expert or Master, two of them will strike an Over-the-Shoulder Pose at the end of the staff roll.
 * Fat Bastard: Don Genie.
 * Femme Fatale: Miss Killer . Lisa Brilliant is a lighter version of this trope. Despite being Goroh's wife and the second-in-command of an intergalactic band of thieves, she isn't so much evil. Still, she can and will use her womanly wiles to get what she wants.
 * Fiction 500: Don Genie fits, considering that he's extremely rich due to his position as the head mogul of an universal trading system. He also happens to be a narcissistic Corrupt Corporate Executive who illegally sells energy resources and weapons and is believed to have ties to Black Shadow. He's apparently so rich, that whenever he's arrested, he gets off scott-free by paying a small fee.
 * There's also Lord Cyber from Maximum Velocity, a wealthy baron. Sadly, that's pretty much all we know about him. On a very ambiguous note, Black Shadow might count. He's shown to have power and influence in the underground and he remarks that the prize money earned from winning the F-Zero GP (one billion space credits) is a paltry sum.
 * Mrs. Arrow herself may also fit the bill (no pun intended). After all, she is the only daughter of the former vice president of the Milky Way Federation and a powerful businessman in the field of neuroplastics. It's implied that her family is loaded.
 * Foe Yay: In the anime, Rick/Ryu has this with Miss Killer and Zoda. They all get over it.
 * Form-Fitting Wardrobe: Given all of that spandex and latex, it applies to almost all of the racers, Squick or no.
 * Fragile Speedster:
 * Many of them, with varying degrees of fragility and speediness.
 * Subverted with heavier machines, which tend to be faster and more capable of bullying opponents. As is standard with racing games, the heavier machines do tend to have worse acceleration, but once they get going, watch out.
 * Fun Personified: Billy is probably the closest fit, although Gomar and Shioh are also somewhat like this.
 * Future Spandex: Played with. While a large percentage of the cast is decked out in skin-tight spandex and latex, more than a handful of characters are instead shown wearing sleek armor (if not both). Others sport attire not too different from present day fashion trends.
 * Gadgeteer Genius:
 * Dr. Crash, who's responsible for a great deal of the technology that is seen in the present-day F-Zero machines.
 * Digi-Boy claims that he can use any modern piece of technology adeptly and has even created a few gizmos of his own. Suffice to say, he's extremely arrogant.
 * Gameplay and Story Segregation: The story for F-Zero X says F-Zero was discontinued for years after a huge near-fatal crash involving 4 racers. In game, particularly aggressive player will take out more than that many machines in a single race. Now, if we're looking for a way to explain this, the crashes are never fatal in-game despite blowing up the machine, so in the future, it's really hard to die. Evidently the big crash somehow caused an even more spectacular explosion than you can't cause in-game.
 * Generation Xerox: Dai Goroh very much takes after his father to the point that he shares his dad's rivalry with Captain Falcon. Slight subversion as he doesn't follow his father in all respects; his Silver Rat was modeled after Antonio Guster's Green Panther and Dai plans to spend the money on himself if he wins the F-Zero GP.
 * Genius Bruiser: Bio Rex, mainly because he was genetically enigeered to be one. The "Genius" part usually doesn't show.
 * Genki Girl: Princia Ramode. Lucy Liberty also exhibits these traits to a degree.
 * Leon is their Spear Counterpart.
 * Global Currency: Space Credits. It's implied that this is also a universal form of currency.
 * The Good Captain: Three guesses.
 * Good-Looking Privates: Jody Summer, Lily Flyer and maybe John Tanaka, who are members of the Galactic Space Federation, a para-militaristic organization dedicated to expanding human relations across the cosmos and keeping the peace. Oh, and be careful about Lily.
 * Good Scars, Evil Scars: Captain Falcon has a single scar located above his left eye. Beastman's entire body is ridden with cicatrices from a traumatic childhood experience involving a giant crocodile on the planet White. Leon has a scar running over his left eye, giving him a passing resemblance to Wolf. It should be noted that all three characters are on the side of Good. Don Genie's right eye (the one with the monocle) also has a vertical scar. He's evil, or at least highly greedy.
 * Goggles Do Nothing: Several characters wear goggles for no reason other than Rule of Cool.
 * Goofy Print Underwear: In the character videos in GX:
 * Captain Falcon: Red polka dots.
 * Antonio Guster: Camouflage.
 * Blood Falcon: Pink with some sort of pattern.
 * Grand Theft Me: Pulled off on many of the heroes in the anime by a clone of Blood Falcon who could assume an amorphous shape resembling the T-1000. They all got better.
 * Gratuitous English: Shows up in the anime, natch.

"Super Arrow: "I am Champion! I am Justice! I am SUPER ARROW!""
 * Green Hill Zone: Green Plant: Mobius Hill, despite being the second course of the second cup.
 * Grumpy Old Man: "Ironman" Silver Neelson is this with added "crotchediness". Despite his years and years of experience, he seems to be a bit loopy when it comes to new-fangled machines. Most of the other racers try to ignore him. Falcon isn't so lucky in Chapter 3.
 * Hair Decorations: Lucy Libery, perhaps to Enforced Trope the fact that she's the youngest member of the Mobile Task Force.
 * Half-Human Hybrid: Billy and Bio Rex.
 * Handsome Lech: Jack, who says that all of his female fans are his girlfriends. Surprisingly, he doesn't pursue the handful of single ladies in the games. In the anime, this does get him in hot water, as Lisa Brilliant flaunts her charms to get access to the Mobile Task Force HQ and then ransack the place.
 * The comic included with the manual of F-Zero paints Dr. Stewart in this light. This element of his personality was either subsequently dropped, retconned out of existence, or Stewart simply mellowed out (The Horrific Grand Finale and/or the death of his father may have had something to do with it).
 * Happily Married: The Arrows, as well as Octoman. Octoman has several children, and the Arrows may have a child if GX's bonus endings are indeed canon.
 * Ditto with James, who has a wife and son.
 * Henpecked Husband: Super Arrow.
 * Heroic Build: About 80% of the cast falls into this trope.
 * Heroic Sacrifice: gets what is perhaps one of the most epic Heroic Sacrifices of all time at the end of the anime. OF ALL TIME!!
 * Wanna see it? Watch it here.
 * Hero of Another Story: Almost everyone in the cast qualifies. Each racer gets an extensive biography in the manual, but the actual story centers around the series' mascot, Captain Falcon, and his circle of friends and enemies. There are genetic experiments, sorcerers, superheroes, detectives, assassins, monsters and all kinds of cool characters that are relegated to the sidelines in every game.
 * Heterosexual Life Partners: Gomar and Shioh are from an alien race who all live this way. Their backstory in GX even points out that they are close to retirement since they're about to get married (and thus, leave each other's side).
 * Prsesumably, the same could be said about Roger Buster and Draq. At the very least, it's an Odd Friendship between a straight-laced intergalatic delivery man and his F-Zero fanatic of an alien buddy. Bonus points: their friendship doubles as an Intergenerational Friendship, considering that Roger is 41 while Draq is 137.
 * Hidden Eyes: The usually kind and gentle Lucy gets one of these in episode 21 of the anime. Let's just say that Miss Killer pressed her buttons a bit too much. In response, Lucy goes from this to a Glowing Eyes of Doom Death Glare and proceeds to open up a can of concentrated whup-ass in the form of a Macross Missile Massacre. She then goes mad with laughter. Scary...
 * Hired Guns: Pico is a hitman. Captain Falcon and Samurai Goroh are bounty hunters, while Beastman is the beast-hunting equivalent of that.
 * Homage:
 * Captain Falcon's costume rather resembles that of Judge Dredd.
 * James McCloud. That is all.
 * Hot Amazon: Jody Summer and Mrs. Arrow.
 * Hot Dad: James McCloud.
 * Hot Mom: Mrs. Arrow might be one, depending on the canonical status of Captain Falcon's bonus movie in GX.
 * Well, she and Super Arrow have adopted Leon as their son...
 * Human Popsicle: Ryu/Rick and Zoda in the anime, as well as.
 * I Am the Trope:

"Batman: "I am vengeance! I am the night! I am BATMAN!""
 * Remind anybody of anything? Clearly an homage to Batman: The Animated Series, considering that both characters are superheroes and the F-Zero series either parodies or does homages to absolutely massive portions of Western culture at every turn.

"."
 * Idiot Hero: Super Arrow in spades throughout the anime. He does have some flashes of brilliance though.
 * Idle Animation: Each character was given three in the Settings screen in GX/AX: a basic standing pose, as well as two other character-specific actions that they'd break into from time to time.
 * Idol Singer: Kate Alen was one (or at least the American pop star/diva equivalent of it) and was even a part of the "Alen Eleven" (Captain Ersatzes of The Jackson Five) with her older siblings before striking out on her own. Jack Levin is a male version of this trope.
 * I Don't Know Mortal Kombat: In Draq's GX ending, he's playing the game itself and suffers a humiliating defeat. See "Painting the Fourth Wall" below.
 * I Know Mortal Kombat: However, in Draq's post-win interview in GX, he reveals he trained for the race by playing the F-Zero computer game.
 * The same applies for Gazelle (pre-cyborgfication), as he was encouraged to partake in the real races because of his prowess in the video game.
 * Image Song: Every character gets one in GX, and quite a few have lyrics. Unfortunately, they only ever show up in the character profiles and during replays.
 * Impossible Hourglass Figure: Mrs. Arrow and Princia.
 * Indy Hat Roll: Mission 5 of GX's Story Mode. That is all.
 * Informed Ability: Captain Falcon is regularly said to be the best F-Zero pilot in the universe, but when the player plays Grand Prix he is rarely better then the other CPU racers, and constantly places in excess of 10th out of 30.
 * Leon has it worse. His X backstory says that he learned from each of his races and vastly improved over time, resulting in a respectable track record. Nine times out of ten in GX, this guy will be in dead last. Poor guy...
 * The top speeds of the machines, possibly. In-game, 1,000 km/h seems more like about 300-350.
 * That's because you're not paying attention to the relative scale of the machines and the track. Even Cosmo Terminal's freakishly narrow-feeling split ribbons are actually fairly wide if you compare them to the vehicles.
 * Intercontinuity Crossover: James McCloud, resembling a human version of Fox's dead dad, who also happens to be an expert starfighter pilot, who also drives a F-Zero racer that resembles an Arwing with its wings chopped off... Leon probably also counts as well, and in return the Star FOX series got Octoman and a suspiciously thematic ending in Command.
 * Jack of All Stats: All four characters from the original game are now Jacks due to the vast amount of Fragile Speedsters and Mighty Glaciers.
 * More precisely, the Blue Falcon is the Jack of All Stats, and has been designed as such from the beginning. Even in GX, the Golden Fox merits the best boost rating in the game, the Wild Goose has some of the best impact resistance in the game, and the Fire Stingray is faster (and heavier) than all but a handful of machines (except for Beastman, you pretty much have to be evil to be faster than Goroh). The GX version of the Wild Goose deserves further discussion. It has the shortest boost in the game, along with some seriously weird handling--its control hysteresis is in the same range as the Mad Wolf, worse than any other vehicle, which combined with the unusual boost strength and duration makes driving it a fairly interesting experience.
 * The GBA games based on the anime give Rick this status instead, as the Dragon Bird's stats are all graded the same: B.
 * Joke Character: Mr. EAD. The weirdest thing is that it's supposed to be that way. Also a Take That Me since this EAD appears to be the future\alternate version of EAD, which is Nintendo's largest division.
 * Justice Will Prevail: This is essentially Super Arrow's Catch Phrase (at least by X's standards), although he does put a spin on it by saying, "Justice ALWAYS prevails."
 * In GX, one of his post-race interviews has him say, "Justice always wins in the end.".
 * For Great Justice: "For Justice and Galactic﻿ Peace." Yes, he actually says that.
 * Mrs. Arrow is pretty much the same as her husband, despite the fact that she has no inherent superpowers.
 * Katanas Are Just Better: Samurai Goroh is obviously a standout here. Dai Goroh too, as his profile even states that he takes after his father and loves to take out his katana and whip it around. His wife Lisa Brilliant has also been seen with a katana at least once, but seems to prefer firearms.
 * In an earlier episode of the anime, Super Arrow (alongside several other characters) is imprisoned behind a cage of laser beams by the Bloody Chain gang. In retalitation, he pulls out a katana to slash through and deflect the lasers, earning the admiration of his peers and wife. Of course, Super Arrow is just snoozing. It never happens.
 * Kavorka Man: Aside from Silver Neelson at the end of the anime episode focusing on him, there is Samurai Goroh. Lacking in terms of manners and kindness, yet the Spoiled Sweet space princess Princia is head-over-heels for him. He also has a son, which would imply that another women felt the same way in the past. This, however, is subverted with anime!Goroh and his wife Lisa.
 * Lantern Jaw of Justice: Captain Falcon is rockin' that heroic jawline.
 * Legacy Character: According to the anime, . Kent Akechi from Maximum Velocity believes himself to be one to Captain Falcon, since he's under the impression that Falcon is his father. He even wears a similar outfit and drives a vehicle known as the Falcon Mk-II.
 * Leitmotif/Bootstrapped Theme/Recurring Riff: There's a reason the themes for Big Blue and especially Mute City are so well-known.
 * Lethal Lava Land: Fire Field. GX takes this to the logical extreme, where you actually race inside the outer crust of the planet.
 * Let's Play: Quite a few. But perhaps the greatest and most gut-busting one comes from the Freelance Astronauts and their conquest of Story Mode in GX. Prepare for tons of pop-culture references (that will probably go over your head), lewd jokes, trying to instill logic into the game's universe, and the epic story of Sephiroth Goku The Stampede. Said story has its own page.
 * Loads and Loads of Characters: For a non-licensed racing game, it has quite a few characters and individual machines.
 * Long-Lost Relative: In the anime,.
 * Lovable Rogue: Samurai Goroh and his entire crew in the anime. Goroh, in particular, is a Badass Samurai who is a complete 180 degrees turn from his Butt Monkey status in GX. He even helps out Ryu/Rick on several occassions and is something of a mentor to him.
 * Mad Scientist: Zoda appears to be one in GX, as his mini-movie has him constructing a version of Mr. EAD in his image while letting out a mad fit of laughter. Not to mention that he's inside a creepy-looking lab while Dramatic Thunder brings his creation to life in a manner similar to that of Frankenstein's monster.
 * Male Gaze: The endings for Mrs. Arrow and Princia has the camera focus on their lovely assets and fine-looking rears a decent chunk of the time.
 * If you're playing as Jody in GX, she turns around to show off her ass once you confirm your speed setting.
 * Man Behind the Man: Deathborn.
 * Taken a step further with.
 * Manly Tears: Beat GX's Story Mode on any difficulty and you will shed them.
 * In the anime, the heroes do this in response to.
 * Marathon Level: Most of the tracks from the AX Cup suffer from this.
 * Master of Illusion: Spade. It comes with the job; he is a magician at a circus act after all.
 * May-December Romance: The Arrows, possibly. He's eight years her senior (as of GX, he's 35 and she's 27), but it's unknown when they first met (so, May September Romance?).
 * Judging by GX, Princia is trying to attempt this with Goroh of all people. Keep in mind that she's 16 and he's 28 years older than her.
 * Meaningful Name: Mr. EAD's machine stats are graded E-A-D.
 * Even more meaningful when you realize his name is the name of Nintendo's main in-house development studio, headed by Shigeru Miyamoto. Mr. EAD's creator's name? Shiggs.
 * Then there's GP Legend's Ryu Suzaku. Suzaku is the name of a legendary bird, foreshadowing his true destiny...
 * The title itself might be one, considering that the series is a futuristic version of the Formula One races. The only exception is that the machines hover above the ground, thereby reducing the amount of friction to zero.
 * Or the title could simply mean "Formula Zero".
 * Megaton Punch: Not part of the canon series, but in Super Smash Bros.. and the anime adaption (here it comes): "FALCON PUNCH!"
 * The Falcon Punch also got a mention in the F-Zero GX credits song.
 * Mighty Glacier: In typical racing game fashion, heavier machines have low acceleration (but in many cases high top speeds) and are well-suited to bullying smaller opponents.
 * My Hero Zero: Averted, as Mr. Zero is just your run-of-the-mill commentator.
 * My Rules Are Not Your Rules: In the original F-Zero, Master difficulty ramps the top speed of every machine to 478km/h and gives them insane cornering ability.
 * Mysterious Protector: Subverted. Captain Falcon is veiled in mystery and appears to aid those in need, but he's also The Hero of the series.
 * Names to Run Away From Really Fast:
 * In order of ascending villainy/creepiness: Miss Killer, The Skull, Blood Falcon, Black Shadow, Deathborn. Averted with Michael Chain's gang, the Bloody Chain: they're nothing more than a bunch of Mooks.
 * Also, if you are an evil villain/lawbreaker, then you'd most certainly want to run away from Captain Falcon himself.
 * Nebulous Evil Organisation: Black Shadow is the head of two: the eponymous Black Shadow Group in the games and Dark Million in the anime. The latter skirts the line between this and Standard Evil Organization Squad.
 * Nerd Glasses: Terry "Digi-Boy" Getter. Dr. Clash may also qualify if he doesn't fit into Cool Shades above.
 * Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: To be honest, everyone (to some degree or another) falls under this trope since they're all F-Zero pilots that have some other occupation or are an alien.
 * Captain Falcon is part racecar driver, part bounty hunter, 100% Badass.
 * Samurai Goroh is a samurai bounty hunter who leads a group of bandits and partakes in the F-Zero GP.
 * Bio-Rex is a beer-drinking dinosaur racecar driver. Billy is a money-obsessed chimpanzee racecar driver.
 * Nintendo Hard: What else do you expect from a game centered around post-Mach 1 racing? Having said that, GX took it to a whole new level, especially in the story campaign. What I Wanna Be the Guy is to platformers, GX Story Mode is to racers.
 * Nitro Boost: "You got boost power!". This was changed from the SNES version, where the boost was a separate item. You got one at the start of every lap after the first, but you could only store 3 at a time. On the other hand, the item boost effect lasted for about 5 seconds per boost, instead of the "however long you hold the boost button" that happens with the Cast From HP version.
 * No Fair Cheating: Taking a huge shortcut in F-Zero causes a UFO to pop up and drag you back to an earlier part of the course. Taking such a shortcut in GX simply blows your machine up. No such measure in GP Legend, which leads to some massive game-breaking shortcuts.
 * Non-Action Guy: John Tanaka. He's a mechanic, not a fighter.
 * Non Lethal Bottomless Pits: Subverted.
 * Noodle Incident: The great accident in GX is mentioned in a number of character profiles and apparently has a role in Blood Falcon's creation, but is never explained in any more detail. Made even more confusing when you learn there were actually two crashes, and one of them was retconned out of exsistance.
 * There's mention of a previous racing tournament, F-MAX. All we know is that it ended in a terrible car crash.
 * Noodle Person: Spade.
 * No OSHA Compliance: Fire Field in GX is basically this. In fact, many of the courses in the Diamond Cup qualify, since they mostly lack guardrails and are thus incredibly perilous to navigate.
 * Trident is notable for having long narrow roads with no guardrails on either side.
 * There's also the Outer Space track from AX, which takes place right in the middle of a meteor shower. Luckily, the space station features a force field to prevent the meteors from becoming a stage hazard.
 * Nostalgia Level: Port Town 2 in X.
 * The Obi-Wan:, despite being more heroic than Ryu/Rick. even pulls a Obi-Wan Moment in front of Rick/Ryu in the anime, right before  most famous moment.
 * Off-Model: While most of the character endings in F-Zero X are pretty well-drawn, some of them are... pretty unflattering. Observe.
 * Offscreen Teleportation: Happens a lot in the original F-Zero.
 * Older Than They Look: Several of the alien racers (i.e. Pico, Octoman, Draq, Gomar & Shioh) have a life expectancy exceeding that of their human contemporaries. For example, Dai San Gen look like children, but are 64 and their species have an average lifespan of 200 years.
 * Omniglot: Mrs. Arrow speaks over 40 languages, including several alien tongues, one of which is Takoran (Octoman's native tongue and an language that humans have found great difficulty in learning).
 * One-Winged Angel: in the anime.
 * Onee-Sama: Jody plays this role in the Mobile Task Force, specifically towards Ryu/Rick, Lucy, Jack, and (to a lesser extent) Clank. She later becomes the Team Mom.
 * One Game for the Price of Two: GX was released alongside an arcade counterpart, AX, which contained a slot for you to plug in your GCN save card. Doing so would allow you to unlock AX's tracks and vehicles, plus components for the Create-A-Car function, on your save.
 * Fake Difficulty: The number of AX cabinets purchased by English-speaking arcades? 20. Use a Game Shark. Or if you are around Anaheim, CA, there is one in Disneyland's Starcade. In the PAL version, at least, it was possible to unlock the AX content by playing through GX. This is also true in the US version, but this entails beating Story Mode levels on Very Hard difficulty, one for each character. You're better off using a Game Shark. Beating all the other cups on Master also unlocks it IIRC. The legitimate ways are difficult but can be gotten with enough persistence.
 * Only Known by Their Nickname: Billy, as his real name (Eeeach Koo-koo-koo Yia) is incomprehensible to humans. A few other characters could count, but some of their names are revealed in supplemental materials.
 * Our Werewolves Are Different: In the anime, Leon (who is normally a bishie teenager) becomes a werewolf after experiencing an adrenaline rush. He usually manages to keep some of his lucidity.
 * Over-the-Shoulder Pose: Jody Summer in the Settings screen before a race in GX.
 * Painting the Fourth Wall: In Draq's bonus clip, he gets so frustrated when he loses to the other racers that he punches the screen. It's then revealed that he's playing a video game of F-Zero and is ticked off by the computer. We don't blame him.
 * Palmtree Panic: Big Blue in GX.
 * Paper-Thin Disguise: Subverted with, who Jody easily recognizes as . Eventually, gives up the farce and reveals what Jody already had gathered. A similar event occurs when Clank Hughes also finds out.
 * Inverted with . Ryu/Rick and Clank are able to deduce his identity due to his racing style.
 * Parental Abandonment: The backstories of Leon and Michael Chain. Leon's parents died in a planetary war and was either adopted by Mrs. Arrow (according to X) or a rebel soldier named Fable (according to GX). Chain was accepted into a gang after his parents died.
 * Phantom Zone: Phantom Road, which is also used in an altered form for the final chapter of Story Mode.
 * Physical God: Black Shadow, especially in the anime. For example, Zoda inexplicably transforms his vehicle into a fiery dragon and devours Black Shadow whole (and then says the above Gratuitous English quote), only for him to reappear unharmed a few episodes later..
 * Port Town: Well, there is a course by that name...
 * Pretty in Mink: Lily's coat is lined with fur.
 * Promoted Fanboys/Fangirls: A few racers who don't fit into the above Ascended Fanboy trope fall into this territory. A notable example is Mrs. Arrow, who began racing in mock models at the age of 14, became a circuit model, and then finally a racer herself.
 * Mighty Gazelle could also count, as he decided to qualify for the F-Zero GP after he honed his skills by playing the video game.
 * Psycho for Hire: Pico. Once a member of a special assassination unit and one of the bloodthristiest racers around. He still takes hits on the side and is shown to be a Badass Cold Sniper in his clip from GX. He's more or less the same in the anime, minus a good deal of the chaos and with added composure.
 * Race Against The Heavens:.
 * Meta-reference:.
 * Racing Ghost: Both figurately and literally.
 * Racing Medic: Dr. Stewart. An esteemed surgeon and doctor who is also one of the more seasoned racers in the Grand Prix with over ten years of experience under his belt. In fact, his medical expertise helped prevent a good deal of casualties during the Horrific Grand Finale.
 * Randomly Generated Levels: The X-Cup in X.
 * Raven Hair, Ivory Skin: Misaki Haruka..
 * Really Seven Hundred Years Old: Blood Falcon's profile in GX mentions that he is technically only four, but is a clone of the 37-year-old Captain Falcon.
 * Recursive Adaptation: F-Zero GP Legend inspired a GBA game with the same title. Yep, Rick Wheeler's there.
 * Redheaded Hero: Ryu Suzaku/Rick Wheeler. He also happens to be a bit of a Fiery Redhead who takes a few pages from Leeroy Jenkins..
 * Red Oni, Blue Oni: Captain Falcon and his Evil Twin clone Blood Falcon. Not only do they fit the bill in terms of personality, but they wear blue and red too.
 * Captain Falcon also plays the Blue Oni to Ryu/Rick in the anime. Although Ryu wears a blue jacket, he's wearing red under it, playing up the color-coding..
 * Retcon: Between X and GX, several plot elements were nixed and/or rewritten. For example, The Skull was said to have died in The Horrific Grand Finale (a gruesome crash in which 14 racers burned to death; Super Arrow was the only one to survive) but then was revived due to an experiment he performed on himself as a precaution. Come GX, this crash is discarded in favor of another crash (one that involved Mighty Gazelle), The Skull is simply brought back from the grave from a period of about two centuries ago via necromancy and technology, and Super Arrow is something of a greenhorn who used his superpowers to race adequately. In turn, this makes it somewhat hard for purists to reconcile the original F-Zero, X, and GX into one neat timeline.
 * Retired Badass: A much younger than the norm example comes from James McCloud in the anime. The heroes comes to him in search of guidance and training. Unbeknownst to them, he also.
 * Revenge: Antonio Guster's entire reason for being at F-Zero is to enact this upon Goroh, who screwed him bad.
 * Black Shadow and Zoda are there to deal with Captain Falcon, whose heroic acts majorly screwed up their plans; in fact, one of Black Shadow's trusted confidants was imprisoned and later executed thanks to Falcon.
 * In X, Black Shadow's reason for entering is to "kill Captain Falcon in front of billions of viewers". Whether he actually filled this out on an official form is left to the imagination of the player.
 * The Rival: Samurai Goroh, to Captain Falcon.
 * Goroh is the most notable one (how else did he make it into Super Smash Bros. Brawl as an Assist Trophy?), but if GX is any indication, Falcon has Black Shadow, Blood Falcon, Dai Goroh, and Michael Chain gunning after him as well.
 * This even uses a bit of Gameplay And Story Integration in regards to X. Usually, your rival starting in the second race and at least one of the other characters high up on the leaderboard usually has strong ties to the pilot you're racing as (for example, Falcon almost always has to tangle with Black Shadow and Blood, with Samurai Goroh frequently in the mix as well).
 * Robot Buddy: QQQ to Phoenix, Speed Bird to Super Arrow, J-Love-1 to John Tanaka.
 * Rubber Band AI: The CPU loves to pull this one on you.
 * In the higher difficulties of the SNES version, it is literally impossible to get the computer off your tail; they're always right behind you Behind the Black.
 * Rule of Cool: This series in a nutshell. Can sometimes overlap with Narm, but that's half the fun.
 * Scarf of Asskicking: Both Captain and Blood Falcon have one. The former's is made even more Badass in an eyecatcher from the latter half of the anime. And when multiple Bloods show up in the anime, their scarves are colour coded.
 * So does James McCloud. Given his source inspiration, it was a no-brainer.
 * Subverted with Dr. Stewart, who wears a Scarf Of Friendship to symbolize his special bonds.
 * Princia, Gomar and Shioh do have scarves... but they're probably not ones of asskicking (in fact, Gomar and Shioh's scarves may be related to Stewart's).
 * Scary Black Man: Michael Chain would appear to be this at first, but he's not that great at leading an intergalactic gang. Inverted with Black Shadow, who is a Scary Man In Black.
 * Scenery Porn: GX in spades.
 * The original F-Zero might look vanilla by today's standards, but when it was released, it definitely qualified -- the backgrounds were that big of a step up from 8-bit systems.
 * Screams Like a Little Girl: Baba in X. It stopped in GX, but Baba became no less effeminate.
 * Sequel Escalation: The speed is taken to ridiculous lengths by the time of GX.
 * Sequel Hook: The ending of the anime pulls this by mimicking the first episode's race, showing that everything comes full circle. It even ended with "To be continued...?" Sadly, a sequel series never came to fruition.
 * Serious Business: The titular races and the vehicles used seem to be how all the villains attack Falcon in the anime and GX's story. It helps that there is a massive amount of prize money involved though.
 * Black Shadow is explicitly stated to want to blow Captain Falcon up in a race, so that his thousands of adoring fans can watch him die.
 * To quote the original F-Zero's manual, winning a race means "earning the highest honor that could be bestowed upon anyone in the Universe." Now that's Serious Business.
 * GX's Story Mode attempts to justify this as.
 * Shark Tunnel: Big Blue in GX.
 * Shifting Sand Land: Sand Ocean. GX adds a Sand Worm, but it can't get to you.
 * Shorter Means Smarter: Shioh values his shorter companion Gomar for his apt decision-making abilities.
 * Shout-Out: Many, most of the characters are "living" shout outs with recipients including Nintendo's EAD group (Mr EAD), Star FOX (James McCloud and Leon), and Crazy Taxi (PJ). F-Zero X also has Mario Kart 64's Rainbow Road as a track.
 * And if you're playing the Japan-only Expansion Kit for F-Zero X, Rainbow Road gets a remix of the MK64 Rainbow Road music.
 * The Star FOX series from its original inception seemed to be more subtle shoutout to F-Zero. The two most prominent characters were a golden fox and a blue falcon, anthropomorphized.
 * In one of the endings of Star Fox: Command, Fox and Falco blatantly turn their arwings into F-Zero racecars (it's called G-Zero in Command, but we all know what it's referring to).
 * Jane B. Christie from Maximum Velocity is basically an Expy of Metroid heroine Samus Aran, with more Fan Service thrown in. How's that possible, I'll never know.
 * The designer of James McCloud's Little Wvyern? Space Dynamics, the same corporation that created the Arwings from Star Fox. In turn, James is the leader of Galaxy Dog, a group of mercenaries, and races to support his wife and child.
 * James McCloud's name obviously comes from the name of Fox's father, and he even sports sunglasses. Also, in X he had a simple haircut, but in GX he has fox-ear style hair, and has white hair down the middle like the headpiece Fox and his father had in Star Fox 64.
 * In GX's Story Mode, Captain Falcon enters a bet race under the alias of Famicom. Additionally, Falcon's odds in that race are 2560:1. 2560 is, canonically speaking, the year that the original F-Zero took place.
 * Mr. EAD vaguely resembles a certain Italian plumber, wears a Starman on his belt, calls his vehicle his brother, eats lots of cake in his movie, and was created by Shiggs Mapone. Hmm...
 * Episode 40 of the anime involves a comical Show Within a Show involving the F-Zero machines belonging to the Mobile Task Force docking into Combining Mecha that form something akin to what you'd see in Macross.
 * If you let the vintro video for the first Port Town track in GX play for a little while, R.O.B. is shown.
 * In the Pilot Profiles section of GX, the vehicle information for the Blood Hawk notes that its two engines pilfered from the Blue Falcon during the big crash four years ago are model BF2001, whereas the four used by the Blue Falcon are model BF2003. In 2001, F-Zero: Maximum Velocity and Super Smash Bros. Melee were released; GX came out in 2003.
 * Show Within a Show: F-Zero TV. It was mentioned in passing on billboards located in some of the courses in X, but was expanded into a prime time, post-race interview Talk Show in GX in order to flesh out and add more depth to the cast.
 * Silver Haired Pretty Girl: Lily.
 * Single Biome Planet: Most planets not named Earth. GX subverts this by revealing that planets such as Big Blue are more diverse than originally thought.
 * Single Minded Triplets: Dai, San and Gen.
 * Sliding Scale of Villain Threat: Black Shadow presumably wants to Take Over the World. Deathborn wants to destroy the universe.
 * Slippy-Slidey Ice World: White Land, although you wouldn't know that until GP Legend and Climax.
 * Space Elevator: Cosmo Terminal.
 * Spin Attack: 'Cuz Everything's Better with Spinning. It has some practical applications too.
 * Taken to the max with "BOOSTO FAIYAA!", the awesomely awesome fusion of a boost and a spin. Ryu/Rick then outdoes himself again with a full-powered Boost Fire. Words fail us.
 * Spirited Competitor: Several racers come across as this, according to their post-GP interviews in GX. Quite a few refuse the prize money and/or give it away to charity, and others enjoy the challenge of the races and comment on trying to uphold the glory of the sport.
 * Spy Catsuit: Captain Falcon, although he doesn't rely on stealth too often.
 * Star-Crossed Lovers:.
 * The Starscream: Zoda in the anime. And his track record is just as bad as the Trope Namer.
 * Stereotypes of Chinese People: Dai San Gen. They're not Chinese per se, since they're actually aliens, but they have distinctly (read: "stereotypical") Asian features, come from the planet Shinar, are named after Mahjong tiles, and perform gymnastic maneuvers in their ending.
 * The Stoic: Captain Falcon (among several others), although he somehow also manages to be a Large Ham (also among several others) in GX at the time.
 * Stout Strength: In the words of someone else, Goroh has this strange balance of﻿ fat and muscle going on. As does Mr. EAD. And Dr. Clash. And Draq too.
 * Stripperiffic: Look at Kate Alen in GX and compare to her X design.
 * Stuff Blowing Up: Even if you lose the rest of your energy meter by crashing into a wall or ruining over a drain strip, your vehicle will explode in an overly dramatic fashion.
 * Stylistic Suck: Well, sort of. It's reported that the graphic sacrifices Nintendo made in X were in order to keep the game running at a smooth 60 fps pace.
 * Worth It.
 * Supercop: Falcon and Goroh are rumored to have once served as officers in the Internova Police Force, their rivalry stemming from some sort of past falling-out. This is also the alleged origin behind Falcon's title of Captain.
 * Rick/Ryu in GP Legend, who is recognized as a extremely competent cop due to the skills he picked up as a Grand Prix champ. Unfortunately, he bites off a bit more than he can clew when attempting to apprehend Zoda.
 * Supporting Leader: Captain Falcon in the anime.
 * Take Up My Sword: In the Grand Finale of the anime.


 * Tall, Dark and Bishoujo: Jody Summer, Miss Killer/ and Lisa Brilliant. Although the "dark" in Misaki and Lisa's cases are purplish-black and green, respectively.
 * Team Mom: Jody Summer goes from an Onee-Sama to this in the anime.
 * Team Pet: The Arrows get one in the form of Speed Bird, a robotic bird that was presented to Super Arrow by one of his sponsors. Although it's silent in the games, the anime makes it a quirky form of Comic Relief.
 * Ten-Minute Retirement: Flirted with thanks to Silver Neelson, who is considering retirement (he is close to 100, after all), but is probably too fickle to go through with it.
 * Theme Music Power-Up: If the BGMs for Mute City and Big Blue or Hiro-x's The Meaning of Truth plays, you know that something grand is going to happen in GP Legend.
 * There Can Be Only One: Taken quite literally in the episode "Only One Falcon" (episode 30) from GP Legend, as it revolves around Captain Falcon and Blood Falcon duking it out during a high-stakes race. Blood Falcon's machine blows up, but he gets better... sorta.
 * Those Two Bad Guys: In the anime, any combonation of Octoman, Bio Rex, the Skull, and Baba, all members of Dark Million. It should be noted, however, that none of these characters are evil in the games.
 * Time Police: Phoenix. He has come from the 29th century to prevent some unspecified "disaster", but how it ties into the F-Zero Grand Prix is never explained. (Fandom believes that it has something to do with Deathborn.) Phoenix doesn't even hide the fact that he's from the future, despite refusing to tell his audience any details about said timeline. His Robot Buddy QQQ is actually his Time Machine, but can't return the pair to the future until his AI is repaired. Fan speculation usually pegs him as Falcon's descendant, but this is attributed more to Rule of Cool than any verifiable proof.
 * Token Minority: Played with. We have several species of aliens with only one member representing them (i.e. Pico, Octoman, Draq, Leon, Zoda, PJ, etc.; both Gomar & Shioh and Dai San Gen are exceptions, but this is justified), cyborgs, robots, androids, and genetically-enhanced animals. Most of the humans are presumably Caucasian, but Goroh is Japanese-American (therefore meaning that his son Dai Goroh is also mixed), Kate appears to be of African descent, Alexander O'Neil (of Maximum Velocity) is black, Nichi (also from Maximum Velocity) is a Magical Native American, and characters like John Tanaka and Kumiko (again from Maximum Velocity) have names indicative of Asian ancestry.
 * Transformation Sequence: Mighty Gazelle's bonus video in GX involves an epic transformation sequence.
 * Truce Zone: As seen in GX, the Bet Race Diner in Mute City is this. Many a racer converges here to drink, chat, and race. Even foes like the Arrows and Zoda are shown to be somewhat more amiable towards one another here. It's a general consensus that this is one of the best scenes of the games, as it gives a brief glimpse of life off of the track.
 * True Companions: The Mobile Task Force in the anime.
 * Tsundere: Mrs. Arrow might be this. She's a sweethearted woman who has a soft spot for Leon (according to X), is a loving and caring wife, and was able to win over several of her competitors. Still, Mrs. Arrow is one of the most determined and brutal of the racers (it's All There in the Manual) and it's made quite clear that Super Arrow is nothing more than a docile puppy when it comes to his wife. Given that Character Development didn't really roll in until GX, we have no clue which side is her default mood, although it's suggested that she falls closer to Type B.
 * Twenty Minutes Into the Future: A more lighthearted example comes from the finale of the anime, which takes place seven years after the defeat of the Big Bad.
 * Maximum Velocity is one... in a sense. It takes place a quarter of a century after the original F-Zero in 2585, with none of the original cast making an appearance. Kent Akechi believes himself to be the son of Captain Falcon and Blitz Wagner is Dr. Stewart's protégé. The game doesn't acknowlege the Horrific Grand Finale from the main canon and uses the same rule set as the original F-Zero.
 * Twin Telepathy: The ultimate Fragile Speedster is a pair of linked aliens who say "Two drivers are better than one!"
 * The same applies to Dai San Gen, a trio of telepathic siblings.
 * Turtle Power: Pico is essentially this, despite Word of God's claims that he isn't. Pico even comes from a planet named Tortiz-3. Of course, his violent nature sends Pico straight into the land of What Measure Is a Non-Cute?.
 * Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: Samurai Goroh and Lisa Brilliant in the anime. Subversion in that Goroh is far more handsome in the anime than he is in the games. The Arrows are a possible example, but we don't know what Super Arrow looks like under the mask.
 * Underwear of Power: Most of the female racers, and a few of the men.
 * Thong of Shielding: Jody Summer and Kate Alen in GX.
 * Unexplained Accent: Some of the voice acting in GX. Characters like Princia and Phoenix come across as being British for no reason whatsoever.
 * Phoenix actually sounded more like he was from Australia at times, though since it sounded like a fake accent, that could've been the actor slipping up.
 * Unlucky Everydude: John Tanaka.
 * Up to Eleven: There aren't many other racing games where 1,000 km/h is the norm.
 * Vehicular Combat: Destroying other vehicles through ramming is as legitimate a victory strategy as beating them to the finish line.
 * The Very Definitely Final Race: Done twice in GX: Players are set up to believe that the Underworld will be the last race in Story Mode, only to play the final chapter on an ethereal racetrack.
 * Final Race New Dimension
 * Villainous Breakdown: Aside from the aforementioned Deathborn example,.
 * Voluntary Shapeshifting: !
 * Wacky Racing: Fairly tame from the racers themselves, as actions unrelated to course progression are rather limited. Most of the wackiness comes from the courses themselves, ranging from ramps to pools of lava right on the track.
 * Wasted Song: F-Zero GX has 41 of them; every pilot has their own theme that is only heard when you read that pilot's profile or toggle it on during replays.
 * Watch It Stoned: Dr. Stewart, Jody, and Princia's bonus movies are essentially acid-trips. The first must be seen to believed.
 * An in-game example with Zoda, whose body is pumped full of adrenaline and dopamine.
 * The Watson: Ryu Suzaku/Rick Wheeler plays this role in the anime.
 * Wearing a Flag on Your Head: Samurai Goroh and his son Dai Goroh wear the Japanese flag on their heads.
 * We Can Rebuild Him: Mighty Gazelle after the Horrific Grand Finale..
 * It happened to Gazelle again in the anime, as this incarnation is really.
 * Wholesome Crossdresser: In Episode 21 of the anime, Ryu/Rick and Jack dress up as women to sneak into the all-females race. They notice the futility of their endeavors after tripping over their heels. In the same episode, Zoda disguises himself and even strikes a pose that you'd probably see in Sailor Moon. Yes, it's just as creepy as it sounds.
 * Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Jody accomplished a great deal of impressive feats by the time she was eighteen. She doesn't even seem to be fazed by the fact that Black Shadow tried to kill her by stranding her in an exploding complex. Yet, she cannot stand octopi. Naturally, Jody doesn't take a shine to Octoman, who in turn believes that she should really get over it.
 * Willfully Weak: Phoenix has his technologically-advanced Rainbow Phoenix running at only 80% of its full potential in order to prevent him from having a huge advantage over the other racers.
 * Wings Do Nothing: Phoenix's Rainbow Phoenix has wings that spread when boosting. They're just for show. Same goes for the custom machines with wings. Unless you're space flying.
 * A Wizard Did It: Literally..
 * The Skull's backstory also states that he was revived by black magic. Moreover, his race car has no turning system; he turns it around by using his magic.
 * Wolverine Publicity: Besides Falcon, Dr. Stewart, Samurai Goroh, and Pico will almost always be unlocked from the start of each game. Promotional art and renders for GX heavily featured the original four racers (who are even featured together in a group shot on the box art), as well as Black Shadow and Blood Falcon. The Story Mode also put a moderate amount of focus on Jody Summer and Mighty Gazelle (the only other racers available from the beginning of X). AX put the spotlight on the new racers, especially Princia Ramode, Lily Flyer and Phoenix. The games based off of the anime continuity focused on the leads (Ryu Suzaku/Rick Wheeler and Falcon), as well as major supporting characters Jody and Goroh. In SSB, Falcon, Goroh, Stewart and Jody all receive Trophies in Melee (as well as a Trophy showcasing the vehicles of all 30 racers from X), while Falcon, Goroh, Stewart, Pico, Jody, Mr. EAD, The Skull, Blood, Black Shadow and Zoda receive Trophies in Brawl.
 * World of Badass: When you can go toe-to-toe with names such as Captain Falcon and Black Shadow without batting so much as an eye, you qualify for the mantle of badassery. Hell, even Mr. Zero, your run-of-the-mill commentator, is seen as a badass simply for having the guts to interview many of the evil/creepy characters in the series. It is should be noted that few characters have superpowers; i.e. a World Of Badass Normal.
 * World of Buxom: Applies moreso to the anime, but a case could be made for the games, too, as the only ones with flat chests (and justifiably so) are the 14-year-old Lily Flyer and 60+-but-looks-like-a-child San.
 * World of Cardboard Speech: An unexpected inversion. Zoda of all people swallows his pride and hatred to give one to Ryu/Rick, allowing the latter to initiate the chain reaction that culminates with the Moment of Awesome everyone knows about.
 * World of Ham: Becomes this way in GX.
 * X Makes Anything Cool: F-Zero X.
 * You Can't Fight Fate: This is underlying theme of GP Legend, although you don't notice it until The Reveal.
 * You Don't Look Like You: Since the in-game models in GX were developed by a team separate from the team responsible for the renders in each character's bonus movie and Story Mode in GX, quite a few racers look a tad bit different between the two mediums.
 * You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Surprisingly, this is mostly averted in a series with aliens. The oddest Hair Colors come from Lisa Brilliant (green) and Miss Killer (dark hair, which seems to be purple-tinted).
 * You Have Failed Me...: Deathborn in regards to Black Shadow. Somebody's getting an Agony Beam!
 * You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: In the anime, Black Shadow is prone to do this to everyone and anyone, especially . In GX, Deathborn does this to Black Shadow, as you can gather from the above trope.
 * Younger Than They Look: Once again, Blood Falcon.
 * Pico and Billy are an odd Mix and Match of this and Older Than They Look: Pico's 123, but is only an adolescent by his planet's standards. Billy is one of the younger pilots in the GP at seven (in human years), but is actually about halfway through his projected life expectancy.