Captain Falcon, Bounty Hunter
The Nintendo racing game F-Zero is an SNES classic (I don’t like it that much, but it’s okay). Spawning several sequels, the game’s main character (as far as a racing game can have one), Captain Falcon, and his rival Samurai Goroh are both bounty hunters. And yet, aside from an ancient comic in the original manual, we haven’t gotten a good look into their careers. So, I propose this: a game featuring Captain Falcon engaging in his nominal occupation of hunting down bounties! There are several different ways to go about this, of varying degrees of “yes but does he still race”:
Option #1: The Metroidvania
The Castlevania and Metroid series are both very successful because they’ve hit on a good formula: lots of enemies, and a huge interconnected map. Now that Metroid has moved into the FPS realm, we’re lucky to even get a good 2D game on the DS. So proposal #1 is that Captain Falcon fight his way through complicated criminal and/or alien bases to get to his target.
Pros:
- Logically, a crime lord (or whatever) would probably want to have a large and complex base to protect against intruders, so it makes sense from a logical standpoint.
- It would give quite a bit of gameplay, and lots of gamers love exploration.
Con:
- Either Captain Falcon would have to have his work cut out for him just to get one bounty, or we’d have several rather unsatisfying mini-dungeons.
Option #2: The GTA
As we all know, Nintendo is the clean (or kiddy, if you’re not a big fan of it) company of the Big Three, but they could still learn a bit from Grand Theft Auto. The formula– car chase, fight, race, shootout, fight, race, ad infinitum– seems like it would naturally lend itself to a game about a bounty hunter who also drives a car.
Pros:
- Again, it makes logical sense: Captain Falcon has to drive as well as fight, so you might want to have a little of that in there.
- It would keep the fanboys, who would likely complain about it being so different from other F-Zero games, from getting too upset and 1) not buying the game and 2) annoying everyone on the internet.
- It would break up the monotony that might result of only being able to fight, or only being able to race.
Cons:
- There is the fact that, since this hypothetical title would be distancing itself from the main series, it might seem hypocritical, too wary, or just plain dumb to include racing.
- In addition, people might want a game where you just fight as Captain Falcon rather than having to race. You can’t appeal to every demographic, after all.
Option #3: The Beat-em-Up
For our third option, we have the type of game that was a classic before the advent of 3D and the decline of video arcades. Double Dragon, Streets of Rage, The Simpsons; all were great games because they featured good old violence, mayhem and straightforward level design. Falcon is a shoe-in; the only thing he loves almost as much as punching some poor sap with his splendorous glowing fist is kicking some other guy in the face.
Pros:
- Lots of gamers wanting to recapture that nostalgia for the classics would flock to it, and nostalgia is the seventh fundamental force of the universe (the fifth being Love and the sixth being Cheese).
- Cooperative multiplayer would be easy to implement, and that’s always a nice bonus to a good game.
- It would simply be awesome. Think of the types of moves a guy with a fist that catches on fire when he punches, simply because of how awesomely powerful that punch is, could pull off! Think of the types of enemies he’d have to fight for it to be fair! The mind reels at how imaginative they could be, especially since it’s set far into the future and there are aliens, god only knows how many different species and how outlandish each one is!
Con:
- The retro aspect might turn some off as well as turning others on, so it’s a mixed bag. Aside from that, I can’t think of any downside.
