F-Zero 99 - Mirror King League

Two weeks after the introduction of the Mirror Queen League is the Mirror King League! The Mirror Queen League was very tough, and I had some degree of apprehension going into the Mirror King League, wondering how much harder still it had to be. We’ve seen with some of those mystery courses how the staff of F-Zero 99 can make courses more difficult than in the standard F-Zero game, and they cranked it up a notch with both Mirror Knight and Mirror Queen.
As it turns out, it’s kind of downplayed with Mirror King League. Instead of making the courses tougher overall, they instead put in things to help you save time but are riskier, as well as putting in bumper walls and ramps so you can safely maneuver around otherwise difficult segments of some courses. Not that it’s an easy one to make the top 20 in and finish the Grand Prix, of course, since you are still competing against 98 other people, and you’ll have to prove yourself better than four-fifths of the pack to do so.
I wonder what will be next for F-Zero 99. I don’t think we’re getting the courses introduced in the Bandai Satellaview, as I’m guessing there would be rights issues involved in them. Maybe courses inspired by Super Mario Kart? Or courses derived from other 2-D F-Zero games, like Maximum Velocity or Climax?
00:00 - Race #1
Course: Mute City III (Mirror)
Mode: Grand Prix
Vehicle: Blue Falcon
Rivals: Superleaf, HubbyBear, Dave, CJ
You might notice right during the course introduction shot that all of the mines about two-thirds through the lap have been replaced with Super Spark cones. That’s your first sign that, instead of increasing the difficulty of these courses, the ones for the Mirror King League are instead toned down, at least in some aspects. There is that alternate path in that same area involving bounce areas that takes you over the abyss four times, so there’s that kind of risk here.
03:10 - Race #2
Course: Death Wind II (Mirror)
Mode: Grand Prix
Vehicle: Blue Falcon
Rivals: Gertrudes, ししまる (Shishimaru), まーこ (Maako), ペンギンマン (Penguinman)
The wind makes this otherwise simplistic layout truly menacing, and it being flipped horizontally doesn’t make it any better, though the wind is now blowing in the other direction. Good thing for me that ramps were added before the offroad sections near the start, and bumper walls have been placed to allow you to take the tight turns better! I only really learned to utilize them on the final lap, when it clicked as to why they were put there.
06:39 - Race #3
Course: Port Town II (Mirror)
Mode: Grand Prix
Vehicle: Blue Falcon
Rivals: SgvSth, まーこ (Maako), たか (Taka), マ (Ma)
On the other hand, the changes here, which include less helpful bumper walls, magnets in different places, and spinning bumpers placed right in the middle of the track, which you can’t get rid of like the red explosive mines would, make the mirror version of Port Town II tougher than the already tough non-mirrored Port Town II.
10:31 - Race #4
Course: Red Canyon II (Mirror)
Mode: Grand Prix
Vehicle: Blue Falcon
Rivals: パパヘラ (Papafera), てきとーバンザイ (Tekitou-Banzai), Mini, Alex
Unlike Red Canyon I, there are no ramps to skip the series of sharp turns at the beginning of each lap-but there IS a ramp to let you skip the last tight turn of the race! The ramps in the slalom section are gone though, just like in Red Canyon I, forcing you to acually drive left and right to keep with the flow of the road.
13:53 - Race #5
Course: Fire Field (Mirror)
Mode: Grand Prix
Vehicle: Blue Falcon
Rivals: てきとーバンザイ (Tekitou-Banzai), SgvSth, CJ, Mini
And finally, this is Fire Field. Like the others, there are parts that have been changed, but the layout is the usual horizontal flip. That group of spinning bumpers near the end of a lap with the lava pits among them is downright mean!

[@randomyoshi]

Mirror Mute City III:
0:40- Oh wow! They put dash pads separated by the blue bumpers so that players who wants to go fast can ignore the Pit Areas.
0:54- Now this is a significant change. Players can either use the jump pads to skip over the zig-zag portion of the track, or they can drive through it and collect Super Sparks along the way. Former method is faster but is risky since it's easy to get bumped off the track if you collide with other racers.
Mirror Death Wind II:
3:48- I don't think there were two dash panels next to each other in the original version of the track.
3:56- They put the jump pads before each of the rough areas so that players can jump right over them.
4:02, 4:09- Seems like the devs put the bumpers there to bounce the players off the track so that they don't get stuck on the guard rails.
4:05, 4:11- I think they replaced the dash panels with jump pads so that you can try and take a shortcut through the bendy areas of the track.
Mirror Port Town II:
7:35, 7:52- The devs must've put the bumpers on the guard rails to make sure that the racers don't get stuck on the guard rails. Wait, didn't I already say that before?
7:47- I am not a fan of those bumpers in the middle of the track.
7:58- A little shortcut? Sure, why not?
Mirror Red Canyon II:
11:25- A jump pad with down-pull magnets on the sides and mines in the middle? That's new.
11:28- You can't take a shortcut through this section anymore now that the jump pads have been removed. Instead you have to drive through the bendy portion of the track that has mines on them.
11:35- The area with the mines have been replaced with Super Spark pads, and the jump pads that form a giant arrow has been split in half, which increases the chance of a player crashing out.
11:43- Oh nice. A mini-shortcut jump pad.
Mirror Fire Field:
14:21- The mines have been replaced with bumpers, so you can now crash into the rail guards and into other racers easily.
14:27- Dash panel added so that you can get through the track faster.
14:34- The roughs on the track have been replaced by mines and bumpers. Drive carefully, or you'll pay the price!
14:45, 14:53- Ugh. More bumpers in the middle of the track....
14:59- Oh gosh, no! They replaced the side-pull magnets with a ton of bumpers placed all over the track!
I didn't think Nintendo would find a way to make this track harder to race on, but they did. The track should be called Bumper Field due to the amount of bumpers in it. =P

[@Overhazard]

I'll say that the Golden Fox can't use that alternate path towards the end of Mute City III because of its lower top speed, at least not without boosting into it or tipping its nose upwards.
I'm honestly not sure what to do with Red Canyon II when you're in the lead, as those mines look unavoidable.
As for the rest of the changes, for the most part, they are definitely designed to tone down their difficulty by providing aid to sharp turns and chicanes, except for the bumpers in the middle of the road. The exception is, as you mentioned Fire Field, which has been made even harder.