The console wars have raged for a long time, although many attribute the Super NES and Sega Genesis console generation to be the one that started it all.

While both consoles had their strengths and weaknesses, one of the most iconic features packed with the SNES was its Mode 7, which allowed the console to render the scaling and rotation of pixels. This was something the original F-Zero earned a reputation for, as the futuristic racer was built to look and play fast.

This didn’t stop Sega-16 user and modder gasega68K from creating the “G-Zero” mod, which allows you to play F-Zero on a Sega Genesis emulator. Despite the ability of the Sega Genesis to at least theoretically be able to play the game, you can already see a noticeable dive in quality – specifically the music and SFX.

He explained how getting a Mode-7 type visual effect was possible with the Sega Genesis:

Hi, this is a demo of rotation and scaling better known by the name of “Mode 7”.

I’m using the external Ram 64Kb in Word mode, to use as a “virtual map” of 256 x 256 8bit (256 colors “simulated” as in Wolf3D), the idea is that when we move on the map, it will uploading new “tiles” (a size of 8 x 8 = 64 bytes), similar to what is done for normal scroll, but as “tiles” of 64 bytes.

Unfortunately, this will not work with flashcarts, since they do not support word-wide in Sram.

It’s worth mentioning this is still a very early demo, and as such could be improved over time. You can download the G-Zero mod here.