Someone’s found out how to unlock F-Zero GX’s five golden cars, previously only available through Japan special events

A cheat code to get the ‘holy grail’ of unlockables for F-Zero GX has finally been discovered, 23 years after the game’s release.

F-Zero GX was part of the Triforce project, which saw Nintendo, Sega and Namco teaming up to release a cost-effective arcade board based on GameCube hardware. As part of the deal, Nintendo let Sega and Namco develop new games based on Nintendo IP.

While Namco created GameCube title Star Fox Assault and the Mario Kart Arcade GP series, Sega developed F-Zero GX for GameCube, as well as an arcade version called F-Zero AX. The arcade version included a slot for a GameCube Memory Card, to let players update their save data across both versions.

It was this Memory Card connectivity which was key to unlocking the 15 special golden machine parts, which could be combined to make five golden vehicles. These were only available in Japan through special in-person events where players brought their memory cards to have their save files updated with the new vehicles.

Over the years, players have used hacking or devices such as the Action Replay to unlock the five golden cars, as it’s been assumed there was no way to unlock them normally in the game.

Now, Japanese modder BTEST4HE, who analyses game code to find hidden cheat codes, has discovered that the cars were unlockable through cheat codes all along, albeit convoluted ones that require four controllers.

All five codes have to be input by four players simultaneously to work. According to BTEST4HE, the game has a 10-frame leeway to make sure everyone presses the buttons at the same time.

The codes are as follows, and have to be input on the F-Zero Shop screen:

• Thunderstorm – X, Z, Y, Z, X, Z, Y, X
• El Dorado – X, RIGHT, X, Z, Y, LEFT, LEFT, Z
• Chrono Symphony – LEFT, RIGHT, Z, RIGHT, LEFT, X, RIGHT, Z
• Bahamut – Y, Y, Z, RIGHT, LEFT, Z, X, Y
• Gladiator – RIGHT, Z, X, LEFT, LEFT, RIGHT, Z, X

While the cars were previously only available through Japan-only promotional events, players have confirmed that these codes are working on all versions of the game, including the version in Switch 2‘s GameCube library.

As previously explained by fan site CGN, three of the machines – Gladiator, Thunder Storm and Chrono Symphony – were previously made available at special events in Japan. Gladiator was distributed from October 2003 at around 30 stores across Japan. Players had to bring their Memory Card to the store, and a special GameCube demo disc was used to copy the data over.

Thunder Storm and Chrono Symphony were harder to get, because they were only available at a single location for a very short time – Thunder Storm was at the F-Zero Galaxy Cup in Akihabara on 4-5 October 2003, while Chrono Symphony was at the F-Zero Galaxy Cup in Tokyo Joypolis on November 8, 2003.

As for Bahamut and El Dorado, these were unlocked via the arcade version F-Zero AX. During the GameCube version’s first print run in Japan, a limited number of copies included a special license card for the arcade game. By inserting the license card and GameCube Memory Card into the arcade game, Bahamut’s parts would be copied over.

El Dorado is easily the rarest car in the game, however, because the license card to unlock it was only given to people who took part in the F-Zero Galaxy Cup tournament itself. Because this tournament was only open to a limited number of participants, CGN estimates that only 256 people got the card and were able to unlock El Dorado through official channels.

Now, with four controllers and some good timing, players can finally own all five cars through legitimate means.