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Mario Golf: World Tour
Nintendo 3DS
It's Not Tiger Woods and That's a Good Thing
4/5 stars
A solid golf physics engine along with a variety of courses, Mario Golf provides almost an unlimited amount of entertainment while still not quite being as great as it could be.
Mario Golf: World Tour is the first game in the series to be released since the GameCube. While I still don't know why Nintendo didn't try to take advantage of this series by releasing one for the the Wii, I will say it was nice to see it isn't dead.
The gameplay and physics engine in this golf game is as good, if not better, than the Tiger Woods equivalent in my opinion. As a golfer in real life, I like how the trajectory of the ball changes based on the lie, whether it's a slope, uphill or downhill. You can hit the ball high or low, put a slice or hook on it, and put top/back spin on the ball. Once you start your swing, you can hold the joystick to alter the flight of the ball, and when you end your swing you can put a small or large amount of spin on the ball by what buttons you press. It seems a bit complicated at first but you get the hang of it pretty quickly.
The graphics are solid all the way around. The courses are vibrant with color with many different themes. Characters and their animations are high quality, containing different kinds of swings based on what character you use. The 3D is good taking advantage of the large environment of a golf course. I didn't use the 3D much after the first view hours to save battery life, but I didn't avoid it because it was terrible. It will take a while to get use to moving the camera around when lining up your shot, but you can pretty much put it wherever you want when you get use to it. This is totally necessary when taking on some of the challenges.
This Mario Golf game incorporates a little more of a Nintendo-like theme to it, straying more from the traditional and real-life courses you'll find in other golf games. I'm not just talking about the piranha plants and other objects that decorate the courses. There are items like mushrooms and bullet bills that you can use. There are bouncy panels and pipes in some courses which you can hit on the ball into. There's coin challenges as well. This does give you more variety than you would normally have playing golf the traditional way on a traditional course. That's not to say you can't normal golf in this game. It's just a bit limited where you can play it. The first few courses that are open when you start the game are pretty traditional. As you open up more courses the more Nintendo-like they become.
There are several different modes of play in this game. There’s your typical stroke play and match play, along with speed golf, points mode (where you get points based on how well you do on a hole), coin mode, and challenges which incorporate everything above.
There’s also Castle Club where you take your Mii and take on a variety of challenges. Here you can play online tournaments, take on putting/chipping challenges, and go play all the courses. The more you play, the more options for your character you can unlock. This contains clubs, balls, and clothes which can alter your players stats. Maybe you want more distance on your shots, you can custom your character to do that. Maybe you want more control or spin, you can do that too. However, there isn’t some magical set of gear which will make you great in all aspects. You will have to sacrifice in one area to gain in another. This is one change from previous handheld Mario Golf games. I enjoyed leveling up your character and making them great. That’s simply not the case anymore.
The online component to this game is actually pretty fun. You can do it Castle Club or in normal mode. Depending on what online tournament you take on, you can unlock more gear. Now I’m pretty good at this game, but I have yet to finish in the top 10 of any online tournament (and I’ve played a ton). But, that’s not so bad, you don’t have to finish that high to get a gold trophy. It’s more like a bell curve, and if you’re in a certain area, you can get a gold, silver, or bronze trophy. That’s a pretty good indicator of how good you are. During online tournaments, you see a variety of other players ghost shots while you play which is nice too. Whoever wins these tournaments are a bit ridiculous, often going -25 or more in 18 holes. I think they’ve broken the game somehow, because I play almost perfect and the best I can do is the low -20s.
Now, on to the DLC. Yes, this is a Nintendo game with DLC. I’m not exactly thrilled about that. It’s just a money grab in my opinion. But, If you think about it you can buy the game at a store for 29.99 and buy the season pass for 14.99. Most Nintendo 3DS games upon their release are 39.99, so you’re really not paying that much more for the game. With that said, I’m still not happy about it. Not only that, but the 108 holes (6 courses) you get by purchasing the season pass are all remakes of previous Mario Golf courses on the N64. So, depending on how much golf you want to play you don’t have to purchase it I guess. One thing that does tick me off is that there’s more than one 3DS in my home, so if you want to play the DLC you have to do it on my system. Not exactly a flawless system they have for that.
All in all I really enjoyed this game. The golf game play is top notch and there’s some difficulty doing really well on some these courses. I played a ton of online tournaments and spent many hours beating all the star/moon coin challenges. I was hoping for a bit more, but this game is still quite a lot of fun.
4/5
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