To those looking for Mario Golf 64 nostalgia
User Rating: 4 | Mario Golf: Super Rush NS
This is a difficult game to grade. The new modes are a nice spin on the old Mario Golf experience. I’m sure they’re a blast with friends. But if you’re like me and you’re hoping to sit down, relax, play some rounds, unlock achievements, enjoy the landscapes, etc… then stay far away from this game. Right off the bat, every character is unlocked. There is no match play to unlock your favorite character. Fine. Adventure golf will certainly have what we’re looking for, right? You go to create a character… and it’s a Mii avatar. The same god-forsaken template that’s been used for over a decade to make derpy, lifeless characters. Fine. You’re entered into an open world! Free to explore, NPC’s to interact with! But there are invisible walls everywhere, and 99% of the NPC dialogue is a waste of time. Fine. You can purchase clothing and clubs with your coins! But there’s only a handful of clubs to buy for each course and one set of clothing that provides perks specific to that course. Oh and a majority of the special club perks are detrimental to your performance. Fine. So let’s get playing! Nearly every round you play in Adventure Golf is timed in one way or another. Also the vast majority use the system where you run to your ball. WHY? These modes result in a playing style where you hurry to line up your shot, immediately focus on where you need to run, stare at your stamina bar instead of your shot which is simultaneously soaring towards your target (maybe), rinse and repeat. You can’t enjoy the courses, although there really isn’t that much to admire. Shoot, there’s even modes in here where your score doesn’t matter. Trying to line up your shot is a nightmare in itself. The only way you can see the terrain level of your target is to use the new Rangefinder mechanic. This forces you to pull out the rangefinder, then press the button again to get a view of the terrain on that spot. Does it automatically aim where your shot would optimally go? No, it defaults to a spot about 30 yards in front of it, forcing you to try to re-aim at a spot close to your target distance. Is there a hill in your sight line? Well then you literally cannot get a view of your landing zone. It’s a wildly frustrating “feature”, especially given that this functionality used to be a single button press. Oh, and you can’t move the rangefinder once you’re zoomed in. Hope you picked the right spot the first time! I’m getting angry just reliving this in my head. Now that you’re lined up, go ahead and hit. The tried-and-true 3-click method has been replaced by a 2-click method. That’s right, there’s no impact selection. As long as you don’t try to hit a full shot you’re guaranteed to have a near-perfect impact point. If you DO try to hit a full shot (shame on you apparently) the impact cone gets wider and introduces areas that will affect your shot significantly. And instead of allowing you to try to take the risk of still making perfect contact, the gauge will just randomly select an impact point. So sometimes it’ll still be perfect contact, sometimes it’ll be on the far end of the “miss-hit” zone. What you’ll end up doing is taking an extra club or two, hitting it 85%, and putting a level of backspin on it. I guarantee it. Keep in mind that with this “run to your ball” garbage, the weight of your bag becomes a factor. In order to not hurt your speed attribute you can only carry 7 clubs. You can still carry 14, but it’ll crush your ability to run to your ball. If you’re a real golfer do you ever miss playing with your junior set that would only have like 2 woods and 3 irons? Yeah, me neither. This game does allow you to build your stats for your fugly Mii character. It does use the system where other stats are hurt if you don’t build them up evenly. But that’s not the real problem. The real problem is that a was level 67 when I completed Adventure Time, whatever it’s called. You can get up to level 100. The only way I could continue to acquire XP was to replay the various tasks before the final “boss”. I can’t just play the game and get more experience. I have to go back into that mode, continue to run around the “open world”, and play the same uninspired, timed, can’t watch your shot bs to accrue tiny amounts of xp. My character will forever be at level 68, and I don’t care. You can’t pull the flag on greens. There are no birdie medals. These are so minor, I know… it would probably be about 2 lines of code… that they could copy from previous games. There are so many little things (from previous installments) that would have enriched this experience. There are so many new little things that feel like eye pokes or ideas from developers that do not enjoy golf. It’s like if Forza made a game where the only modes to make money were Crazy Taxi and Twisted Metal ripoffs. Yeah they might be fun, but why do that to your core gameplay? I honestly hate this game. Not because it’s bad, but because it would have been so easy to satisfy my subset of gamers. But hey, collecting coins, amirite??
