Rating of
4/5
A Fun Laid Back Golf RPG
dbarry_22 - wrote on 06/19/19
Golf Story is a fun little adventure that merges retro style golf with RPG elements and after finishing the game I found myself wishing there was more.
If you've played a golf game on the original NES or pretty much any console golf game before the joystick era you'll know what to expect from this golf game. The game play is similar to that of Mario Golf and Hot Shots games of the past but it leans more towards the retro simpler style. What's important to know about this game though is that it's not focused on realistic golf courses and winning tournaments. It's more focused on telling a story that requires you to get better at golf by completing challenges and increasing your experience so you can win the few big tournaments that you encounter along the way.
The story starts out as you taking control a young man who wants to become a professional golfer. He wants to win a big tournament that's coming up but everyone he encounters along the way sees him as an amateur with a unconventional swing. He eventually catches the eye of a coach that helps him along the way towards his goal. This game definitely doesn't take itself too seriously. There's humor in the dialogue and the characters you encounter along the way are often weird and quirky.
As you attempt to prove yourself as a golfer you'll tackle challenges that will improve your experience. This often requires you to make shots into yellow circles whether that's in the fairway, green or even off the course. When you level up you can put points towards distance, accuracy, and spin. I ended up distributing the points evenly. If you put too many puts towards distance you'll end up with a slice that has practically no spin which will makes things difficult on the course.
There is one big world map that lets you walk between the different courses. You'll open up new areas by completing tasks at each course. By the end you'll end up playing on 8 different golf courses. What's worthy of noting though is that these are all 9 hole courses. You may think that's lazy but by the end I agreed with the decision because it lets you get through the story faster and you're not just stuck on courses for a long time between story elements. It helped the pacing of the game.
The actual golf is pretty simple. There's a power meter at the bottom. You hit the A button once to start it. You hit it again at the point on the power meter at the strength you desire, and then you hit it one more time back where it started which gauges the accuracy of your shot. You can fine turn your aiming with the trigger buttons before take a shot and you can put spin on the ball but it's probably not as much as you'd hope if you've played other golf games. As someone who has played a lot of golf video games I found this one pretty forgiving and pretty easy to do well. Putting was pretty simplistic and annoying if you have a long putt to try and hit but it didn't stop me from dominating most of the time.
What I liked most about this game was the themes to the courses. The courses took on themes you'd recognize in other games like your classic course or a link's style course or one that you'd find along the beach. But there were unconventional courses as well like one that has ice and snow and one that's haunted. The music matched well with the themes and was pleasant to listen to. The other thing that was fun was the story. Whether it was playing a round on a haunted course with a ghost or solving a mystery at a golf club it was fun talking to the odd characters and exploring the areas of each golf club. There were a couple of fetch quests that got annoying and I would have liked more challenges on courses instead of target practice but those complaints were minor.
I do wish there was a bit more challenge to the game. When playing match play against a few NPCs I found that they were too easy to win. Heck, even the final championship at the very end of the game was a breeze to win. But, that doesn't mean I didn't have fun playing it.
It took around 15 hours or so for me to beat the game and at the end I wish there was more to take on. You can play the courses against friends if you wish so that's good. All in all this a good indy game that doesn't have a steep price and if you enjoy retro style golf games this is a quality game to tackle.
4/5
