Blair Loveday
With the Olympics coming up it is time to talk about one of the greatest cross code sport stars of all time.
From Tennis and motorsports, to fighting or the Olympics themselves, Mario is one of the greatest athletes to ever walk the virtual earth.
So now it is time to take a step back and enjoy some leisurely Golf, as leisurely as a game called Mario Golf: Super Rush can be anyway.
Jumping in I was so down for Mario Golf because I hadn’t played any of the entries on 3DS. Jumping straight into a quick play version of the game I was greeted with what I expected. That is a relatively simple to start golf game akin to Everybody’s Golf, with the Mario aesthetic.
After giving that a quick jam the next step was to see what the single player campaign Golf Adventure would be like. Here you set up a Mii style character who goes to the Golf Village where you need to win your way into the competition and rank up against Mario characters.
There is a lot to like about this mode, and some to not like.
As you compete in matches you will gain experience.
This means when you get your butt kicked in a match it is never at waste because you may get to add some skill points on your character readying you up for the next attempt.
One thing I liked about this is sometimes when you get a skill point, one of the stats will have a negative added to it which is cancelled out if you choose to put your point on that stat. So if it pops a negative on spin, you can still put your power stat up one but lose one on spin, or you can put it on spin and still go up one point.
This incentivizes spreading your skills around.
One thing I didn’t like was the character creation function. I wanted to play the campaign as a Mario character playing against Mario characters.
The Mii doesn’t have the same vibe or style as the Mario characters so it felt weird playing like that. Some people may have connections to Miis, so have that as an option, but let me play the campaign as Yoshi please.
One neat aspect of the game is the running to your ball feature. Not every match uses it but after you hit the ball you can run to the ball to do your next swing.
Along the way you can collect coins but the best part of this is some game modes emphasise this such as speed golf where the goal is to sink it faster, not in fewer shots. This is also crucial to the best mode, Battle Golf.
Battle Mode is the biggest winner here and I wish they had a bunch more maps. This has you in an arena and you need to sink three holes first.
Once someone sinks it the hole closes and a new one opens up. Oh, and the whole arena is filled with things like Womps and Chain Chomps.
There is nothing more annoying than after managing to chip your ball to the top of a ramp after 12 attempts for someone to beat you to the hole so you have to turn around and run the other way.
Mario Golf is a great package. I can’t speak for fans of the franchise before but newbies should absolutely pick this one up. Like other Mario sport games, there is a short learning curve to get started but heaps to learn to nail it.
Battle mode could have more arenas though.
Released: June 2021
Rating: G
Platforms reviewed: Nintendo Switch
Genre: Sports
Developer: Camelot Software Planning
Publisher: Nintendo