2.5/5 ★ – cha0sknightmare's review of Golf Story.

Golf Story is a retro-inspired golf RPG that feels like it would be right at home on the Game Boy Advance. Its gorgeous sprite work and catchy music drench the game in nostalgic charm, while its tight golf mechanics are easy to pick up but challenging to master. The different golf courses you'll visit are varied and diverse, with Golf Story constantly introducing new elements and tricks to keep the experience fresh. Whether it’s animals that interact with your ball if it lands near them or wind and slopes that force you to adjust your shots, these mechanics are slowly introduced and iterated on throughout the game’s duration. It’s good game design, built around a smart difficulty curve, one that subtly pushes you to improve without feeling too punishing (with the exception of the final course, which has a huge difficulty spike!). Beyond the golf gameplay, you'll engage in various RPG elements such as fetch quests, side missions, and investigative tasks. Unfortunately, these rarely go beyond being minor diversions and, at worst, feel like underbaked padding. I started off doing them, but eventually I checked out and began skipping them when they became more of a repetitive chore than they were worth. Golf Story's RPG's elements are pretty light, with the narrative and character writing being a mixed bag. Sometimes it’s smart, sometimes the jokes don’t land, and sometimes it’s completely bonkers. The game has a carefree, “video game-like” feel where anything goes, you never know what it’s going to throw at you next (Smashing skeletons with a golf ball, anyone?) While I appreciate the games willingness to experiment, the quirky nature can only carry it so far, and I’d be lying if I said the story didn’t mostly fall flat for me. There’s an XP and money system here that lets you put points into different skills such as swing power, technique, and precision. There are also various clubs and items to buy, each offering slight perks and options, though most of this feels like a surface level offering, resulting in nothing game changing overall. At its core, Golf Story’s biggest strength is its actual golf gameplay, it’s where the game shines most. However, you’ll spend a lot of time engaging with it's other elements, which aren’t as well-tuned or compelling. Some especially egregious sections in the main campaign force you into long streams of drawn out fetch quests that feel tedious and significantly slow down the game down to snails pace. I grabbed this game for a great price on the Nintendo eShop, and I certainly got enough gameplay time out of it to justify the cost. While I had issues with it, I’d still recommend it. It’s a perfect fit for the Switch or Steam Deck and even features a local competitive mode with plenty of options to mess around with.