Thursday, July 01, 2004
You know, even though I love my GBA, I rarely find myself engrossed in a game on it anymore (since Wario Ware, really). I bought Mario & Luigi but never really got into it, and I haven't even OPENED Mario & Donkey Kong, but when Mario Golf Advance came out I had to play it right away. The GBC version was very addictive because aside from having an awesome golf engine (look, it's fun even if you don't like golf, seriously) it's also got a cool RPG mode. You start off as kids training to be golf pros, and as you complete challenges and minigames you get experience points to upgrade your skills in. It's really well balanced -- the "side games" double up as training and ease you into the various shots and strategies, and when you choose what part of your game you want to upgrade it might come at the expense of something else. Making your drives longer may also make them less accurate; improving the accuracy might increase its height; and so on.
The actual RPG-ish bit though is starting to get a bit annoying. It looks nice, mind you (Camelot re-used the Golden Sun engine, so the lush art can look a bit out of place at times), and it is well fleshed-out, but what's really annoying is in the middle of conversation characters will often respond with various emoticons (you know, :-) :-( etc). It's totally unnecessary and REALLY ANNOYING, especially when they seem to conjure up the wrong emoticon for the time.
The other thing that bothers me is that the game is stupidly easy. One thing I've noticed about Mario Golf on the GBC and N64 is that in tournaments the CPU seems to start with all guns blazing and hit eagles and birdies on the front nine, before averaging a bogey a hole on the back nine. This time they don't even go that far in front before collapsing. Opponents in matchplay average a par or worse per hole (I have NEVER seen them hit a birdie), while I have yet to see an opponent in a tournament shoot an under-par round -- while I've posted winning scores of -8, -8 and -6 in my first three tries at the first three tournaments, the nearest opponent is only on +1, +1 and +3. And it's not because I'm especially good or at a high level either, since I was told I would "have trouble placing at the Dunes" -- before blitzing the field to win by nine strokes.
I guess I'm so annoyed because there's so much to get through in this game, since each club offers a tournament and matchplay in both singles AND doubles, and it doesn't feel particularly fulfilling when it's so damned easy. It's a pity though because the game itself is tons of fun, and the golfing engine reminds me a lot of the superlative Mario Golf 64. And there are a lot of modes where I can compete with myself to post high scores, like Speed Golf or Nearest to the Pin, but again... it'd be really nice if the CPU offered a challenge. What I'd give to be worse at this game...
Posted at 3:50 AM
