Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour

Developer: Nintendo, Inc. Release Date: 7/03

List Price: $49.95

Pros: Great graphics from the Nintendo Universe, excellent course design, great fun, great replay value, plenty of side games and multiplayer.

Cons: Some minor camera issues and at times, rather challenging to play.

ESRB Rated: E (Everybody)

Fun golf game but challenging...

Let me state up front that I am no big fan of golf. I've never played it on the green or the screen before. But I had read some good things about Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour and decided to give it try. I had read it was a blast to play and I've found that to be true! It starts out with the basic essentials of golf mixed with tons of extras, side games and customizable features. The player can square off alone, with a friend or with the rest of the mascots of the Nintendo Universe. You'll see a lot of recurring motifs here from the blue bombs of Zelda, sky and water from Super Mario Sunshine and the sound effects from other Nintendo games. No, it's not as realistic as a Tiger Woods game but you know with Mario's face on the box it isn't going to be. Still it can be as challenging at times as the real thing.

Game Play
Mario Golf was designed to be easy to pick up and start playing. For the uninitiated there are practice modes to practice every single aspect of the game of golf. So simple you could play the entire game from start to finish with just the A button. The A button, tapped twice will give you the start and end of the swing. The B button is for the power shot. The more experienced player can hit the A and B buttons in various combinations for backspin or topspin on the ball. The C stick is used to check angles and determine the path of your shot. The Left and Right buttons help to isolate distances and the X and Y buttons give you different layouts of the greens. The d-pad is used to select different impact points, which can help to get more yardage or get around an impediment.

I've found the camera, for the most part to be quite good. You can get a good view of the courses and do a test tracking of the ball angle for your shots. The only real complaint here is the camera view you get when on the putting green. A lot of times you can't see the putt as it goes in or near the hole. You are left with a view of your character looking at the ball as it travels. It's too bad the camera can't track the ball like it does everywhere else. This is a rather odd omission in an otherwise very polished game. But, it doesn't surprise me much, because if you are familiar with Nintendo games there is always some goofy thing like this in there. (Why, it's almost becoming a Nintendo trademark for!)

You start out playing the courses in tournament mode. Win one and that will unlock the next. I was surprised to see only 6 tournament courses to play in total. I would have expected more but then they are 18 holes apiece so that'll amount to a lot of playing time.

There are lots of side games to play in Mario Golf. You can play alone, or against one of the characters. You can team up with a character and play against two other characters in a skins match. Of course you'll be spending a lot of time watching the other 3 hit the ball while you wait your turn. You can play the tournaments against your friends (up to four players total). There are various other mini games like slicing the ball through hoops, landing the ball to a red spot surrounding the hole, completing so many holes in the fewest strokes, doing the same under a time limit and so on. Succeeding at any of these side games can open up more mini games to play. Lots of replay value here!

And, lots of Nintendo characters to interact with. Besides Mario there is Princess Peach, Luigi, Yoshi, Koopa, Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, Wario, Daisy, Birdo, Waluigi, Bowser and other unlockable players to add to the roster. Each has their own traits and can be handicapped for more balanced play.

At any rate, I found the game play to be excellent. It's nicely balanced and everything moves along at a swift pace. Sometimes the game play can be quite challenging for this, a supposedly "kiddy" arcade golf game. But not so bad that you begin to think you'll never get it--like those obstacle courses in Super Mario Sunshine. You can overcome the most difficult courses with enough patience and strategy. I recommend players save and save often and have multiple save files (you get three slots) because if you flub up your final hole, the tournament is over and your save file is deleted.

Graphics
Outstanding! I am very impressed with the graphics of this game. If you've played Super Mario Sunshine, just image that game with golf courses in it--bright and very colorful with excellent character models and various animated segments. The opening CG intro is excellent and sets the pace for and presentation of this game from the very beginning. The grass moves in the breeze, as does the surrounding foliage. The grass is very well done with varying degrees of length from tightly cut to long and rough. The water is as usual for a Mario game, superb with realistic ripples and reflections. On some the other courses, if you get the camera angle just right, you can see fish swimming about. There are some nice waterfalls too. There are random weather effects but only rain. The light seems to change on some courses with it starting out very bright, like noonday sun, with the shadows gradually lengthening and the final hole being played at sunset.

The courses start out looking very conventional and even very realistic to a degree and only later on in the tournaments do the courses start getting that "Toadstool Tour" look-you know, slightly outlandish, with pokadot mushrooms and weird plants that will eat your ball should it fall near it. Of these I really liked Princess Peaches course. It ends at nighttime with fireworks going off behind her castle. It reminded me of--you guessed it-Disney's Magic Kingdom.

Boy, it's nice to one of the characters hit the "sweet spot" and the ball soars through the air with something trailing it. Mario has fire, Bowser has smoke, Yoshi has rainbows and so on. It's a nicely done effect. Stars fly out too. Nope, Tiger Woods can't be seen doing this stuff on a tee shot! But then you won't see him competing against characters that look like they came out of a coloring book.

One of the early criticisms I read of the graphics was the frame rate was dodgy. I have no idea what they are talking about. Everything is nice and smooth throughout. It may have been that some reviewers got an early copy of the game to review and that problem has since been worked out. At any rate it's not a problem.

Sound
Typical Mario style music score. Some of it seems lifted from Super Mario Sunshine, as do some of the sound effects. This is to be expected. After all, each of the characters has their trademark sound effects and sayings. The music does help set the mood of various courses. Overall the sound is very nice, but nothing particularly outstanding.

Overall
It's fun game with great replay value! A very nice arcade style golf game firmly rooted in the original Mario Golf game of old N64 days with a few added features and greatly upgraded graphics. It's very polished with a solid graphics engine that never lets the frame rate drop. It's nice to buy a game that is of this quality throughout. One never has to worry about screen freezes or bugs hanging you up as you complete the last hole. I just hope the upcoming Mario Tennis game is this good. How much you want to bet?

5/5

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