Another little gem on the Switch. I beat this one earlier, so this is more of a review than a first play.
Golf Story is an RPG in most ways with the typical turn based combat replaced by Golf. You get EXP for most things, which leads to leveling up your character. There's a bunch of stats you can increase, with the main one being Power. Much like Everybody's Golf / Hot Shots, power is key to clearing holes in fewer turns, so the way they have balanced it is like this: You get 5 points to assign to any stat upon gaining a level. With Power, as it goes up, your other stats start to go out of control a little. So you could go full power and end up with a natural hook on all your shots, or you could increase Power only a little and keep your accuracy, spin and control in check. It's a pretty nice system, and I found keeping my stats in check while steadily increasing power with spare points served me well.
Much like a typical RPG where you look to improve your weapons and armor, in this you will be buying and questing for new clubs and accessories. Often you will have to complete a quest to unlock the Club House where you can buy new gear, and sometimes there will be "unnecessary" clubs you might not even want, but you need them to fulfill requirements in some areas. One of the tournaments for example, you can't play in unless you have a full set of Vintage (ie, really bad) golf gear. The game does a surprisingly good job at mixing up the Golf game and keeping you interested with things like this. I was surprised when an NPC challenged me to putt an entire course, and found challenge in some of the quests, like the ones that ask you to slam dunk shots into holes, with no prior bounce.
Each Course has it's own theme and gameplay tweaks to keep things interesting. A lot of them have their own wildlife that can either mess you up or benefit you greatly. In the first Course, Mole Rats are everywhere and if you hit your ball near one they will often drag your ball away into a bunker. On a later course, there are different coloured birds that each do different things that you need to learn by trial and error, one of them will pick up your ball and fly it further down the fairway for you. There are a lot of secrets to each course too, including hidden holes and puzzle switches that all need to be hit with your golf ball. You can press X to drop a ball anywhere while walking around and take a shot. If you see something of interest, try hitting it and see what it does, there's usually some money or EXP in it for you.
Won't say much about the story but I think it's written by Australians, so there's lots of "mate" and it doesn't take itself seriously, and can be quite funny at times.
If there is anywhere I would like to see improvements, it would probably be in the putting. It can be quite hard to read the green and which way the ball will roll due to the fact that visually it's all 2D and flat and the little arrow thing they give you doesn't help that much. And there are some quests that ask you to do something like chip a ball in the hole 5 times within 8 shots, and if you end up missing 4 shots, they still make you take the rest instead of instantly fail you. You end up mashing the A button to get your shots over with quicker. I think I paid £15 for it and it took me just under 20 hours to finish. Enjoyed it a bunch.
Golf Story is an RPG in most ways with the typical turn based combat replaced by Golf. You get EXP for most things, which leads to leveling up your character. There's a bunch of stats you can increase, with the main one being Power. Much like Everybody's Golf / Hot Shots, power is key to clearing holes in fewer turns, so the way they have balanced it is like this: You get 5 points to assign to any stat upon gaining a level. With Power, as it goes up, your other stats start to go out of control a little. So you could go full power and end up with a natural hook on all your shots, or you could increase Power only a little and keep your accuracy, spin and control in check. It's a pretty nice system, and I found keeping my stats in check while steadily increasing power with spare points served me well.
Much like a typical RPG where you look to improve your weapons and armor, in this you will be buying and questing for new clubs and accessories. Often you will have to complete a quest to unlock the Club House where you can buy new gear, and sometimes there will be "unnecessary" clubs you might not even want, but you need them to fulfill requirements in some areas. One of the tournaments for example, you can't play in unless you have a full set of Vintage (ie, really bad) golf gear. The game does a surprisingly good job at mixing up the Golf game and keeping you interested with things like this. I was surprised when an NPC challenged me to putt an entire course, and found challenge in some of the quests, like the ones that ask you to slam dunk shots into holes, with no prior bounce.
Each Course has it's own theme and gameplay tweaks to keep things interesting. A lot of them have their own wildlife that can either mess you up or benefit you greatly. In the first Course, Mole Rats are everywhere and if you hit your ball near one they will often drag your ball away into a bunker. On a later course, there are different coloured birds that each do different things that you need to learn by trial and error, one of them will pick up your ball and fly it further down the fairway for you. There are a lot of secrets to each course too, including hidden holes and puzzle switches that all need to be hit with your golf ball. You can press X to drop a ball anywhere while walking around and take a shot. If you see something of interest, try hitting it and see what it does, there's usually some money or EXP in it for you.
Won't say much about the story but I think it's written by Australians, so there's lots of "mate" and it doesn't take itself seriously, and can be quite funny at times.
If there is anywhere I would like to see improvements, it would probably be in the putting. It can be quite hard to read the green and which way the ball will roll due to the fact that visually it's all 2D and flat and the little arrow thing they give you doesn't help that much. And there are some quests that ask you to do something like chip a ball in the hole 5 times within 8 shots, and if you end up missing 4 shots, they still make you take the rest instead of instantly fail you. You end up mashing the A button to get your shots over with quicker. I think I paid £15 for it and it took me just under 20 hours to finish. Enjoyed it a bunch.