This game is actually based on an early 2000's Korean MMO golf game PangYa!, though Tecmo published the Wii games as Super Swing Golf to the rest of the world (which makes it sound like a bargain bin title). Even though the character models and environment details are looking rather dated for a late 2000's title, this is one of the most creative golf titles out there!

The lore of PangYa! is that there is a Pangya island where people play a sport called pangya. Players come from all over this island and also from the parallel human world as well. To play this game, you have to use Air Lances to strike an Aztec ball into a hole with as few strokes as possible, which was a ritual in the past to seal some demon... ah who am I kidding with this is just 100% golf in every way.

For the positives: Unique course themes and INCREDIBLE music. Also a really cool CGI intro.

For starters, the courses themselves are set on unique fantasy landscapes! The first course, Blue Lagoon, has you starting on a beach but there are already giant flowers and mushrooms in the background. From there, you proceed to play golf on a magical witch academy, a desert with floating alien relics, an Antarctic spa resort for penguins, and even a Christmas-themed course!

This all leads to perhaps the most interesting golf course I've seen in the history of arcade golf games: Silvia Cannon. In this course, you tee off of an active Naval fleet where all of the runways and decks of aircraft carriers and battlefields are converted into unorthodox fairways while having to dodge all of the flight aircraft and cannon fire in the process. Very creative! All-in-all, you have 14 (3 are variations) different golf courses to play on, which is a decent amount.

On top of clever course settings, the soundtrack is like... 11/10 goodness. The music ranges from super peppy and energetic, to actually relaxing bossa nova & smooth jazz tracks. They all are full-on instrumental arrangements based on the original versions from the PangYa! MMO, and my goodness this is just ear candy to me. Each course also has 2-3 different themes that are rotate for each hole, so you aren't listening to the same song nonstop. There's a lot of variety, and the music meshes well with the course themes. I still listen to this game's soundtrack on its own.

There are a few negatives: Unlocking courses, characters, and caddies are a large grind, the interface is clunky, and the game feel is very slow-paced!

To unlock characters and courses, you have to play the Single-player mode. Each of the 14 courses is divided into an area like a map like Super Mario World's, and each level requires you to have to beat a short match play against a CPU character or some other event like that. The end of each area has a new character you haven't unlocked. Beat that character to unlock them, and you unlock the next course & area in the process. Each area takes like 2-3 hours to clear, so it's roughly 30 hours to complete the story mode in order to unlock all characters and courses. Very irritating if you just want content unlocked quickly so you can play this as a party game.

The game also has a high level of customizability. You can unlock a huge variety of fashion options for every character. Unfortunately, they are all also given uneven stats boosts, and normally the most ridiculous outfit is the one that gives the best stats. You can also change your Air Lances... erm I mean clubs. There are a lot of silly options such as swords, kitchen household items, and even rocket-powered lances. Just like clothing, the later lances have much better stats so many are unviable.

Then, the interface is clunky due to all of the extra menus and pointer controls needed. Setting an impact shot on the ball is normally an easy process in Mario / Hot Shots Golf. But in Super Swing Golf, you have to enter a separate full-screen menu to do that and then POINT and click an onscreen OK button to go back to your swing. You also have to point and click out if you open up the scoreboard, which can accidentally happen too. It makes the game feels dragged on...

... which gets worse because of a few more things. The swing bar timing is very slow (and not precise-feeling too). It travels by default half as fast as the bar in Mario / Hot Shots Golf. The bar goes even slower if you use more accurate clubs, with the biggest culprit being that the bar takes like an entire 30-40s to go back and forth on the Sand Wedge. On top of that, after you swing, you can only cut to when the ball is about to land. At this point, you still have to wait for another 20s to wait for the ball to stop rolling. All of these time extensions add up, and as a result an 18 hole round would take me like 45-60 minutes as opposed to just 20-30 minutes for Mario / Hot Shots Golf.

Other notes:

Since this is a Wii title, the game's default controls are motion controls. It's just like the other golf game We Love Golf (review link) where you're only emulating button presses: Backswing to set power, and forward swing when the bar is at the right location. It's not realistic as your physical swing's power doesn't come into play, in which you should be either playing Wii Sports or the Tiger Woods Wii game instead. At LEAST there are normal button controls for this game as well.

The game also has side modes like Near Pin and Target Rings, but they are only playable in multiplayer with 2+ players. I believe you can just use one Wiimote for this game, as everyone takes their turn separately.

Some differences between Super Swing Golf 1 and 2

This game has minor differences. Pick up Season 2 if possible for the complete experience. Some noticeable changes are:

• Four more courses: Sakura Wind, Ice Spa, Blue Moon, and Deep Inferno
• All pre-existing courses get an extra song
• Singleplayer Mode is different: Season 1 is a series of preset character matches with more story interactions, whereas Season 2 is an event map for all areas where you can use any character of your choice.

Conclusion

Mechanically, the game is a 3/5. But the game's unique courses and impressive music and presentation are very strong for me to bump this to a 4/5. Definitely check this game out if you enjoyed arcade golf games like Mario / Hot Shots Golf, but it's also harder to recommend this as a party title due to the unlocking barrier and slow-paced nature of the game.

Also, if you have a PSP, check out PangYa: Fantasy Golf (link). This version has a more refined artstyle, is faster-paced, and has 9 of the same courses (no Silvia Cannon sadly).