The first game by Australian developer Side Bar games, Golf Story is a quirky RPG based around (you guessed it) golf!

The Story

After what seems like a messy break up with his wife, the protagonist of Golf Story decides he wants to take his life back to a simpler time, where he and his father would play golf. Being a newly single (and free) man, he endeavours to take his beloved hobby further and become the best golfer in the world!

However, becoming a pro golfer is not easy and even though he seems to be doing well as an amateur, the Protagonist does not impress his competitors or his would-be coach. To get to the Pro Tour our protagonist must prove he is a real golfer, overcome trails from turtles, birds and celebrity golfers, do battle with the supernatural, level up his skills and find legendary clubs. It won’t be easy but with his determination, our protagonist will become the world’s best golfer.

The story has a great amount of character and charm to it and its humour sends me back to my days as a backpacker in Australia. It is very tongue-in-cheek, poking fun at golf and other video games whilst also making fun of you the player. The game does this by reminding you you’re not that good at the game. The humour and writing above all was my favourite part of this game, defining it from the slew of games that came out in September and October.

The Game

The game is based around golf and uses the tried and tested mechanic of a power bar and accuracy zone to hit your ball as far as possible. However, what’s exciting about Golf Story is that every problem can be solved by golf. The game does this by allowing you to place the ball anywhere on its number of courses to complete its numerous and challenging side quests.

This mechanic is great because it allows the player to explore the courses more. Maybe you see a random hole off in the corner of the map or something interesting floating in a pond. All you need to do is throw down your ball, swing and the game rewards you with something cool or unusual for your inquisitiveness ( as long as you can get the ball in the hole).

In addition, there are various mini games in Golf Story to keep you entertained. Naturally all of them are based around golf but they do give a nice break from the game’s main mechanic. My favourite mini game came in Coldwind Wastes. I won’t spoil what it is but Pac Man fans will love it.

Art and Music

As nearly everyone on the internet has said, the art style of this game is a throwback to the 16bit era and has a strong reminiscence to the Mario Golf games on the Game Boy Colour. Pixel art has totally saturated the indie game market. Nevertheless, I for one really like this art style and Golf Story’s artists do an amazing job of creating and animating a lively and quirky world. From every swing and every unique character this game looks great. One distinctive factor of the art is how the speech bubbles in the game are animated. This factored greatly into creating Golf Story’s character and charm as it helped me get immersed in the dialogue and wonderful humour. The music only complements the art. From the cool bass tracks to the simple sounding acoustic guitar melodies, each track gives your ears something to enjoy as you try and get that final Birdie on a course.

Problems

Unfortunately there were a few minor technical problems I had with the game. The first was that the physics mechanic would break making the whole world the texture of ice. This meant anytime I hit the ball it would slide over the entire map (including land and water) until the ball basically hit the edge of the world and stopped. The second problem was with the Frisbee mini game. If the Frisbee came into contact with an NPC it would hit them and keep bouncing off them. Meaning I had to keep watching the poor NPC get hit by the Frisbee until it eventually bounced off and fell to the floor.

These problems happened to me a hand full of times but could easily be resolved by reloading the game or quitting to the over world. However, this could be annoying as progress was lost and sections of the game would have to be replayed.

I really enjoyed the gameplay throughout the game. I thought the balance of golf and RPG was great and enough of an interesting mix to keep me going through my 16 hour play-through. However, the very last course of the game introduces a steep difficulty curve. Throughout the game I won every round and tournament on the first or second try. Usually the second because I got a feel for the course the first time, then knew exactly where to place my ball on the second round. Nevertheless, the final course took me over an hour to beat! This was due to the severe wind on the course which changed direction from round to round. So when I failed the first time I couldn’t simply go back and try again because the wind changed direction and speed. So I had to learn each round specifically in the hopes of beating it. Honestly this wasn’t too annoying but it was a stark contrast to the rest of the game. Moreover, because I knew it was the very last thing I had to beat, it made it that much more frustrating to keep failing! Pro tip for the last course, play cautiously and you should be fine.

Summary

I think as Sidebar Games’s first game, Golf Story is everything an indie developer and fan wants. It’s beautiful to play, has great writing and a bunch of unique characteristics that will keep me thinking about it for months to come (and it seems to have sold well). The few technical issues I had with the game are easily brushed off when you look at the amount of fun I had playing it.

Kudos to the developers. When Golf Story was shown in a Nindie showcase back in August the release window was given as September 2017. The final release date was not announced until a few days before its September 27th release. This signals to me that the developers must have been working right until the last minute to get their game out in their original September release window. So well done Sidebar Games! I look forward to your next piece of work. I vote for Cricket Story!

Therefore, I give Golf Story by Sidebar Games my rating of 9/10

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I went into this expecting a generic golf game with controls similar to Mario Golf. While that turned out to be true, the characters, writing and world design more than make up for the average core gameplay.

In this RPG you play as a young, un-named man who showed promise as a golfer when he was younger while being taught by his dad. When his father dies years later the player decides to give the big time another shot. You only start out with your dad's old clubs and go to your local golf course to start your journey.

From here on you meet a colourful cast of characters, a mob boss who owns your local park, a snarky girl who becomes your rival and frenemy for the game, a groundskeeper trying to spy on moles digging up his course, a sell-out golf pro named Max Yards. The list goes on and most of them are hilariously goofy and charming.

There are also 8 themed golf courses including a beach, a haunted mansion, snowy mountain and a windy desert, each with their own course obstacles like strong winds, water, tar or pesky animals like crocs, birds or moles that move or obstruct your balls.

You don't just play the standard 9 holes of golf over and over again either. Each course is filled with NPCs who need help or have problems that can only be solved with golf. Returning stolen birds eggs to their nests? Better tee up. Unfreezing tourists on the side of a frozen peak? Better use flaming golf balls. Digging up ancient artifacts? Get that sand wedge out.

Completing tasks and courses rewards you with money for buying new clubs and equipment. It also gives you XP that you can spend on leveling up your stats like spin, range and power.

There's also non-golf things to do as well. You'll find yourself solving a disappearance at a gentleman's club ball, getting involved in rap-offs and infiltrating a golfing bandit's snowy hideout.

While the golfing itself is nothing new it's done well. With a large range of tasks and courses along with excellent funny writing that made me chuckle out-loud a few times. Golf Story is a lighthearted romp through a world where it seems most problems can be solved by golf.

Even if you're not a golf fan I'd still recommend giving it a try.

Not since I first played Psychonauts have I given up on a game I otherwise adored this much.

Golf Story takes the fondly-remembered RPG mechanics of Mario Golf on Game Boy Color, and enhances them with a ton of variety and a simple but entertaining story. The writing gave me quite a few chuckles, and the side quests and story beats surprised in humorous ways. The sort of uptight, lightly orchestral country club music was a nice departure from the usual chiptunes that would typically accompany this style of graphics.

But after a game's worth of progressively challenging courses and side quests, the final championship course is just too brutal for me.

The course has more varied terrain than any other. The wind changes every single playthrough, so you can't rely on the same technique twice. And on top of that, your opponent ends the match with at most a single stroke, so you basically have to get par or better on every single hole. I've tried beating it over a dozen times, often going as far as the sixth or seventh hole at or under par, only to have the unpredictable wind knock me to some terrain I'd never encountered before and ruining the entire run.

If you like golf games or quirky RPGs with non-traditional mechanics, you should absolutely give this game a whirl. I really loved most of it. But if you're a completionist and easily frustrated, prepare yourself for a dramatic difficulty spike at the very end.

“Golf is a game that is played on a five-inch course – the distance between your ears.” –Bobby Jones

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Comparisons are “unbound” between Sidebar Games’ Golf Story and a variety of other titles. You may be invariably reminded of any number of golf games (Mario Golf is one I hear putted around most frequently), or you could recall to mind the retro RPGs from the Super Nintendo’s yesteryear. Considering Golf Story is a third-party game for Nintendo’s latest console, the comparison with the SNES, made great by first and third party games, is appropriate. Personally, I find that I can describe Golf Story best as EarthBound without the aliens, psychic powers and time travel. It’s EarthBound with golf.

That comparison survives beyond the superficiality of the graphical philosophy both games share. Yes, of course Golf Story clearly exemplifies the beauty of and nostalgia for the 16-bit era. However, the pixel art is bolstered by obvious modern touches: atmospheric effects and trees swaying in the wind, character sprites crowding the screen in droves, their speech bubbles and dialogue infused with new dynamism. These stylistic spins on the old 16-bit look elevate Golf Story above “yet another” retro-themed game. The dialogue boxes exploding when characters yell or slanting when they say something awkward is an amiable way to get intonation and the nuances of speech across without the perks of voice acting.

We’ve all sent those texts where the other person took it wrong because they couldn’t catch a tone of sarcasm… This is the future.

Golf Story’s resemblances are more than just skin deep.

It is as hilarious as EarthBound, in its own straight-faced way. I wasn’t expecting it to be nearly as funny as it is. It seems like there’s a tendency in video games toward knee-slapping dad jokes that feel too intentional, but the writing here is extraordinarily endearing and clever. If humor at its core is about defying expectations, then Golf Story is on par here.

One of the funniest parts in the game comes when your character’s vengeful wife shows up to harass him at a tournament. The TV reporters begin interviewing her instead of your actual opponents, asking her what her game plan would be for the day, to which she responds nonchalantly that she plans to bring up his weaknesses and past failures in an effort to undermine his confidence.

Golf Story’s frequent use of the unexpected for its humor pays off in numerous examples. I bet you didn’t think you’d be warding off wizards or the undead with golf balls! It’s all golf but this game plays around with the sport in contexts you’ve never seen before.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Click here for the full review... https://thewellredmage.com/2017/10/11/golf-story/

I almost bought Golf Story shortly after its release in 2017 when it went on sale for $10, but I didn't because I had no plan to play it immediately. I had cause to regret this decision over the next 2 years as I never saw it on sale again, until COVID-19 took over the world and it popped up with a number of my other old wishlist items. This was fortuitous because with COVID taking over the world a light-hearted golf adventure was definitely something I planned to play immediately and thoroughly.

Golf Story is not a complicated or difficult game. It's a straightforward 2D golf sim with a JRPG layered on top to feed stats into the swing engine, provide some continuity course to course, and space out the core golf gameplay with some mini games and fun dialogue.

There is a surprising amount of depth in the swing engine, particularly given that it is hardly necessary to engage with the finer mechanics of the game in order to beat it. I thought it was really satisfying to spend some time shaping each shot, setting up the spin and distance, reading the wind and the slope and really nailing it to set myself up for a good score--but the game will rarely punish you for just walking up and hammering directly at the pin each time. The rough is barely an impediment and the more severe hazards are rarely especially hazardous. The NPC match play games each appear to be scripted to provide the player with clear holes where you can get ahead.

I think where the game falls down primarily is the control scheme, which I am just going to describe in exhausting detail because it is such a complete muddle:

1. Up-down selects your club, unless you've pressed X or Y--which activate the two strike modifying modes, in which case up-down modifies your strike accordingly--or A--which confirms your current selection and kicks you to the swing start screen where you can still modify some things but not all the things.
2. Right-left adjusts your aim, again unless you're in X or Y or A.
3. If you pressed X or Y, you can switch between them by just pressing the other one, but you can only get back to the basic aiming and club selection menu by pressing the one you've selected again. If you modified X or Y and then select a new club, it may undo your adjustments.
4. ZR and ZL both modify your swing to shorter approach lengths, unless you're putting, in which case one of them makes you swing much harder. Also you have to hold these down to keep them selected until you press A.
5. R and L apply top or bottom spin, which also must be held until you press A, but you can also modify it after you've pressed A.
6. B is not used, except to cancel out of A.
7. You have to use the joystick to up-down and right-left, because the directional buttons activate various power-ups you unlock through story play, which I never once used because their function is barely documented in game and you can only really find out what they do by reading their descriptions in the Story sub-menu which shows your progress Zelda-style and which you have no reason to visit otherwise.

Amazingly, this works without issue about 80% of the time. It's built for speed so you can really cycle through things if you know how you want to hit the ball. It's only when you need to really finesse a shot and switch things several times that the buttons start to cramp up like a mechanical typewriter. Or when you're playing disc golf.

Most of the mini games are hits. Some are technically challenging, many are genuinely fun. Disc golf is one that stands out as a miss. The right-left aiming is unintuitive enough when you're stationary, when you have to try and figure it out as the frisbee is moving it's a disaster. I found it very difficult to switch the right-left axis without also partially activating the up-down axis, which slows the disc down or causes it to lose elevation (also not well documented).

The story is superfluous and straightforward, but I thought it was charming. I liked the game's sense of humour, the way it wasn't afraid to get really weird, and the way it would call back on itself. the cut scenes aren't long and they're all amusing enough that I never felt like rushing through dialogue to get back to playing.

The courses are all well-designed, although I think it's a shame none of them are a full 18 holes. The advantage of 9 holes is there's really no issue sitting down and belting out a couple of rounds, but at least for the pro tour course I feel like a full course would have really provided a nice finale. Also I think some dialogue would have fit in nicely about how you made the pro tour without ever having played a full course. A bit of a missed opportunity.

The pluses all definitely outweigh the minuses in Golf Story, though, so if you missed it the first time around and you're stuck inside your house with nothing to do, it's a good one to check out.