Game: Golf Story
Genre: Roleplaying/ Sports/Adventure
System: Nintendo Switch
Developers| Publishers: Sidebar Games
Age Rating: EU 3+| US E
Price: £13.49|€14,99| CA $22.21| US $14.99| AU $22.50
Release Date: 28th September 2017
No review code was provided, bought the game myself.
With the announcement of Sports Story during this last December’s Indie World Showcase we should take a moment to examine, reminisce on, or encounter for the first time, Golf Story, released back in 2017 by Sidebar Games exclusively for the Nintendo Switch.
Allow me to preface by saying that I am not a golf game fan or a sports game fan. However, I am a Golf Story fan. The two can be mutually exclusive. Any terminology or knowledge of the sport was gleaned completely from the game, and to this day I still think watching a golf tournament is a good way to catch some z’s. You do not have to enjoy golf to enjoy Golf Story.
More Than Just A Golf Game
For the uninitiated, Golf Story is a balanced mixture of several genres. The game presents itself as a top-down RPG, with aspects of a puzzle game laced about, at times it dons the hat of a whodunit, at other times a collect-a-thon, all-the-while using traditional 3-click golf mechanics as its sturdy foundation. Rather than being content with being excellent in just one of these genres’ game play mechanics, Sidebar Games does them all proper justice and then goes a step further by undertaking the task of proper storytelling.
While at first this seems a difficult, if not impossible, task to undertake—like a juggler handling lit torches, the execution is graceful, balanced, with moments that have you biting nails and pulling hairs, but ultimately Golf Story is undeniably entertaining.
If you only wanted a quick opinion on Golf Story, that’s it: I recommend it wholeheartedly. If you’ve already played the game, welcome back and I hope you’ll want to play the game over again by the end of this piece. But if you’ve never played it and you’d like to know why you should be excited for Sports Story and you’d like to know why you should experience Golf Story, please, allow me to explain.
A Carefully Crafted Beginning
I firmly believe that Golf Story is a RPG which in a few years’ time will be seen as a classic for the Switch. But not in the way that odd third-party or cult-classic games usually become classics. It deserves instead, to be up there with the other RPG greats, without stipulations, without “cult” before “classic”.
See, when you first start up Golf Story, you’re greeted by a loading screen. It’s nothing complicated, just an illustration. It’s barely up enough time for you to gather many thoughts on it, but at first glance you can gather enough to tell you this is not just another Golf game, a story is already being told. In the foreground is a neglected putting green with divots pocking the turf, and surrounding it are four distinct regions, though, rest assured, there are more than four in the game.
To the right of the green is a spooky woodland, overgrown and in a purple haze. On the left, is an eye-catching dinosaur skull laying in dead, dry, orange and yellow grasses. In the upper right corner is a lofty looming cliffside seemingly floating in the clouds above. And distant, in the background, is a stately manor with a long winding path leading up to it and its meticulously maintained and groomed grass.
The game is, just in that brief time the image is up, telling you you’ve got a long journey ahead of you from the negligent green to that manicured marvelous manor. The path will prove much longer than that winding path, harsher than the sun on that yellowed and dead grass, more frightening than the purple spooky thicket, and with ambitions higher than the clouds.
A Generous Experience
Forgive me if I lean on the sentimental with this game, but Golf Story is a great game driven by great sentimentality, it is the videogame equivalent of a one-person workshop devoted to the careful crafting of nostalgia. By this, I mean that the game feels like a thoughtful advancement of the rpg genre. It challenges what we think of when we hear the term “rpg” while still evoking everything we’ve ever loved about the genre.
Let me show you what I mean.
When the silent loading screen finally blows away, you’re HIT with the loud strike of a club wedging an ovaloid golf ball into the place of the first “O” in the graphic title “Golf Story”. You’re brought into attention and then. . .then the opening music begins with the soft chiming sound of an electric keyboard, which fades away into the melody of a beautiful wind instrument punctuated by violins building and gently accompanied by a few signature brass notes and proud cello sounds that culminate into the deep soulful bellow of a horn. What I’m trying to say here is this game’s soundtrack RULES. It wants you to feel tranquil and thoughtful and present, but more importantly it wants you to FEEL.
I’m not going to lie, a lot of these observations are not observations you would have playing the game the first time around, but it’s the kind of game that makes you sentimental, makes you remember it fondly and more observantly, and when you start it up nearly a year after playing it, it’s like you’re revisiting an old friend.
That being said, the first time I started this game up I knew it was going to be special because of that song. It’s a better song than some entire soundtracks. I’ve put the song on as music to study to, to read to, to write this piece to. I want to be clear that I’ve spent the last few paragraphs talking about seemingly mundane moments, a loading screen and an opening song you’d usually click right through, because I want you to know that the attention to detail is there.
Sidebar Games knows those moments aren’t critical, but they know, secretly, they kind of are. They’re your first moments into their world and they want to make a notable first impression. But they don’t get lazy with it, the same amount of detail and attention that went into these first few moments of the game-before-the-game is held up throughout the rest of their world. Golf Story is a game of details, of fine-tuned story and laughs all throughout it, it has a deep integrity and a commitment to being generous to you. Now, keep in the back of your mind that the same studio that made this game has officially announced a sequel, and begin to get excited, even just a little, with me.
One last word on the opening title screen. It has the emotional power of a masterful RPG like Dragon Quest VI, though this isn’t apparent on your first playthrough. In Dragon Quest VI you start off your journey gathered around a fire with companions your character has already journeyed the world with and you’re approaching the final boss of the game. Right at the beginning! You talk a bit and put out the fire and. . .well, I won’t spoil that game for you, that’s not why you’re here. Suffice it to say that if you ever replay that game, it’s a powerful way to start the journey anew, seeing all your old friends straight off the bat.
The same holds true for Golf Story. While the title screen will change depending on the golf course you’re on, if you’re starting your journey anew, you’ll be greeted by the same soft song and the image of those friends you made along the way all gathered around the green where you first met them. I was not exaggerating when I said the game is a very sentimental game, nor was I exaggerating when I suggested that this game deserves to be up there with the other rpg greats. Now, let’s get into the options and mechanics of the game.
Let’s Talk Golf
Immediately after pressing the + button you’ll hear a new joyful and uplifting song with chimes and woodwind. You get to see the menu and your three options are “story mode”, “quick play” (a mode allowing single and two player matches), and “settings”.
In complete honesty, as lame as it may sound, the first thing I do in any game is go in and mess with the settings, but the settings in Golf Story are few. You can change the music volume, the sound volume, and turn vibration on and off.
However, this scarcity of settings shouldn’t be seen as indicative of a lack of attention. Instead, the game is trying to say, “I’m pretty dang perfect, you won’t need to fiddle with me much” and the game speaks the truth.
Mechanics wise, Golf Story uses the traditional 3-click golf mechanic. You aim and a bar shows up with two halves with two diamond shaped silhouettes on either side which will each slide left and right on the bar depending on where you’re aiming. To set your aim you press a button (first click), a solid white diamond begins moving left toward the left silhouette and you try to time it so that when you press the button again (second click) it sets the correct amount of power/distance for the spot you’ve aimed at, landing inside the silhouette. The third click is when the white diamond floats back towards the right silhouette, which will determine your accuracy, or more precisely, it determines if the ball is going to drift left or right of where you’ve aimed. If my explanation doesn’t make the most sense, that’s okay! because the game, like any good game, gets your dad to teach you!
Entering The World of Golf Story
Immediately when the game begins, you get a quick honk as greeting from a lone goose, a quick overview of the grounds, and suddenly you’re thrust into childhood with your dad caddying for you and taking you around a beautiful green golf course, Wellworn Grove. He shows you the basics and then gives you some increasing challenges which will each be showing you how to operate this 3-click mechanic. All the while you get an introduction to the absurd humor of the game.
The son of the owner, who will later inherit the grounds, is stealing from the food carts. His pockets filled with food soon lead to him being chased down by rogue geese. The fowl parade traces behind him as he runs wild on the putting green creating an obstacle in the middle of your practice. You find out you’re afraid of geese. Nevertheless, your dad believes in you. And because of this, you believe in yourself.
You make it through your dread, and you succeed. These fundamental skills he taught you will evolve and be your tools in overcoming challenges, in triggering events and cutscenes, it will also be your weapon as you battle head to head or in tournaments on your journey to greatness. Having taught you the fundamentals, your dad then gives you great words of encouragement and the screen fades to black.
The Wandering Path
Then you wake up, twenty years later. You’re in the middle of a divorce, things haven’t exactly gone your way, you will soon find out Wellworn Grove is in a sorry state, but your character still has hope, he proclaims, “it’s time to stop procrastinating” and sets out to become a pro golfer. At this point you should immediately procrastinate, trust me, this game will be filled with tangential tasks of procrastination. Inspect everything. Suffice it to say, everything is worth inspecting. Flavor texts, the often-overlooked descriptions for objects, are charming and unique. I don’t want to ruin them for you more than the following image.
The game oozes with this kind of small humor, because it knows that it’s those small experiences that can make a memory or a laugh. And it continues on, whether it be having coaches and friends that don’t believe in you, but still love you and kind of believe in you. Whether it be you having to play, using terrible wooden clubs, on a team with one of the most respected yet terrible golfers at the prestigious and exclusive country club Tidy Park or having to solve a mystery at that very same country club.
Whether it be as simple as uncovering hidden oddities intentionally buried on the courses. This game offers generous amounts of gameplay, innumerable small experiences, even going so far as having mini games, or games inside of this game.
Minigames
If you want a break from the story you can get in a game of disc golf with the rebellious disc golfers, or drive a circuit with RC cars, or even spend time playing the videogames inside the game: GALF (a tribute to the classic golf games of the NES-era), GALF Seasons, and GALF Nights, the latter of which takes place in a dystopian “galf” ruled world. Sidebar Games held nothing back when carefully crafting this modern masterpiece.
Final Thoughts
The game is funny and witty in its scenarios, it offers hours of enjoyment and challenge, but most of all it delivers a replayable experience which itself becomes nostalgic. In this review I’ve really only delved into one illustration, one song, one opening, one cutscene with your dad, all executed wonderfully, and I truly believe the game carries this standard of quality all the way through.
Now, if you’ve played the game already, I’m glad you stuck around and maybe remembered why you love the game so much or can see it with fresher eyes. If you haven’t played it yet, I hope you now want to play it, now know why Sidebar Games is a developer that cares about you. And maybe you understand now why you should care about them and what they’re doing.
I hope you want to catch up and get ready for Sports Story, or maybe just experience Golf Story for its own pleasure. Regardless of if you have or haven’t played it, I hope we can all be excited for Sports Story, the exciting follow-up to what is undoubtedly one of the most interesting, fun, and fruitful experiences on the Switch, a game which has earned a two-thumbs up from me.
Final Verdict: Two Thumbs Up!
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