Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour

"A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius"

We discuss the problem.

Everytime a new sports-slash-activity game featuring the Nintendo cast comes out, I get the same image trapped in my head. This image being that back in 1998, approximately, a bunch of Nintendo executives, writers and others are sitting in this sun-drenched, humid room. They are there because there needs to be a concept for the next game, and yet no one can come up with one. Suddenly, a random man jumps up, throwing his hands in the air (note the circles of sweat in his armpits) and screams ''I've got it... Mario characters... playing golf!.'' Everyone screams and claps upon arrival of this revelation. Shortly thereafter, writers come up with an arguably frivolous plot and then the game is made.

Now, I understand that this most likely reveals my ignorance to the whole process that takes place before a game arrives and is in my hands (or my it doesn't and my assessment isn't so far off, but the glass is half-empty, dammit!). See, I'd always assumed that nine months before a game's birth, Electronic Gaming Monthly would run a cover story about it. Then, later, the Electronics Boutique Stork just drops them down the chimney-- and that anyone who didn't get the game probably had a fire going at the time. Regardless of how simplified, ignorant and juvenile this sequence of imagery is, I still think it describes the situation quite well in a comically over-exaggerated way.

Now, see, I don't know if you know this, and neither did I. It was a surprising epiphany I had in the bathtub. This being that games like Mario Golf 64 and Mario Tennis don't take the most imagination and creativity to produce. You can sometimes take the most mediocre games and have them commercially succeed brilliantly on the basis of things like Mario characters.

''You suck,'' I say.
''No, you suck,'' he says.

Mario Golf for Nintendo 64 was a grand disappointment. I wouldn't say it bombed so much as it stood there, rigid, as if it were to explode at any second, but never did as such. Pairing it up against the only other commercially successful golf game at the time-- Playstation's Hot Shots Golf-- we can see that Mario Golf 64 suffered from being too cartoony and relying so much on the characters and backdrops. Hot Shots Golf was a great golf game that, while not completely serious, never forgot that it was a ****ing golf game. It never was too much of a cartoon for its own good; Mario Golf 64 was. It heaped the characters, gimmicks, backdrops, Mario references on every inch of the game, and the golf itself was just mediocre. The game was consumed by a sluggish pace, making it a boring golf game that happened to feature some familiar friends in Nintendo's cast plus some uninteresting new faces.

Since then, time has ran its course and while Hot Shots Golf dissolved into an exceedingly cartoon-like layout and lost its weight as a golf game, we're only now seeing the follow-up to Mario Golf 64. So, how is it?

''No, you suck.''
''Nooooo, you suck.''

If nothing else, Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour makes an admirable first impression. The graphics are sharp, crystalline and attractive, as Nintendo proves that they've yet to lose their skill in creating water effects since Mario Sunshine. The courses are lush and expansive, with tons of room and space. Though Nintendo's cast members and backdrops are around, it never gets to a point of stagnation (which is pretty funny considering that all the new faces introduced to us through Mario Golf 64 are gone). In comparison, the music is relaxing and fluid, making it suited for a golf game. The sound is equally as successful. The fine points like the splashing of water, the wind, the pitter-patter of rain on the grass and the scorching roar of a finely throttled golf ball are all realistic and intricate. The sound area's most notable feature, however, is the ability to have your characters taunt or encourage others when not golfing.

It is, of course, important to note the golfing remains familiar to its predecessor, keeping the pick-up-and-play power and style while shedding the kitschy skin that plagued Mario Golf 64. As a result, Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour can incite addiction and is largely amiable. It's not even hard to get used to the game if you've not played Mario Golf 64 before, as the game's most difficult situations don't occur immediately enough to pose a problem. Your travels through it will be fluid and whimsical.

Elsewhere, the games many optional modes and many multiplayer capabilities can extend it's lasting power if you-- ya know-- happen to have friends, and the many characters offer a wide range of possibilities. Go club slots with friends, where you play on a slot machine which determines how many and which clubs you bring with you, leading to hilarious situations like making a 5-foot putt with a 9-iron. You can play through courses to unlock new courses and battle characters in order to unlock better attributes and so on.

Naturally, this is all swell, and you're doing it with Nintendo's characters, but it's still a good golf game when you get right down to it, and that's what counts.

''What?''
''I said, you--''

Swing on this: almost every game has a place on a scale that, at one pole, is Pick-Up-And-Play and at the other pole is Deep Meaning. This scale works to show that games that have a high pick-up-and-play value will have a low value for deep meaning, and that a game with a high value for instant gratification and mindless fun will commonly maintain that effect for a month, tops. The two are inversely proportional.

While there are games out there who defy the physics of this scale, Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour, while not extremely high on the pick-up-and-play value, is still there, and that's not a surprise. The concept of Mario Golf characters playing golf isn't going to have a lasting effect like, say, Super Mario Sunshine and it's ilk would.

Worse more, most of Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour's the odds that you'll use about half of Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour's bonus play modes are slim to nil. Whereas when you're with your friends, you'll use modes like single matches, double matches, club slots, maybe even things like near-pin, but I can't picture someone playing coin shoot, speed golf and time attack for anything other than the prospect of unlocking something. Still, it is possible that you won't care about unlocking these things, and will probably be thoroughly exhausted with it before you even get far enough to have changed much besides unlock extra courses and characters.

In addition, the aforementioned comments of encouragement and degradation that you can have your character speak tend to be more irritating than they are amusing. In multiplayer mode, you'll quickly learn to despise these cute little comments from the characters.

A problem I have (and I doubt I'm alone on this) with the game is the painfully strict putting system. Short putts are easy, long putts are hard, putts in the rain might as well be made with a tire iron. This is enough to make putting way more difficult than it should be, and that it can become a pain to work with or utilize efficiently.

''That's so stupid.''

Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour is golf with Mario characters in Mario settings. Despite it's minor flaws, the game is worth a brief session of over-indulgence. Check it out.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 03/03/04