Mario Golf: Advance Tour

"Without prior golf knowlege, you can ditch this"

For gamers and people alike who would like to learn a thing or two about golf from this game, you could jolly well scrap that idea. Mario Golf: Advance Tour will only prove to confuse beginners and first-timers with its flawed game play and excessive usage of golf terms without the proper explanation. Mario fans shouldn't rejoice much either; the only reference to their favourite character is only as a "golf legend". The rest of the characters are mostly unrelated to the Mario franchise games.

To give this game credit, it actually infuses an element of a Role-playing game in it, unlike typical golf games where there is no plot or actual story. You can control a character (between a boy and a girl), and play on golf courses on your road to be a top professional golf player and be just like the legendary Mario. It's interesting as you explore the different golf clubhouses, talk to people and interact with others and various objects just like an RPG. You travel to different golf courses and play on various terrain with moderating challenge and difficulty levels. Secret courses can also be unlocked by playing mini-games. The premise sounds promising and interesting enough.

This is further enhanced by decent graphics and sound effects. For a GBA game, the graphics are neither ugly nor perfect, in light of newer games. The environment and surroundings look bright and pretty, but that's probably about it. The only major complaint would have to be that the characters, including the Non-playable characters, tend to "shake" and "shiver" from time to time, making the graphics look unstable. The background music has good variation, changing each time to reflect the theme of the scene. For instance, you get a very "desert-like" music when you come across a golf course with small dunes as obstacles and sand instead of grass.

However, the game play is plagued by so many flaws. Firstly, on the golf game screen itself, there are tons of terms that might look very new to players with basic or no knowledge of golf. The explanations do not provide much detail either, and new players get easily confused with the different "shots" without knowing what their differences are. Explanations, when given, are usually long and uninformative, making them rather agonizing to read. They drone on, and when you get actual hands-on practice, you have no idea how to apply them. An average golf game takes a long while to complete too, which can easily make a player bored with its repetitive nature and length. The confusion and complication of the game gets worse when you talk to the "cabby". His purpose is to explain certain golf terms to you, which is pretty contradictory as these terms are "explained" without good visuals and examples. All these only complicate things further, instead of addressing them.

I can't say this game has any replay value to the new player, as most likely they'd get stuck early on in the game. To die-hard golf fans though, it'd be a delight to know that there's a new kind of golf game where there's actually more things to do than to play golf. All in all, this is a game where beginners with no or little prior knowledge will get confused to the point where they can't proceed on. The only saving grace would be the graphics and sound, and the relatively new idea of combining a "sports" and RPG for a GBA game, honestly.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 12/20/04