Mario Golf World Tour 3DS Review

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking “What would Alex’s grandmother have made of Mario Golf World Tour on the Nintendo 3DS?”
What, you weren’t thinking that?
You’ve probably come to the wrong review, then. Just a friendly warning.
My late grandmother loved golf, and this was something I was made aware of at quite a young age. I think it was rather encouraged by her — but not so much by my parents — by encouraging me to swing around with her clubs, although my choice of targets didn’t always include golf balls, and I never actually made it anywhere near a golf course.
She was rather disappointed later in life to discover that I hadn’t taken up golf following a discussion where she somehow got the impression that I had. She hadn’t played for years by that point, but then again, neither had I, save for digitally in the form of video game golf. I’m close to the age where I apparently should start getting interested in actual golf (and apparently my sense of style is on par* with most golfers) but I’ve never found myself drawn to an actual physical course. I have, however, played many video game golf titles over the years.
It’s pretty hard for me as a result not to think of my grandmother whenever I’m playing a golf game, then, because I mentally tie the sport in so particularly closely to her.
I’m not entirely sure what she’d make of Mario Golf World Tour. It’s the fifth game in the Mario Golf series, or the tenth golf game featuring Mario, if you want to be pedantic, and I usually do. Once again, you take on the form of Mario and his assorted menagerie of oddball friends and foes across the links, as well as having the option to play as your Nintendo Mii.

I think she’d approve of the idea of playing as actual humans, if only because she’d probably have found Bowser a little on the aggressive side when it comes to golf, and Donkey Kong being allowed anywhere near a course would probably have worried her, if only because of the prospect of banana peel litter on the fairways. She would hate my default 3DS Mii, however, because it looks nothing like me, thanks to the rather wonky 3DS camera.

Mario Golf World Tour plays its golf in a very standard way for a video game golf title. There’s a power bar, and you tap it three times to take a shot, or only twice if you’re in the rather lazy automatic mode. I doubt that would sit well with her, because while Mario Golf World Tour actually balances this mechanic quite well across its courses, even I know that it’s not all that much like real golf. Or maybe it is, but only if they’ve radically changed the game without letting me know.

Then again, after a little play I suspect she would have adjusted, especially because Mario Golf World Tour does a superb job of keeping the tension alive. Missing even a ludicrously long putt you had no real chance at feels actively painful, while chipping in a lucky long shot makes you feel like the world’s greatest golfer. You certainly celebrate as if you are.
I suspect she would have also picked up the game’s Item Shots with a little early distrust. These allow you to use familiar Mario items — Fire Flowers, Bullet Bills and the like — to alter your approach to courses, whether it’s ignoring wind effects, blowing up trees or freezing parts of the course to taste.

It’s not golf, I think she would have said, but being a remarkably adaptable lady, I suspect she shortly would have been showing me exactly how to use them to best effect — or would have, if we both had a copy of the game and a 3DS or 2DS to play it on. Annoyingly, while it does support multiplayer, it’s of the online variety only, with no option for pass and play style action. Online does speed up multiplayer because you don’t have to wait between shots, but it’s less social to not allow local play from one cartridge, and I’m well aware that the social aspect was a large part of why she liked actual golf so much.
One of the strengths of video game golf that I would have had to explain to her was that they can offer a multitude of courses to master, unlike the local club’s simple 18 holes. She then would, I think, have been a little lost as to why out of the box Mario Golf World Tour is a little limited in this respect, because in the Mii-friendly Castle Club mode, you’ve only got three courses to choose from. It takes some time to find them, because there’s a clunky semi-RPG style castle to walk around to actually get to them, but that’s still a paltry amount.

There’s a reason for this, however, as there’s already DLC courses available that you can pay for. I know golf is meant to be one of those middle/upper class games where they pinch you for the parking, the membership fees, the green fees and the price of a gin and tonic at the nineteenth hole — she did teach me a few things about golf after all — but replicating that in a full price game when clearly these courses would have been feature complete some time ago is just plain greedy, Nintendo.

Things are a little better on the strictly Mario-side Mushroom Kingdom side of the fence, where the courses are significantly sillier. I think that might have concerned her a little, but within the context of what’s gone before in Mario Golf games, I can’t say it worried me.
Like most 3DS games, the actual 3D nature of the course is something you might flick on once or twice to give the courses depth, but it’s not entirely vital. Neither are the touchscreen controls, although if you are a serious stylus fetishist, you can play the game entirely this way.

I’m not certain that my grandmother ever really approved of video games, although it’s not a topic I ever really discussed with her in any real depth. I’d like to think that if she was going to approve of one, it would be a golf game.
Sadly, as you might have gathered, I cannot share this particular game with her, as she passed away late last year, long after playing her actual last game of golf. Still, every time I pick up a golf game, I’m reminded of her, and I think of her. I did warn you this wasn’t going to be your regular review upfront, didn’t I?
But you probably want some kind of neat summation, because that’s expected in a review. So here it is.
Mario Golf World Tour doesn’t essentially step beyond the boundaries of its predecessors, and with my slightly retro hat on, I think it’s missed a shot from the rather excellent GBA Mario Golf Advance/Toadstool Tour games that preceded it. It certainly plays a polished game of golf, but then so do so many other golf games, and the spectre of that DLC on top of its $59.95 asking price does detract from its overall appeal.
*See, I can even do golf puns. Not good ones, mind you.