Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour

Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour
Reviewed by Pirate Yoshi

Overview: Though I got the latest Mario sports title almost a week late, I made up for lost time by playing it constantly. I will say up front, though–I wasn’t just playing because I felt it was my duty... And so, I delve into Toadstool Tour for you and let you know how it all adds up.

Graphics: 9.8/10
As I type those numbers, I really, truly can’t think of anything bad concerning the graphics. They are fluid, beautiful, and colorful images that show the game in a wonderful manner. The characters are very well animated; the courses are all dazzling as well, from the pretty little trees to the flag on the green. You might not fully enjoy just how good these graphics are...but if you don’t, go play the N64's prologue to the series, and you’ll realize just how far we’ve come. I changed my mind at the last second, however, from giving this a perfect ten, and I’m not even sure I can blame these people for this flaw. After each hole, you are forced to watch at least SOME of what is generally a very annoying cut scene of your character either leaping around or crying on the grass, depending on who you’re playing as and how you did. These cutscenes go on much too long, considering how boring most of them are.

Sound: 8.9/10
Too bad....a lot of the music is very good, and the sound effects are perfect! But the flaw here is the SUPER-ANNOYING VOICE ACTING for a few of the characters! First of all, I must say that I was VERY disappointed when I chose to play as Birdo and found that, as opposed to her cute little high, mellow voice from Mario Tennis, she now quacks and yaps like a broken buggy horn. Hideous! Nintendo must’ve been serious about Bowser’s new voice from Super Mario Sunshine–he’s still got it in Mario Golf. Peach, though extremely hot, acts beyond retarded, and her voice doesn’t really persuade you that she isn’t; she barely says much more than, “Ohhhh, oh, oh! Mmmm, ohhhh, uhhh, okay, ooo!” But the all-time annoying voice has got to be Daisy...she gets the award for most obnoxious in the game. However, I need to throw in some pluses, and Wario and Waluigi have great voice acting (Martinet is a genious!), as does Mario and Luigi, of course. Yoshi has a fabulous voice, even if he appears to have gotten fatter (needs to get out more on adventures...), and Donkey Kong and Diddy both have some great voice acting (finally, DK gets a REAL voice, and both of them use the same voices as they had from DK64). But when will Donkey start saying more than “Umph” and “Yeahhhh!”?

Control: 9.0/10
The controls for Toadstool Tour are both incredibly good and pretty bad, both at the same time. The positive side is that they aren’t hard to figure out, and the new ability to add top spin or back spin to the ball just by pressing A or B twice upon stopping the mark is surprisingly easy to control and very accurate. ON THE FLIP SIDE...you often find yourself hitting the ball when you actually didn’t want to hit it. This causes mass confusion in general and, on occasion, an entire loss on the hole because you end up smacking the ball right off of the course. Beware of the A button!

Challenge: 9.5/10
This is a hard one to rate, because TT is very hard, yet it can be made very easy by “cheating” (this is a review, not a cheat page, so you’ll have to wait for me to explain when I develop a stratagies page!). Some of the holes are incredibly difficult, and the tournaments become insanely difficult to place first in once you are in the Star Tournament. Ring shot mode can be very frustrating (in a good sort of way) mode to play as some of the holes seem down-right impossible to complete. The side games and challenges are moderately difficult and keep your training level up, while getting all the characters is no cake-walk, either.

Replay: 9.6/10
While I haven’t even unlocked all the characters yet, I can say this from past experience–you don’t stop playing after you unlock everything. This is a game that you continue to play just because you like it! There are about 6 courses to play on (I’m not sure, I don’t remember honestly...six sounds about right), plus an additional 9 hole course composed of only par 3 holes. There are a LOT of modes to pick from, between speed golf, club slots, skins, character face-offs, coin gathering matches, and several mini-games to play, and that’s not even all. There’s always new records to set, as well–when are you going to get a hole in one? Don’t you wish you had an Eagle? Wanna complete your Birdie badge collection? Of course you do!

Multiplayer: 9.4/10
I’ll admit up front, I haven’t played with other people yet, so I can’t really rate this category fairly, but I can always change the rating after I do play with other people, should I think this is an unfair score. My reasoning again goes back to the first Mario Golf–while it could be fun to hit the links with a few buddies, sitting and waiting for your turn to come sometimes stunk. That’s the killer to TT’s Multiplayer score: having to wait so long for your turn. If you play with only two people, one-on-one, then you’ll be back in action fairly quickly, but three and four players begins to take a while.

Over-all: 9.4/10
Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour won’t just be fun for golfers–it’ll be fun if you like Mario, like arcade sports titles, or like a casual golf game to mess around on. The special courses are amazingly challenging and a lot of fun, while the normal courses can be very difficult to master. The characters are all different enough that you’ll probably want to try them all, and the four unlockable characters (yes, only four....and I know who they are!) will taunt you as you complete various tasks, then immediately check to see if you’ve gained any new golfers. The swing system never grows tiring, and it feels extremely good when you nail an approach shot and plunk that ball into the cup after a very long putt! We can only hope that the next one will include better voices, more courses, more characters, and a soundtrack cd. =)