Figured I'd make a thread about my current obsession. This is the latest Mario Golf on the 3DS. I missed out on the GBA game(s? Was there more than one?) and people are disappointed that this new game doesn't have the RPG aspect to it. Since I didn't experience that I don't miss it. Last MG I played was Toadstool Tour on the Gamecube and that game was pretty awesome, especially in multiplayer.
I guess I'll start with the multiplayer. World Tour has online multiplayer that works quite well, even for me. You can do some matchmaking and join a random group of 4, you can create a friends only room and play with just friends, or you can join the tournaments both official and community run. When playing in your small groups it depends on who sets up the game but you can either take turns or everyone can play simultaneously to speed things along (you just see their ball fly and land as you play).
Tournaments are really fun to compete in. The official tournaments update every week or two and you can earn new custom gear (I'll get to this) just from playing. You can run and re-run the course as much as you like within the time period to get the best score you can. You can earn trophies from your ranking, with something like the top 60% earning bronze and I don't know the breakdown for earning silver or gold. Earning trophies also unlocks gear I believe.
Custom tournaments lets players create their own, with their own rules. 18 holes, 9 holes, 6 holes? Coins or no? Weak wind or strong wind? Stroke play, points play, etc? You have a lot of options to customize, even restricting which characters players are allowed to use. So maybe you want to do a coin collecting game with only Bowser in the DK Jungle course? Totally. You can leave these tournaments open to the public and can browse for the from within the game, or you can keep them private and share a special code just with the people you want to join. You can earn coins from these tournaments but not gear like the official ones.
So plenty to play just from that. Though there are some problems. Communication during a match is simple emotes, which I like. But there is no way to contact other players outside the match, even friends. You can't even see when a friend is also playing MG online and go "Hey, want to play a round?" So if you want to play live against someone you have to set it all up using outside communication. IRC has worked for this for us but that must be a big pain for everyone else. You also have to have unlocked the same courses as other people to be able to play them together (I believe official tournaments let you play even if you haven't unlocked the course). It isn't super hard to do, but it isn't entirely obvious what you need to do. It also means if you want to run the DLC courses then everyone has to own the DLC.
So singleplayer at first seems rather limited. You use your Mii and are in the Castle Club. There are three 18 hole courses you can play but only one has a tournament you can join (the others are just practice). Win the tournament on that first course and it unlocks the tournament on the next. After the 3rd tournament you are the champion! Roll credits! Thankfully thats not actually all. To the side is the garden courses where you can play the Mario themed courses you've unlocked, often with a challenge to unlock costumes for your Mii. There are accuracy challenges for driving, approaching, and putting. And at the far end there is the Sky Island challenge where you have 9 holes and only have one on, one putt to beat each hole. You have to do all 9 in a row and any miss will send you back to the start. I'm still working on this one.
As you play you will earn coins and unlock gear in the in-game shop. These will be different shirts, pants, outfits, clubs, balls, hats, gloves, and shoes that you can mix and match for your Mii to wear. They also have different properties that might add 5 yards to your drive but shrink your sweet spot. You unlock a lot of things in the shop pretty quickly and can spend your coins obtaining them to wear. When you go to put them on however you'll see a LOT more of each item type to unlock. I imagine these are the ones we get from the online tournaments so Nintendo must have quite a few planned.
So for me the thing that got me hooked are the star coin challenges. In this mode there are several challenges you must complete, each one earning you a star coin. Challenges include collecting the star coin from an odd location and still completing the hole with par, sending the ball through a series of rings and still earning par, collecting a certain number of coins over 3 holes of the course, earning a minimum number of points while a slot machine selects your available clubs, speedrunning 3 holes under a time limit, and winning more holes vs a Nintendo character. You have all these for every course in the game! This is actually how you unlock the secret characters and Mario themed 9 hole courses, by earning enough star coins. Once you earn 90 star coins you then unlock the moon coin challenges which are even harder. So if you get hooked on this mode there is plenty to do. I believe there are 140 total star coins and moon coins to collect. 280 challenges!
The DLC has been pretty good so far. I think the 3rd pack unlocks this week or next. DLC adds 18 hole courses and new characters. The courses even come with more star/moon coin challenges! Considering the game retails for only $30, and the DLC is $15 for all the DLC...its not a bad deal at all. I usually have buyers remorse just after buying a game and this one was no different. I was thinking "Man, its just golf! You're going to get tired of this in 3 days." But I've put a ton of time into it already and have a long way to go before I quit. The challenges are great to just pick up and try one when you have a few moments to kill in the day. There is a pretty decent demo for it on the eshop if you are interested in trying it out. I recommend it.
Also now I can use this thread to share tournament codes.
