Introduction:

Welcome to the World of Mario Golf, where golf balls are tortured to an unimaginable extent. Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour is the only golf title where you’ll find warp pipes magically teleporting your ball from one place to the other, Chain-Chomps making your golf lies difficult, and of course, Camelot Software’s creative magic shining upon the development of this very different sports title. A sequel that was created based on the original Mario Golf for the Nintendo 64; Toadstool Tour is one of the most well balanced golf titles ever made, because of how it was made. Camelot Software Planning, the former and current team behind the Mario Tennis and Golden Sun series, certainly had a tough job attempting at raising the bar even more, when Mario Golf for the Nintendo 64 had already raised it high enough. Would they be able to keep the attention away from EA’s Tiger Woods and company? The outcome, especially for Mario Golf veterans, will surprise you.

A Mario Golf veteran myself, I was eager to find out the newest modes and additions to this golfing dream. Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour improves on several marks such as adding an Auto-Swing for beginners, as well as making the traditional Manual Swing even more expansive with button configurations designed for adding even more backspin or topspin to the ball’s landing. The game also now includes traditional courses, also called “resort” courses, to give golfers that casual, yet comfortable experience when playing golf. The fantasy courses in the game now also include several new elements, including Chain-Chomps, designed to keep your ball from landing where you want it, and Warp-Pipes, which are used to teleport your ball to another Warp-Pipe should you choose to follow that path. These are just some of the new additions that you will face in Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour. Even sometimes drastic, you’ll be amazed at how balanced the game still is.

Gameplay:

Camelot Software’s first project long ago for the original Playstation probably sparked the genius minds into making the Mario Golf series in the first place. Hot Shots Golf, a title similar to the mechanics, look, and even balance to that in Mario Golf could be called the backbone to Camelot’s future successes. As in the Nintendo 64 version of Mario Golf, Toadstool Tour continues striving for success with its already proven, award-winning game engine with many features. These features, which are actually several steps ahead of those seen in the previous Mario Golf, gives this game more freedom, where anything can happen. As always, players can still choose the recognizable Mario Golf characters from the original with the addition of a few others such as Koopa, Birdo, Diddy Kong, and Waluigi. As always, this title screams “color” with its lush eye-candy. Starting up Toadstool Tour for the first time, you’ll notice the crisp, outstanding full-motion video sequence, which showcases the game’s main characters as they head out for a golf round that one is ensured to remember. Combined with the classic Nintendo comedy, the video showcases that suttee, happy-go-lucky feel, which is certainly necessary for a golf title.

The modes of play in Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour are plentiful, with their emphasis on creativity:

First off, the training mode helps beginners learn the game, and encourages them to master it. It’s certainly a necessary addition to what seems to be a complicated game at first.

The “Side Games” mode contains several mini-challenges, most of which take your golf skill to the max. Can you score two eagles in one round?

Near Pin challenges focus on how close gamers can get the ball to the actual hole on the green. Usually, mastering this mode requires the need for some Mathamatical calculations, taking into effect wind speed, lie, elevation, slope and of course, distance.

Coin Shoot asks players to have their golf ball hits the most coins during every hole, usually which are floating in mid-air or lying on the green.

Speed Golf speaks for itself – get your ball inside the hole faster than everyone else.

The Ring Attack mode, first seen in the original, pits players to aim their golf ball towards gold rings, which will eventually make them disappear. Once doing this, they must hole their ball. The only twist is that you must direct your shots, giving your next swing the proper angle to make it into these rings.

The Skins Match pits two or four players to win a hole by earning the least strokes on it. If they earn the lowest score, they receive a point, if tied with another player, that point gets transferred to the next hole and so on. The golfer with the most points at the end wins.

Club Slots forces players to play on every swing, clubs which are randomly chosen by slots. This varying mode is a challenging one, since you must plan ahead of your shots for the worst.

As always in Stroke Play, the golfer with the least strokes wins.

Doubles mode pits two players (both human or mixed with computer AI) in a team against another team of two.

In Character Match, gamers must choose the golfer of their choice to compete against a familiar or sometimes mystery opponent. Beating a mystery opponent may sometimes unlock them – which increases playability.

The Tournament Mode is required for players to unlock all the various courses in the game, aside from the ones already acquired when playing the game for the first time.

The slow start of the Tournament Mode in the game is very necessary. The mode starts off slow and easy, and it will take five tournaments before you can unlock the real “fantasy” golf courses with those Mario-themed additions. The reason for this is probably for the difficulty of the game. Forcing players to play the game immediately introducing all these new elements may tarnish their way of playing the game. Of course, learning the basics first is important. Once the fifth tournament, Peach’s Invitational is opened, gamers will find those distinct elements, which made Mario Golf famous for in the first place, Mario-styled elements. The simple shortcut of the warp-pipe proves difficult at times. Miscalculating your ball from landing into the pipe might give it an even worse lie, forcing you to pitch away from the actual pipe. However, if that ball does go in, the rewards are endless – saving 100 yards is certainly a plus. As the tournaments start getting more difficult, lava, Piranha Plants and Chain Chomps soon become a problem. These obstacles make the “out of bounds” text appear quite often on your screen. Still, the action only really starts to pick up once these courses are accessed, especially for Mario Golf fans such as myself who are already knowledgeable about the game’s basic elements.