Genre: Sports
Developer: Camelot Software Planning
Publisher: Nintendo
# of Players: 1-4
Memory: 13 blocks
ERSB: Everyone
Released On: July 28, 2003
Also On: None
Features: Progressive Scan, Dolby Pro Logic II, GCN/GBA Link
Website: http://www.mario-golf.com
Even though his reign as the supreme video game icon has lost steam over the years, Super Mario lives and continues to thrive. There are so many things that can be said about this fat, yet loveable Italian plumber, but chances are you’ve heard it all before. Super Mario is such a large icon that his face and “M” stamped red cap are recognizable around the globe. His games have broken boundaries, and have even revolutionized the way all modern and future titles play. Of course, with a massive icon such as Super Mario, and as well as Nintendo’s other huge property Pokemon, it’s a wise move for an industry giant such as Nintendo to capitalize upon the success of its well established mascots, and so they have done for over fifteen years. Whether it’s tennis, kart racing, golf, puzzle games, or any other possible video game genre you can imagine, Mario has been there as not only Nintendo’s key marketing tool, but also as a guaranteed seal of quality, insuring us all that anything Mario is something to keep an eye on.
As they return to the field of Mario Sports, Camelot Software Planning (Nintendo’s favorite exclusive third party developer) has stepped up to the tee to deliver their second installment in Nintendo’s Mario Golf series of games with Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour. With roots going back as early as the PlayStation days with the very first Hot Shots Golf, Camelot has proven time and time again that no one can do Golf better.
Presentation:
“The Nintendo Charm” is something Nintendo fans know and love, and which others find hard to understand. This “charm” is practically consistent with any game featuring Nintendo’s mustachioed mascot, giving Nintendo fans ever more the reason to get their hands on every game with Mario’s name slapped on it. It’s very difficult to describe this “charm.” You could say it’s as if cuteness and fun were tossed into a melting pot and poured out into your Nintendo platform of choice. With Camelot’s first Mario Golf title for the Nintendo 64, what the developer managed to do was deliver an incredibly fun gaming experience. However, it lacked that special charm featured in such games as Mario Kart 64 and Super Mario 64. Camelot’s main goal with the GameCube sequel was to make up for what the original lacked. Luckily, I’m very pleased to tell you all that the “Nintendo Charm” is alive and well in Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour, even more so than EAD’s Super Mario Sunshine. The Mario Universe, the colorful characters (Mario, Diddy & Donkey Kong, Luigi, Peach, Waluigi, Wario, Bowser, Yoshi, etc…), everything in Toadstool Tour, despite being a golf game, delivers the same amazing feeling gamers get when playing classics such as Mario Kart 64 and you’ll love every second of it…
Gameplay:
Camelot has a strong history with arcade inspired golf titles, starting with the original Hot Shots Golf years ago on the Sony PlayStation. From then on, the way golf titles were perceived by the gaming public seemed to change. The reason for that was because Camelot found a way to make golf fun. Call me biased, but in my honest opinion the professional sport of Golf is the most boring showcase of athleticism on this planet, and nothing will ever change my opinion on that. However, golf based videogames such as Hot Shots Golf and its successors can easily cause a video game golf addiction that cannot be understood fully until you actually get your hands on one of Camelot’s titles. Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour is the perfect example of an addicting and time consuming golf game.
“Control! Control! You must learn CONTROL!” – Jedi Master Yoda from the Empire Strikes Back
Toadstool Tour’s strong point is its simplicity. It’s very easy to become adjusted to how the game plays, and for those who spent countless hours with the Nintendo 64 original, playing Toadstool Tour will feel like second nature. When performing a drive (or any other swing) a bar will be displayed at the bottom of the screen. Press either A or B (for a “Power Shot”) once, and a blue meter will begin to move from left to right. Depending on the distance you want to hit the ball, and the type of club your player wields (which can be changed from the suggested club by pressing Up or Down on the Control Stick), an onscreen avatar of Mario will be placed at the end point (which changes depending on the mentioned situations). From there you can further adjust the distance with the use of the L and R triggers by moving a marker within the Mario barrier. As this blue meter moves within the designated area, your key objective would be stopping it right on the marker for a “NICE SHOT”. However, there’s even more to it. You have the option to press A, B or a combination of the two for further accuracy when coming in contact with the ball on the fly. Pressing A will cause the CPU to perform an “Auto” shot, which can be random in terms of accuracy (ideal for beginners). Pressing B will put the accuracy of your shot further more into your hands, and after a short while will become your option of choice. More advanced players will also learn to use the A and B buttons in cohesion, since pressing these buttons in quick combinations (such as AB, BA, AA, and BB) will cause the ball to perform TopSpins, BackSpins, Super TopSpins, and (You guessed it!) Super BackSpins.
After reading all that, you may be thinking “That doesn’t sound simple at all!” At first, it will seem a bit overwhelming and demanding for a golf game, but it’s very easy to adjust the moment you begin to play.
When on one of the game’s many courses, you must take into consideration all the conditions which can affect the accuracy of your shot and performance. Wind, hills, trees, sand bunkers and many of the other obstacles found in the game, such as Chain Chomps and Warp Pipes, are some of the many factors that one must take into consideration. They can cause the ball to land somewhere where you never intended for it to go, which can at times be a good or a bad thing. In earlier tournaments, you won’t find yourself having too much trouble with the courses because it isn’t until you unlock later courses, such as the “Peach Invitational”, that you’ll find yourself stumbling across the field, watching your ball get thrown out of bounds by Chain Chomps or sent backwards 40 yards by a missed Warp Pipe shot. Of course, wind is the most menacing factor, something which caused me to falsely claim that “This game f@#king sucks!” on many, many, and I mean many occasions.
Drastically improving over its predecessor, Toadstool Tour features a nice selection of gameplay modes, which are the following:
Training – This is where the game lays down all the basics for you. However, I know for a fact that most gamers would rather ignore any type of tutorial and learn things the hard way. It’s not stupidity or anything like that, it’s just human nature. Tournament – Easily one of the most time consuming and entertaining gameplay modes featured in Toadstool Tour. Tournament mode starts off at a slow pace, as you compete on greens that don’t feature much of a challenge, easily allowing you to climb the rankings. But as you win more trophies and unlock new “Cups”, the challenge grows, as well as your urge to toss you GameCube out the window. Character Match – Character Match is a very interesting gameplay mode. After you choose your character, you then choose an opponent to face off against in head to head competition. Often, some characters
(on the character select screen) will have an envelope on top of their avatar. Inside this envelope is their invitation for their defeat (or your impending victory). However, once you kick their arses across 18 holes of your choice, you will unlock a special “Star” Character, which in an RPG-sense is a leveled up, more efficient player. Stroke Play & Doubles – Stroke Play matches are often my multiplayer match of choosing. What you do is compete against an opponent across a specific course’s 18 holes. When finished with all 18 holes whoever has the least score is victorious. Simple as that… And for those who unfortunately only have one GameCube controller, don’t fret. Multiplayer is still available for play. The only catch is that you and your human opponent have to take turns with the controller. Doubles is basically the same concept except this time you’re basically in a tag team match against another two competitors. Club Shots – If you like to get pissed off then this is the gameplay mode for you. Club Shots puts you on a course with the goal in mind of sinking the ball. That’s basically the basis of golf isn’t it? Yes, it is however in Club Shots the clubs you use to swing is randomly selected by a slot machine and trust me when I say putting on a Par 5 your first swing is a nightmare. Ring Attack & Coin Shoot – It seems that Camelot really wanted to jack up the replay value of Toadstool Tour with difficult game modes. Well, they’ve succeeded and (luckily) since the game is extremely fun you’ll keep coming back until you’ve completed and unlocked everything in the game. In Ring Attack it’s your goal to hit the ball between rings which most of the time are placed up high, and depending on the placement of these rings, weather conditions, and obstacles, you’ll have to take each swing with consideration of where you ball will end up next. Coin Shoot requires for players to collect as many rings as possible on each hole, coins which are often place in the sky or one the green. Speed Golf – Pretty self explanatory. Speed Golf is like Stroke Play except you have to sink the ball in the fastest time possible. Skins Match – Skins Match is similar to Stroke Play. In Skins you’re goal is to sink the ball in the least strokes possible. Whoever has the least at the end of each round, earns one point. Whoever has the most points at the end of the competition wins. Pin Challenge – Pin Challenge is an interesting gameplay mode. The point of the mode is to see who can get the ball closest to the actual hole on the green, on the first drive. Like the normal game, weather conditions and obstacles must be taken into consideration for the closest shot. The Side Games – The Side Games featured in Toadstool Tour are just a bunch of tasks that the game throws at you. You can pretty much assume that these “tasks” will be incredibly difficult to accomplish. Why? Performing one Eagle is near impossible, let alone two. Everything is sounding pretty good isn’t it? It should be. But what’s there to complain about in Toadstool Tour? Aside from the exclusion of the Miniature Golf gameplay mode featured in the Nintendo 64 original there isn’t much one can complain about. Well, except for the game’s camera. Most of the time the camera is well placed. However, when toying around with the placement of your shots, and zooming in and out with the C-Stick, you may get lost in a forest of trees or a mountain side. It isn’t anything that hurts the game much, if at all. Just a minor nuisance.
In the end, Toadstool Tour is by far the most enjoyable golf game on the Nintendo GameCube. Many will compare it to Electronic Art’s Tiger Woods’ games in terms of depth, but when it comes to the “fun factor”, Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour is in a league of its own. You’ll be hooked from the moment you turn on that GameCube and who knows when the effect will wear off, because right now it seems like it never will.
Graphics:
It’s colorful. It’s cute. It’s so Mario.
Camelot’s Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour, like most Nintendo published GameCube titles, isn’t too flashy in terms of visuals or graphics. The character models in the game animate and are all modeled extremely well. These characters are practically perfect renditions of all your favorite Mario Universe characters, and most look better than they do in their own solo GameCube adventures. The courses themselves are also nice, and that’s just about it… nice. The trees that clutter the courses are about as realistic as they get in a golf game, and the grass looks great until you get a close-up, but when you look away from the confines of the golf course, and try to take in the game’s backdrops, you’ll notice that it’s just painted scenery, and that my friends isn’t too impressive. As for those neat graphical effects that we game reviewers like to emphasize upon in less impressive games (graphically), Mario Golf features a nice array of them, such as great lighting, cool particle effects (the way grass sticks to your club when swinging in the rough), and nicely rendered water obstacles. Lastly, the framerate… It’s solid and that’s one thing you can always expect from a Nintendo published GameCube game. Although, at times it can stutter a bit, but that’s only when the ball sails across a forest of trees, with all these pointless transparency effects going on.
In a nutshell, Toadstool Tour hardly showcases the power of the GameCube, although it’s not a bad looking game by any means, just the unfortunate standard fare.
Sound:
The audio portion of Toadstool Tour is just great. Most of the tunes found in the game are remixes of classic Super Mario Bros. themes, and at others times you’ll come across original compositions that bring back memories of playing Mario Kart 64 (since it practically delivers the same feel). Camelot has also done an excellent job of re-creating the “sounds of golf” in Toadstool Tour. Everything sounds as it should, with my personal favorite being the loud “thud” of the ball crashing into a sand bunker. However, the icing on the cake is the voice acting (or the lack thereof). Charles Martinet and the rest of Nintendo’s voice acting crew are back, as they grace Toadstool Tour with their hysterical bleeps, blurbs, and short one-liners, giving so much life to each and every one of the game’s characters. This voice work is just so excellent, that whenever Mario performs a drive, I’ll scream out that “Wahaa!” right alongside him.
There isn’t a Mario game to date that features a soundtrack that isn’t fitting, that isn’t just right, for its atmosphere. Toadstool Tour continues that age old tradition…
Final Thoughts:
Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour is a game that every GameCube owner should include in his or her collection. Golf has never been more fun than it is in Toadstool Tour. The loveable characters, the addicting gameplay, and its potential for intense, yet fun multiplayer matches are just some of the many reasons to own the game.
GamersMark.com reviewed this game with a copy of the title purchased from retail
