Golf for the People
If you were to ask any aging millennial to name their favorite childhood game, you’d get the usual set of responses. Ocarina of Time, Pokemon, maybe some would say something like Need for Speed Underground 2, if they live life a quarter mile at a time.
All fantastic games, and I enjoyed them as a kid, but there was another franchise that was part of my usual rotation alongside those certified classics: Hot Shots Golf.
I would tell the other kids at school about it and they’d look at me like I was a weirdo. They’d never heard of it. There’s no action, no super powers, no quest against ultimate evil. It wasn’t even one of the cool sports like football or baseball. Besides, golf is for old people. The youth are grinding boards with Tony the Hawk and slamming Capri Sun while trading Pokemon creatures. They ain’t got time for that geriatric stuff.
I could tell them about Hot Shots Golf until I was blue in the face, but they wouldn’t hear it, so today I’m here to set the record straight. Hot Shots Golf (specifically Fore!, the one I’m talking about) is a fantastic game that is simple to pick up and play and difficult to master. It uses its cartoony, fun exterior to get you to try it. It’s a fun little game with funny characters. It’s harmless. Next thing you know you’re calculating angles and predicting how the wind will affect your next shot, something dangerously close to a simulation.
Gameplay
Hot Shots Golf Fore! Is a golf game. You swing at the ball to try to get it in the hole in as few shots as possible. Swinging is done with a power bar: you press a button to start the swing, then press it again to set the amount of power you want to give it, then press it a third time to aim where you’re going to hit the ball. This simple interaction is what fuels the entirety of the gameplay. The thing that keeps it interesting is the overabundance of variables that affect every swing; things like the type of terrain your ball is on, the angle of the ground, the wind’s direction and speed, the ball’s spin, your character’s unique swing, and a mess of other things.
The game features different modes. There’s the regular tournament mode, where you play 18 holes and try to get a good score against CPU opponents. There’s Versus mode, where you go head-to-head against a computer controlled character in order to unlock them. If you’re having trouble with a particular course, you can go into training mode and retry each hole as much as you want. It also has a putting mode, where you can practice short, medium or long puts on different greens. If you want something a bit more laid back, you can also do mini golf in two nine-hole courses.
Along with that, there are a ton of collectibles to unlock; clubs, balls, courses, characters, alternate colors and caddies. It’s a very complete package with tons of features and content. There’s always something to work towards and a little reward after every round.
What do the numbers mean?
How does this game keep itself interesting when all you do is swing at the ball with one button? Like I alluded to earlier, it does it with a ton of different variables that affect each shot. You only control how much power to give each shot, which determines how far it will go. That’s the first layer. Based on the distance to your target, you adjust how hard you hit the ball.
The next layer is how you hit the ball. There’s a timing challenge to each shot, where you have to press the button at the little bar on the power meter. The bar represents the center of the ball. Hitting it there is a perfect shot, and the ball will go where you want it to. Hit it a little off to one side, and the ball will go in that direction. If you miss, the ball will fly off wildly off-course. If you have excellent control here, you can hit just off center to aim the ball a little more to the left or right.
The type of terrain you’re on also affects how the swing will behave. If it’s in the fairway (the part with the low grass), there’s not much to worry about. If it’s on anything else, like the rough or in a sand trap, a lot of the swing’s power will be lost. On top of that, there’s the slope of the terrain, which can make the ball tilt in a direction; the steeper the slope, the more it affects the trajectory.
All that stuff comes before the ball even leaves the ground. When it’s in the air, it’s another story. All those factors at the start affect how it flies, and while it’s in the air, it’s affected by the wind. It blows the ball in a direction, veering it off-course. How long it’s in the air is another factor; the longer it’s in the air, the more it will be affected by the wind. Hitting it with backspin sends it higher into the air, which makes it more susceptible to the wind.
Then there’s putting, which is a whole ‘nother can of worms. Here is where the ball’s physics really shine. Each green is a combination of different elevations that you have to calculate. The ball loses speed as it rolls on the ground. If it’s going slowly, it’s affected by slopes a lot more. If it’s going fast, it doesn’t lose as much energy to the slope.
This mess of complicated gibberish comes together to make an experience that’s interesting, engaging, and surprisingly intuitive. Sure, I made it sound like you need to take a semester of college-level physics to hit the ball in a children’s golf game, but that’s just at the start. When you don’t know what all the numbers mean or how they affect things, it’s a little confusing. Then, when you play for a while, it all becomes second nature. It works like you would expect in real life, which makes it easier to predict. After a few rounds, you’ll be able to look at all that information and decide how to hit the ball in a few seconds.
The different phases of the game make it easier to manage all this information, too. If you’re teeing off, you usually just hit it as hard as you can and aim for the fairway. The second shot is usually another approach; hit it hard and try to get it close to the green. Then you putt, which involves a lot of slopes and angles, and is probably the most complex part. You can simplify things down to some simple rules of thumb, but there are enough individual cases where you need to think and consider things. This gives the game a great range of depth; you can play it casually when you want, and when things get serious, like when you need to make a very specific shot, you have a ton of variables line up to get the perfect swing. It’s the kind of thing that makes it approachable and interesting to newcomers, and keeps you engaged in the long-term. Easy to learn, hard to master.
The different weather conditions make every match a different experience. There are four seasons, each with their own signature conditions. Spring is template, summer can be windy, fall is on the more difficult side and winter can bring extreme weather. The different conditions affect how the ball rolls on the ground, such as the ball rolling and bouncing less when it’s raining. You can play the same course multiple times, and get a slightly different experience every time, adding to the replayability.
These systems all feel good, too. It’s hard to explain, but when the ball lands and rolls, it feels like it rolls right. When it bounces, it doesn’t bounce too much or too little. The only thing I noticed that’s a bit off is how the slopes on the green affect putting a lot more than I think, which ends up with me under estimating how steep things are, but I’m pretty sure that’s a skill issue on my part. Putting is complicated, and it’s a testament to this game’s design that the putting alone could make for a fun game on its own.
Presentation
This mess of golf simulation physics is wrapped up in a warm blanket and presented to the player as a fun, relaxing experience. The music is soft and soothing. The courses are all pristine and full of details and personality. Mount Sakura takes place in the Japanese country side, with cicadas chirping in summer. The Hawaiian course is dotted with palm trees and hotel buildings, surrounded by beaches. You can hear the waves crashing, seagulls squawking and commercial airliners flying above carrying tourists. It’s an idyllic island paradise, and the umbrella in this tropical coconut drink is its summery soundtrack. Every course is memorable in its themeing and design.
There are little 2D people watching you golf, and they make comments as you play. When you make a good shot, they clap, when you miss, they groan, and they gasp in unison when you make that impossible shot. You can turn them off in the options menu, but why would you? They’re there to watch you.
The game’s graphics are impressive to this day. The courses look great, there’s excellent texture work on everything and it communicates information clearly. It’s easy to tell at a glance which part is the fairway and what you should avoid. You can also look around the course with free camera and admire the little details. The water in this game is the best looking water on the PS2, and probably still some of the best water effects ever.
The game has a dual art style that, in theory, should clash, but works in practice. The courses are realistic, but the characters are cartoony. This should look strange, with the characters sticking out like a sore thumb in the more subdued landscapes, but it manages to work thanks to some smart color use. The overall palette is subdued, with a lot of medium saturation green. The characters themselves have more realistic tones on them, with a few high-saturation accents on their clothes. This subtle color-matching makes them look like a coherent part of the world, even if their design styles are different.
The same amount of detail that was put into making the game’s physics went into the visual design, and it’s excellent. It’s a fantastically well-crafted product in every aspect. All these little details in the course also gives them a real sense of place. It distinguishes them visually and makes them feel like they’re real, thought-out places designed to entertain. I thought it looked great back in 2005, and I think it still looks great to this day.
I’ve always liked how cozy this game is. Trying to make the perfect shot might get stressful every now and then, and trying to read a complicated green takes some effort, but the game overall is very easy-going. The soundtrack is laid back and slow. The dated synths give it a nice air of nostalgia. The gameplay is tough enough to keep me engaged, but nice and slow enough to not be stressful. The soundscape is nice, too, with a lot of wind rushing, the satisfying thwack of the ball getting sent flying. It’s a great game to play at the end of a long day while drinking a nice cup of tea.
Drinking tea and playing golf? God, I really am getting old.
Everybody’s Golf
In Japan, this game is known as Minna No Golf, Everybody’s Golf. It was developed by Clap Hanz, part of Sony’s legendary Japan Studio, which gave us incredible games like Ape Escape, Parappa, Jumping Flash! and Gran Turismo. Franchises that helped shape the PlayStation’s early library. This is a slight aside, but closing Japan Studio is one of the worst decisions ever made in gaming history the main reason why I dislike modern day Sony. Whoever said “Yeah, we should close down the studio responsible for Ape Escape” deserves a prison sentence.
Back on topic, the name isn’t the only difference between the American and Japanese versions of the game. The character rosters are very different, and always have been. The Japanese versions of the franchise have always opted for more anime-esque, cutesy designs while the American version has more zany, cartoony designs.
The game’s cover is an excellent example of this. The American version is a wacky, high-energy illustration. The ball’s bouncing all over the place, there are two radical characters far in the background. The guy responsible for this out of control ball is a totally gnarly dude In a black beanie. You just know he skateboards and calls his dad by his first name. There’s a huge nerd on the ground measuring the distance to the hole for some reason. You don’t even have to hear him to know he sounds like professor Frink. He’s most likely calculating some vector or something. Probably sounds like me during the gameplay explanation in this review.
Then there’s the Japanese box art, where there’s a cute anime girl swinging away without a care in the world. The sky is impossibly blue, the sun is out, and everything is just fine. She’s just happy to be there, and you, the player, will feel that same sense of peace and relaxation if you play this game. This state of bliss is only attainable through Minna No Golf 4.
The characters are different, too, like I said earlier. A lot of them are direct model swaps; they look different, but they have the same stats and general personality. The Japanese version has Aya as one of the default characters. She’s a 16 year old girl with a bubbly personality (she’s the one on the cover). The US version gets Phoebe, a 16 year old girl with a bubbly personality, but she’s a cheerleader. Same stats, same animations and win poses, but their lines are different. Phoebe’s lines are more jokey, making comments like “I’m gonna be 30 some day” when she loses. Other characters are like this in the American version, where they’re made to be edgier or more outrageous. A perfect example of this is Nina/Renee. Nina, in the Japanese version, looks like a business lady. For the American version, they gave her glasses, cleavage and pushed the sexy secretary angle.
Then there’s Sophie, the US exclusive caddy who is just a sexy maid. I remember once I played this game with my dad, and I picked Sophie as the caddie. He kind of squinted at the TV and said “Pick someone else” in a very neutral tone. I asked him why, and he just said “That one’s a little… weird”. I picked another one and we played like normal. Years later I revisited the game for old times’ sake, unlocked her, remembered that moment and thought “Oh. That’s what he meant”.
Things get even more confusing when you include the Korean version. It has the America/Europe exclusive characters Jak and Ratchet, but it also keeps some Japanese characters, so it’s a mix of both, but in the previous game, Hot Shots Golf 3, the Korean versions is the same as the American version. Same box art and everything.
The discussion of who has the most appealing art style goes out the window when I discuss my favorite characters: Mel and Suzuki, two old men. Mel has been around since the second game (which had Gex as a playable character) and he’s been my go-to since. Suzuki is a regular middle-aged Japanese man who golfs for fun. His alternate outfit is what won me over, he’s a visibly drunk salary man with his tie around his head. I can picture him going down to the local golf course to play a few rounds after knocking back a few too many Sapporo premiums. Then he gets kicked out for being drunk and disorderly. Dude knows how to party.
I don’t know why they would go through all the trouble of making two different character rosters for each version. According to the Hotshots Golf wiki, it was done to appeal to Western tastes. I grew up with the American version, and like those characters even if they’re kind of ugly, but they have their charm. I like the Japanese characters, too. A great compromise would be to have both in the game and have them be selectable versions. I always thought this was an interesting detail, and I never get to talk about this game.
Every character is fun and full of personality. They each have their own unique win poses, quotes, comments and two different outfits, along with unique stats. Some are good with straight shots, some tend to curve one way, others do well in sand traps.
Conclusion
I highly recommend Hotshots Golf Fore! And the rest of the series, too. They’re all great games. The fourth entry brings a ton of great mechanics and it feels good to play thanks to its finely tuned physics. Every shot feels different thanks to the complicated web of interactions everything has with each other. It looks like a simple game on the surface, but once you dig a little deeper, you’ll realize they managed to sneak in a full-featured golf simulation.
One of the things that impresses me the most is how wind affects shots. This might sound basic. Sure, if the ball is in the air, it’s going to be affected by the wind, but the way this works shows just how deep the rabbit hole goes. The more the ball is in the air, the more it’s affected, which means if you hit it with backspin, it goes higher, thus the wind carries it further. You can use this to your advantage by smacking the ball really high and letting the wind take it where you need it to go. If it’s blowing towards you, it can slow the ball down significantly, which you can use to your advantage by making lobbing the ball high up and letting the wind halt its momentum so it lands without rolling too much.
It’s tiny little things like that that make me go “No way they actually considered that”. There are also some small, wacky touches, like how you can skip the ball on the water’s surface with the right angle, letting you set up crazy trick shots, or how the ball will catch fire and roll backwards if you give it enough backspin.
I’m excited for the new one they announced recently (as of writing this), Everybody’s Golf: Hot Shots. They announced it during the presentation for the Switch 2, and this was one the thing that caught my eye. Forget the console, I want me some more golf! I’m not to keen on the new graphics, I still think the old games look better, but I’m willing to give it a shot. This game is a lot like Super Monkey Ball, where the finely tuned physics make or break it, and any alteration can be disastrous, but I’m cautiously optimistic about it. Modern games have taught me not to get too excited.
But this is about Fore, not the new one. The new one will get its own review when it’s out.
It’s easy enough to get into that anyone can play, but it has enough depth to keep you going, which is why I loved it as a kid, and still love it now as a decrepit old man.
If anything, I should like it more now, since I’m in the target demographic.
Had this exact experience with Ace Golf on the GameCube. Everyone was going crazy for Super Mario Sunshine, but it was the cutesy golf game that was the real system seller for me. It was the first game I bought.
Everything you described here happened to me but with "Anna Kournikova's Smash Court Tennis". While my friends were all playing Age of Empires 2 on PC, I was really engaged in that silly tennis game, and no one wanted to play because... "come on, it's a tennis game". "Yeah, but you can replace the ball with a grenade!" I would say.
Good memories. I need to replay that, and maybe try this golf game that I never bothered with, because I admit I was one of those who would say "it's a golf game... who wants to play a golf game?"