Mario Golf: World Tour is a solid mix of great controls, crisp, colorful visuals, great replay value due to its amount of unlockable content, and is ultimately just a flat out great experience. Chalk this one up as another great 3DS title you should add to your library.
It has been worth the wait, as Mario Golf: World Tour took that next step and brought us an outstanding online golf experience. The learning curve is steep, and there are some issues with the camera and aiming control, but working through them is worth it as the online play is outstanding.
Pros
-10 amazing courses + 6 also amazing DLC courses
-17 playable characters + 4 DLC characters
-Good looking graphics
-2 week long online tournaments (prior to 2019)
-4 player vs mode + private tourney mode
200 little challenges to collect Star/Moon coins + 120 DLC challenges
-Challenging Castle Club mode with endless replay value
-You can collect clothing with different stats for your mii to get better(Customization)
-Soundtracks are nice
-Good controls
-Power-ups which are new to the series and which can spice the game up a bit
Cons
-Story mode is short but also a bit hard to complete but there is still so much more to do in the castle club
-You can no longer save a video of a hole on which you got a Hole-In-One for example
-Near-pin mode was only playable in the online tourneys (prior to 2019)
Side note: You can choose a flag of your country in the game but strangely there are only the most well known countries available and the most unknown ones imo:p I just wanted to mention that lol.
Mario Golf on 3ds is my favorite handheld game. All of the courses are rad. There are "power ups" that you can use on your stroke that do a variety of things to your advantage. There is a definite sense of accomplishment when you knock in a birdie or an eagle under par. I've knocked in 5 "hole in ones" myself.
They money maker on this game is definitely the online tournaments. They are competitive and highly rewarding. This game is a must have for anyone looking to veg out with a nintendo 3ds.
World Tour does so much right and mixing it with the familiar Nintendo universe seals the deal. Anyone with a 3DS has yet another must-own title to pick up for the handheld.
So long as Nintendo can build a wide audience and keep its online courses fresh, World Tour should score high enough to move the series toward the next installment.
The natural comparison is with Everybody's Golf - which, of course, developer Camelot was responsible for in the first instance - and while the Vita game has, by a distance, the superior single-player structure, World Tour is more than a match for it in the quality of its courses and the breadth of its options.
As a guy whose passion for golf games lies mostly in powering through single-player tours and developing a character’s skills and playing style, Mario Golf: World Tour left me a little unsatisfied.
This inability to decide where World Tour lies among the many paths the series has taken previously is the game’s true problem. It demonstrates both why Camelot is so trusted by Nintendo, and why it has been stuck making sporting spinoffs for so long. Camelot seems unsure of whether it would prefer to be held by the hand or simply set free, and ends up putting the player in that same awkward middle ground.
I'm giving this game a ten out of ten because it delivers everything this game needed. The character roster is fantastic and the characters are given tons of personality all over the board. Plenty of courses with many designs with even more as DLC. A shortish but good single player campaign in the castle mode. A ton of collectible gear to acquire. This game was bright & colorful and full of charm. A perfect golf game.
This game is awesome. Just got it today Platinum Reward from Club Nintendo. The graphics look amazing. The controls are okay. The Character selection is good. The Courses are awesome. The tournaments are cool. The items are awesome. This game is the closest to a Mario Kart game because of the sounds. Mario Golf World Tour is a great game and it is worth buying/downloading.
I was pretty sure the game would be a tone down version of Mario Golf, from what I experienced with Mario Tennis Open, but I was wrong, and that's a good thing. There's lots of course variety, the gears are actually a better option than leveling up due to Online competitiveness and talking about Online, it is amazing all the options you have for Online play !
I still have some gripes about the game. First the graphics, while not being horrible, are subpar to Mario Golf : Toadstool Tour, a 2003/4 game. Second, for whatever the reason, Camelot inverted the blue/red colors for everything about the gameplay, like height difference, terrain leveling and even the +- lie percentage, it's very annoying for a long-time Mario Golf player like me.
Also, I didn't find how to preview spin shots. I think they removed that, which is a little stupid.
[Edit]
After more than a year now and close to two, I have to lower the score to 7 and rectify what I said about the Online Mode : The gear, while varied and numerous, is absolutely disastrous. At first I would have thought you would be able to change the ball height and spin : At the time I didn't have a lot of unlocked so I thought I didn't have it yet, but no. You only can balance distance for accuracy and if you hit the ball straight or not for a little more distance.
They also never fixed the annoying red/blue colors mess-up.
With the now released Mario Tennis Ultra Smash, I do feel like Camelot lost their touch
The gameplay is still fun and addictive, but Nintendo have strangely stripped away many of the RPG elements that made the previous game in the series so outstanding. Instead of seeing your character gradually level up their attributes to become a golfing master, all you get in this title is coins to purchase new equipment. The problem with this is that much of the new equipment comes down to preference without objectively improving your Mii (for instance, a new club may increase your drive distance but you will need to compromise some of your accuracy).
Another gripe of mine is the number of gimmicky power-ups like bombs and boomerangs needed to pull off impossible shots - give me more good old-fashioned normal golf any day. However, I must say that the online play is an excellent addition. There is a huge amount of content to unlock, but it isn't as deep as I hoped.
This is a tough one. It's obviously a well made game, but this doesn't stack up to the previous games in the series, nor more modern equivalents like Hot Shots Golf. I loved the old RPG like experience of Mario Golf games of the past. This game has literally none of that. The gear that you win, as rare as it is, largely doesn't effect your stats, and after the first few pieces, basically everything else is cosmetic. The gameplay itself is solid. If you are a single player, there just isn't enough content to justify a purchase at 30 bucks. There are only THREE main courses. This is absolutely pitiful. There are a couple different 9 holes for different challenges, but not enough to make up for the dismal lack of courses in the main game. Nintendo is going to charge us 15 extra bucks for another trio of courses, so it just feels like this game was either shipped out too soon or had the courses chopped off for the big N to test the DLC waters. It doesn't have any single player season or the like to keep you going. You play a practice round on the first course, play a handicap round, then the championship proper. Beat that, easy enough, then the next two courses are also pretty easy to best. I took the second course in two rounds and the third in a single round. The Princess Peach "challenges" only net you costumes and you seem to have to play practice rounds between each to get a new challenge to pop up. There is a new nine holes for a tough par 3 challenge where you are allowed 1 tee shot to get on the green and one putt to move on to the next hole. Hit it in the fairway/rough, challenge over. Miss the one putt, challenge over. If you have a Vita, Hot Shots Golf puts this one to shame in terms of content. The solid mechanics are largely the same in both games, so no issues there. If you can find the game at a nice discount, I'd consider it. Any other scenario, not really worth it unless you'll relentlessly play online matches and don't mind the complete lack of RPG elements or meaningful improvement through gear. It's an overall mediocre experience.
SummaryLuigi and his Mushroom Kingdom neighbors are teeing up once again in Mario Golf: World Tour. The Nintendo 3DS game includes both simple controls and a deeper experience for golf fans, plus courses that range from traditional to those inspired by the Mushroom Kingdom. The game launches this summer.