The Golf

Genre: Sports (Golf)

Players: 1-4 Competitive (Local Alternating)

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Review:

The Golf is, as the title indicates, a Golf game, with options for both motion controls using the Joy-Con controllers, as well as more traditional golf controls. The game features cartoony characters similar to the Everybody’s Golf / Hot Shots Golf series.

Speaking of those characters… they are horribly ugly, with terrible animations and freakish-looking faces, and they play on courses with terrible resolution and framerates (there’s an option to choose Performance or Graphics in the settings menus, but neither of these options makes for anything resembling a good presentation). This is paired with a game that’s largely devoid of sound or music save for fanfare after taking a shot, and an annoying announcer.

As for the gameplay, the motion control here is terrible, relying on a confusing control setup that requires the use of the L&R buttons and the Joy-Con’s SR button. However, even when you get used to the bizarre set-up, the actual motion detection isn’t much better – I never, not once, felt that this game properly detected my motion through an entire swing, frequently cutting out and resulting in a choppy movement in my character that did not feel like it mimicked my movements (or the movements of anything not created by an other-dimensional elder god). Suffice it to say, if you play this game, you will want to do so using the traditional controls.

How are those traditional controls? Eh, they get the job done, but there’s nothing at all special about them, no nuance or charm. It’s the same system you’ve seen in a million golf videogames, with nothing significant added.

In short, The Golf is a miserable Golf game. It’s ugly, it sounds bad, the traditional controls are uninspired and uninteresting, and the motion controls are broken beyond all hope of salvation. If you absolutely need a golf game on the Switch, I suppose you can play this game with traditional controls, but… why? There’s simply no reason to bother with this game even if you are a huge golf fan.

tl;dr – The Golf is a Golf game that allows players to choose traditional controls or use the Joy-Con for motion controls… but the traditional controls are uninspired and boring, and the motion controls are about as broken as motion controls get. Add to that an absolutely terrible presentation, and you have a game that’s simply not worth playing.

Grade: D-

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