Golfinite

Genre: Sports (Golf)

Players: 1

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Review:

Golfinite is a family-friendly Golf game released on PC and Nintendo Switch in 2024. This game has players teeing off in courses with odd hazards like wormholes and aggressive turtles.

The presentation in Golfinite makes use of a pixel art presentation that is evocative of the early days of the genre, with the look of the game’s courses very reminiscent of the overhead view of games like Mario Golf on Game Boy Color (though there’s nothing comparable to that game’s “over the shoulder” view). This is paired with a lighthearted chiptune soundtrack that oddly reminded me of themes from, of all things, Secret of Mana. In the end, this works, though this game’s presentation definitely feels like it’s borrowing a lot of its identity from other games rather than establishing a strong identity of its own.

When it comes to the gameplay, Golfinite starts with a pretty traditional Golf gameplay foundation – you have the shot predictor saying where it expects the ball to go, the power/accuracy bar you have to time two presses to in order to determine where your shot will land, and even arrow indicators on the green showing how the curves of the ground will affect your putt.

However, as I indicated above, this game does add some kooky other elements to try to make the game more interesting. Power-ups you can earn by spending in-game coins are a nice touch, but I’m less thrilled with the stuff like wormholes, as you can’t really predict how they will mess with your ball.

The game does also have a RPG-style leveling system to gradually increase your capabilities, but unfortunately whenever you upgrade your shot power, you lose so much accuracy and skill in other categories that players will quickly find their others skills getting pretty bad if they focus only on that skill, and players wanting to build their character as an all-rounder will find that properly balancing all of the skills makes progress slow to a miserable pace.

However, even worse than this is the way the game handles your overall progression, since there are only four courses with eighteen holes each, the game drags these out by forcing players to play a series of golfing-themed challenges to earn the right to compete in tournaments on each course, which is tedious and frustrating when you’re looking to actually progress through a golf career by, you know, golfing.

It’s frustrating to see all these unforced errors and flat-out garbage piled on top of what is otherwise a solid Golf game, and the game’s standard price of $13 is absurd when Golf Story does the same thing this game aims for in a far better way. Of course, this is one of those cases where this game is sure to be discounted down to $2 every few weeks, and I suppose at that price, it’s probably worth it, but I still have to knock it for the deceptive pricing.

In the end, I think Golfinite has some good qualities that are marred by some bad ones. This is still an enjoyable Golf game, but it seems to be trying hard to make the experience an unenjoyable one, and I don’t know why any game would do that when there are multiple other good ones on the Nintendo Switch. Unless you catch this game on sale for $2, stick with those other games.

tl;dr – Golfinite a family-friendly Golf game that features courses with odd obstacles like wormholes and angry turtles. It’s a fun premise that’s built on top of solid Golf gameplay, but unfortunately this game adds so many barriers to enjoy it that it dulls the experience, from a terrible RPG-style progression system to the requirement to play multiple Golf minigames before you’re allowed to compete in the game’s campaign. Add to that a $13 price tag that’s asking far more than this game is worth, and this is a game Golf enthusiasts will want to avoid unless they catch it on a good sale.

Grade: C+

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