ACA NEOGEO Big Tournament Golf

Genre: Sports (Golf)

Players: 1-2 Competitive (Local Alternating), Online Leaderboards

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Review:

Big Tournament Golf, also known as Neo Turf Masters, is a Golf game released in 1996 in arcades, on the NEOGEO home console, and on the NEOGEO CD, with multiple ports and re-releases later, with this game being one of the most-frequently ported games from the NEOGEO platform that isn’t a part of a larger franchise. This modern release sees the game coming to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch in 2017.

Being an arcade release, this is a rare example of a version of Golf that rushes the player, forcing them to make a shot within a limited amount of time or else penalizing them. Unlike the common “swing bar” that many Golf games incorporate, this game has players using two separate bars for the power and accuracy of their shots, which mostly works pretty well. What’s more, the visuals of this game have aged remarkably well, with bright, colorful visuals, fluid animation, and nice-looking water.

The problem is that this game does a terrible job indicating the distance your shot will go, not adjusting your shot’s predicted length when you change your club. This means that precision golfing is a crapshoot here, something that tarnishes the rest of the game.

This release of the game includes a new “Hi-Score Mode” that challenges players to score as much as they can in one run before seeing a game over screen. There is also a new “Caravan Mode” that does much the same, but with the limit being five minutes. In addition, this release of the game includes both English and Japanese versions, and gives players a decent array of options, including various display options, sound options, challenge modifiers, button mapping, and online leaderboards.

Without accurate shot prediction, I simply cannot see this as an adequate Golf game by today’s standards, and this really is a shame, since otherwise this game is mostly a pretty good game of Golf. As-is, you’re better off going with another Golf game.

tl;dr – Big Tournament Golf, also known as Neo Turf Masters, is a Golf game with a lot of elements that have aged well, and one that has absolutely not – the lack of an accurate indication of how far your shot will go. The result is a game that’s just not very playable by today’s standards.

Grade: C-

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