NES Open Tournament Golf
System: NES
Release Date: September 15, 1991
Developer: Nintendo Research & Development 2
Publisher: Nintendo
Genre: Sports
Prove that you can come in with the lowest score in NES Open Tournament Golf! It’s time for Mario to begin his sports career after getting his feet wet in plumbing, construction, refereeing, and medicine. You’ll be taking part in the sport of business tycoons, young drunks, and old drunks. There are three courses for you to master while you try to amass the biggest hoard of prize money. How good are you?
You’ve got your choice of stroke play, match play, or a tournament. The clubhouse lets you name your profile and change the names of the people you face in the tournament. You can also set some defaults. When you choose a tournament, it can be stroke or match play. Then you choose to play 18 or 36 holes, and finally which course. I tried all three choices from the US, Japan, and UK.
When you make it to the first hole, you get an overhead view of the… hole. Is there a better term to use here? I’m not a golfer. Here you aim and choose your club. You actually get a bunch of choices, like the speed of your swing, which changes the distance of each club, but also alters how easy it is to hit the sweet spot. You can also give it top or back spin if you’re into that.
Here we have a three click swing as is expected from a golf game. You set your power, then the accuracy. The sweet spot is smaller with woods and bigger with wedges. NES Open is another example of not knowing how far obstacles on the course are from you. This makes gauging how strong you need to swing all guesswork. I mean, I guess you do this to add replayability. If I mastered the courses right away because I had information, I might not keep playing. Or maybe I’d play more…
Luckily, the slopes of the green are clearly marked. This makes putting easier, but certainly not easy. Getting just the right aim and power of your shot is a game in itself. Heck, getting on the green can be a pain in the butt, as I learned when I kept hopping over with wedge shots that were just too hard. Playing straight, I ended in the bottom of the first two courses, but with liberal use of time travel, I killed it on the UK holes with a -15. That earned me fifteen grand, as opposed to $500 for coming in last.
Graphics: 2.0
I’m going to say this is the standard average that I expect from a golf game. The close ups of putts are neat, but that’s all.
Sound: 1.0
Not Nintendo’s best effort when it comes to music and sound effects. The song drones on over and over.
Gameplay: 2.0
I wasn’t blown away, but felt like there was a lot missing.
Difficulty: 2.0
The lack of information makes playing smart way more difficult than it should be.
Fun Factor: 2.0
I like the concept of having a persistent profile and amassing prize money, even if it’s for no reason.
Overall Rating: 1.8
NES Open Tournament Golf earns a C. No golf game has come close to touching Arnold Palmer and this is no exception. Hopefully Mario’s next diversion is better.