A Little Golf Journey

TLDR; An awesome and beautiful mix of the puzzle and golf genre that challenges you throughout. Completionists: Turn on Undo in the Assist menu or you’ll hate it. I’m loving this game. It’s reminiscent of Mario 64 because of the overworld map and star requirement for unlocking the next set of levels. Each world has a theme and so do the levels themselves. They remind me of mini golf courses and are very beautiful. After you finish each level, the overworld fills in with colors like you’re painting. It’s very rewarding. I played the demo then immediately bought the complete game. The demo is the entire first world and progress transfers to the full game, which is great because it was not easy (assuming you complete it 100%, which I did). The game drops you right into the action and I was so drawn in that I didn’t even pause to fiddle with the settings. I’ve played through the first two worlds now and most of the levels would have been easy if I didn’t care about maxing out the stars. Even the swing mechanic itself was difficult to master, but after enough practice, I got the hang of it. Now I have finished several levels with max stars on the first try (without Undo). But before figuring out the swing, there were a few moments where I almost moved on to the next level without getting max stars first. If you are like me, the type that wants to get max stars on every level before moving to the next one, this will be important. Collecting stars is done in each level using a par system. You get max stars for hitting par. You can restart the level if you go over, but that breaks the flow and makes mastering game mechanics really hard. Now, I consider myself quite tenacious, but it was a slog to finish the first world. Even so, I still bought the complete game and this time, I fiddled with the settings and noticed an Undo key bind (which isn’t mentioned in the tutorial)! A few moments later, I recalled a review that said to turn on Undo. So I went to the ‘Assist’ menu and hesitantly turned it on. I thought using Undo would feel like cheating, but after two levels, I knew I would keep it on. It made for a much better experience, as it let me practice swinging and focus on the puzzle aspect. It should probably be on by default because the second world was so much more fun and was still just as hard. To put it in perspective, a special level called Caverns of Skill doesn’t have a par system, so Undo basically just makes you lose progress. The review where I learned about the Undo button talked about how hard, long and frustrating the level is. (Thank you, mondsemmel !!!). This was my favorite level so far, but If I hadn’t turned on Undo, I guarantee you my review would have said the same thing. I wouldn't have had the practice I needed to perfect my swing nor a smooth experience due to the constant restarting. So, if you are a completionist like me, do yourself a favor and turn on Undo and play this amazingly awesome game the right way.