I went over to my friends and I just had Skyrim. I didn't want to play it in handheld (and maybe, subconsciously, I didn't want to play it
) So after looking over the eshop list I settled on Golf Story. It's only $14.99 after all!
Essentially, it's a golf video game -- you've got your bar at the bottom and you tap A once to set power and again to set accuracy, plus all the usually melange of club selection / hitpoint on the ball / etc. -- but I guess it's only
sometimes
a golf game. Like Golf Story seems really generic but it sums up what it is perfectly -- it's an RPG about golf. As you traverse the areas -- you traverse areas! you're not just playing golf all the time -- there's all sorts of miniquests to do and set pieces to interact with. For example, one of the first things you do upon entering the first course is someone tells you to hit a button with a golf shot. When you do that, it quickly flashes over to a building where one of four lights lights up, implying there are three more buttons to find. And that's another thing: you can make a golf shot practically anywhere. That means you're essentially practicing everywhere and hitting lots of little secrets. All the meanwhile there is an at-your-own-pace main quest that you're progressing. Also quests are often little twists on regular golf -- in the first area you're always dealing with moles that move your ball, in the second one there's a series of quests where you have to complete a whole by only using fairway and green, and then rough and green, etc.
It's a little extra at times, but don't you kind of want that in a golf game? The switch or joycons are rumbling SO MUCH during this game. The dialogue is quaint, but it's good and they're using typography to assist in good ways (dialogue boxes tilt, text size changes for emphasis, interruptions are like, done with dialogue boxes?). And yeah it's not
pure
golf 100% of the time but it's not outright mini golf either. The controls are funky but more in the way that it's trying to cram the myriad of ways you can alter a golf shot onto the controller. Once you figure out how actual shots compare to what it predicts, it makes sense. Like, given the difficulty I've had with SMO and Skyrim, it was super pleasant to go to something that just immediately clicked.
I don't know, I love it. After I bought it my friend was like "can you play it up on the TV so I can see?" and once I did he was like "ok I need to get this".
There's also multiplayer!