Like many others, I was caught in a whirlwind of excitement this year as the launch of Mario Golf: Super Rush approached. I’ve never been into golf as a video game or the real thing for that matter, but I couldn’t help but get excited with each trailer that would be shown off on a Nintendo Direct. Part of the reason for this excitement was due to how much I loved playing Mario Tennis Aces. I’m not into tennis by any stretch, so if developer Camelot could make a tennis game a consistent party game for me and my friends, I was excited to see if they could do the same with golf!

Unfortunately, it didn’t quite stick the landing for me. It was certainly fun at times, but it wasn’t nearly as fun as I was hoping. The realist in me said that it was due to the pacing of the overall game among other issues. The optimist in me said the game might become more well-rounded over time with updates and support as Mario Tennis Aces had. With Nintendo’s announcement that Mario Golf had received its final free update (version 4.0.0) in November, I thought it would be worth revisiting the game and seeing how it fared after six months.

As soon as I jump back into it, I’m immediately reminded that this game has one of my favorite openings to a game in recent memory. It’s super stylish and just oozing with character. Even better, it shows off the game’s mechanics and the incredibly fun Battle Golf mode. The regrettable part is that the opening sets a high bar and is arguably the best-looking part of the game.

Previous entries in many Mario-related sports series have done a great job at balancing strong visuals and the whimsical environments of the overall Mario universe. There have been plenty of courts, courses, and fields that might seem a little less cartoony, but you understand how the characters fit on the playing field overall.

Although you can come across Ty-foos and Piranha Creepers that act as obstacles on certain courses, they feel very tacked-on at times. The six courses that were available at launch are mostly distinct from each other, but they don’t exactly feel like they belong in this game. The only course at launch that felt at home to me was the lava-featuring and trap-filled fortress that is Bowser Highlands.

The rest of the courses skew more towards a realistic design (giant Sandmaarghs aside). Even with some weak textures here and there and an awkward-looking shiny effect for the stormy Wildweather Woods course, it is the best that the Mario Golf series has ever looked. It certainly feels like there was a strong emphasis on making the courses look great.

However, in doing so it loses the charm that you come to expect and looks worse for it. It feels less like these characters are playing on courses that belong in their world and more like they’re just playing in an unrelated golf game.

Thankfully, the five courses released as free updates feel much more ingrained in the world. The last two released in the 4.0.0 update are especially charming and incredibly fun to look at and play on.

Moving aside from visuals, it’s of course very important for the game to feel fun and it does manage to accomplish that! It can take a while to properly gauge the wind, but it’s very easy to understand the basics of the game and to go out swinging.

There’s a helpful guide on the main menu screen to help players out when it comes to some more advanced techniques. To learn even more and to try these out for yourself rather than reading though, you’ll have to play through one of my biggest gripes with the game: the horrible adventure mode.

An adventure mode that features a created Mii rising through tournament ranks should be fun. Add in a leveling system, shops to buy different items, and entertaining dialogue writing, and there are all the makings for a fun experience.

That experience loses its luster after 40 minutes. Every part of it just drags on. Nearly each training segment is incredibly repetitive and some of them are for certain mechanics or items that you barely use. There are three unique boss fights, but they don’t come into play until the last hour. The rest of it is simply playing various modes on each launch course or trying to beat set par times/points.

While you can play as a created Mii in other modes once you’ve started an adventure mode save file for them, their “stats” are carried over. Playing with them right after starting an adventure will feel like playing with a severe handicap. They’re slow, have low stamina, and can’t send a ball out that far.

You must play through the adventure mode if you want to play with a decent Mii. It will take a few hours, but at the end of it, you’ll be able to golf with the Mii you designed and not feel like you’re weaker and slower than everyone else. If you have more than one Mii that you want to play with, however, you’ll have to commit a few hours to repeat playing through the entire adventure mode for each additional one.

The problems don’t end there though. Playing them after beating the adventure mode will feel like a handicap on the opposite side of the spectrum because they’ll be far better than any other character. This is balanced somewhat because the normal Mario-series characters can gain access to the Star and Super Star club sets the more you play with them and gain character points. These club sets have more power behind them and allow for more control with your shots.

From personal reference, I was able to meet the 1000-point requirement for the Star club set after playing 70 holes with Yoshi. The Super Star club set is available after gathering 3000 points. It might take a bit of time to have better clubs for just a single character unless you grind them out in other specific modes. These unlockable clubs do feel a lot more fun to play with too, which is a bummer because it can be a huge undertaking to unlock them for multiple characters. Until you can, your Mii will likely remain supreme and wipe the floor with them.

If you don’t care about playing with a created Mii and just want to play some golf, you don’t have to worry much about the above. Adventure mode might be a drag, but everything else can be super fun and has only improved with updates.

The first offering is the Standard Golf mode, which like every mode can be played with button or motion controls (which control a whole lot better than they did at launch). There’s a lot of options to customize the experience and it is a mode that can support four players locally if you’re taking turns shooting. There is a split-screen option for each player to shoot at the same time and then teleport to their ball once it’s stopped so there’s no pause, but it only supports two human players locally, which is unfortunate. Overall it’s a basic mode in the game, but it’s plenty of fun.

Mario Golf: Super Rush really begins to shine once you step into the two other modes that were marketed. The first of those is Speed Golf mode, in which every player hits their ball and then makes a mad dash to where it landed to hit it again. It’s incredibly chaotic but also adds more strategic moments when considering when you should use your special dashes and special shots.

As fun as it is though since it does feature all players moving at once, it does suffer from the same limitation of only being able to show two characters through split-screen. It’s a perfect mode to play with a group of friends, but at least one other person will need a copy on their own Nintendo Switch to play with the maximum four people.

The other mode is the opening-featuring Battle Golf mode. Featured in a giant stadium, there are nine holes available and everyone is moving at the same time and working towards reaching three holes to win. The general idea is that players will battle with each other using certain items in the environment along with their special shots.

It has the potential to be one of my favorite modes if not for its shortcomings. One of the biggest issues is its length as a single game can be finished very quickly. The short length and general chaotic rush of it all also compound with the other large issue, that it feels counter-intuitive to fight with people over a hole early on. It’s just easier to avoid people until you likely need to deal with them over the final hole. Only having one course available with two different configurations cement it as a mode that sadly doesn’t have too much replay value.

A new mode was added along with the recent 4.0.0 update. Target Golf is a turn-based mode, where each player shoots at a circular target on the ground, with increasing points awarded based on how close to the center a ball lands. It’s nothing ground-breaking, but it is a new game mode that stands out from the rest.

Apart from the multiplayer modes, there is also a decent selection of solo-challenge options. All of these are great means of practice and fun ways to play without going up against another player or CPU.

At launch, this included Score Attack and Time Attack modes that tasked players with getting the lowest score and time over 18 holes respectively. With the 4.0.0 update a solo-version of Target Golf was added along with One-On, One-Putt.

One-On, One-Putt is a short, albeit challenging mode. In this mode, there are 18 holes and a maximum of two strokes can be made. The first must make it to the green while the second is a putt that needs to make it into the hole. It’s a fun challenge, and thanks to it being short while featuring a lot of holes, it’s also one of the best ways to grind character points.

Adventure mode and Battle Golf mode both suffer from the same issues they had at launch. The lack of a four-player split-screen option for at least the Standard Golf or Speed Golf modes is also hard to ignore, even if it more than likely is due to technical limitations.

This game isn’t the same as when it launched though. It’s important to have variety and each new mode is a welcome addition. The six courses at launch felt a little lacking, but five additional courses were added and two of them feature two different layouts (effectively providing 36 holes each).

Finally, although I wouldn’t have complained at receiving more characters, it is nice that they added fan-favorites like Toadette as well as lesser-seen playable characters such as Wiggler.

Unless some notes are being taken from the Animal Crossing team and the “last free update” means a possibility of paid DLC coming up, it seems like the game likely won’t be supported any longer. Considering the 4.0.0 announcement didn’t even have a video and was just a single tweet mentioning the update was already live, I’m inclined to believe the latter situation.

Mario Golf: Super Rush launched in a mediocre state. It was a fun game that merely lacked in a lot of aspects. Some of those aspects weren’t going to be fixed with updates and they remain as detriments.

Thankfully, even though support for the game lasted a mere five months, every update was substantial. There’s a great amount of content available now in terms of modes, courses, and characters. It’s still necessary to have two copies and two Nintendo Switch consoles for a maximum number of players to enjoy the more hectic modes, but it’s managed to become a more rounded out and even more fun title over time.

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Mario Golf: Super Rush

$59.99

7.5

Score

7.5/10

Pros

• Simple Gameplay
• Plenty of Courses
• Huge Variety of Modes
• Speed Golf is Fantastic

Cons

• Contradicting Visuals
• Adventure Mode Drags On
• Miis are Locked Behind Adventure Mode
• One Course for Battle Golf
• Hectic Modes are Better With Another Switch