Quote
Originally posted by: Pryopizm
Dude, even for anime, they were hydrocephalic.
Um, no?
Heads all look fine to me for normal artwork, forget anime.
If you're going to call these characters "hydrocephalic", then you must also say the same about Mario (no, not the user):
Mario's head is the same size as 1/3 of his body. That's the standard ratio for newborn infants, FYI.
I think it's time to give this review the "fine tooth comb" treatment. Let's begin:
Quote
Welcome to the most incomprehensible golf course in the world. It’s a mixture of real world physics and fantastic environments.
I'm surprised if anyone can even continue reading after this point. If you have an issue with the mingling of reality and fantasy then you probably shouldn't be playing video games, watching movies or reading books. In fact, I think documentaries are the only source of entertainment which won't irk you.
The review has only seen two sentences and you're already scraping the bottom of the complaint barrel.
Quote
Japanese characters mesh seamlessly with an ancient Scottish sport using ridiculous items such as bombs for golf balls and baseball bats for clubs. Logic is thrown out the window and so is the fun. Welcome to Pangya, home of Super Swing Golf.
Again, fantastic environments, concepts and ideas are commonplace in gaming.
You want logic thrown out the window? Play Tiger Woods 2007 where, through use of telekinetic powers or maybe the force, the player can push a direction on the D-pad and shake the Wiimote to manipulate the direction of the ball
after they've hit it. SSG employed special golf balls which explode on contact, but it was never pretentious enough to employ
telekinesis.
Quote
Yes, there’s no fun to be found in the golf courses of Pangya. Fun left town and was replaced with a user-hateful interface; a control system that’s so far beyond wonky that there’s no more wonk to be found, only despair; and hydrocephalic characters who are so super-deformed that bad little boys and girls everywhere who are punished with this game will suffer nightmares well into their adult life.
For starters, I've seen rooms full of people have fun with SSG. People who are NOT avid gamers got the controls down pat in a few minutes, and that includes placing spin on the ball and selecting special shots.
We even had a buddy who plays golf and he was able to get a Pangya on most every hit (I don't remember him hooking or slicing even once).
As for the characters, you are the first person I've ever heard complain about their appearance.
Quote
However, to its credit, the game actively believes it’s fun. Right down to its insipid story, characters, dialogue, overwrought emotions (repeated ad nauseum due to lack of animation variety), and heartfelt belief that you will give a damn about Scout, not to mention the assortment of freaks he meets along the way. And the courses would be pretty amazing if Mario Golf’s fantastic environments weren’t so incredibly lush in comparison. The game dilutes its own attempt at charm by being far too straightforward at golf.
You can press a button to skip the cutscenes if you don't like them.
As for the courses, a quick look at the
collection of screenshots at Gamespy reveals some genuinely lush and interesting environs, and that includes deserts, tropical islands, windmills lit by sunset, castles and even an aircraft carrier. It has a grand total of 11 courses, each with 18 holes, for a total of 198 holes, all of which were full of obstacles, foliage and were often dramatically lit due to a variety in lighting, including twilight and sunset courses.
By comparison, Mario Golf had 6 courses with 18 holes each for a total of 108 and looked pretty bland except for the irritating placement of mushrooms.
Quote
Hope you enjoy ciphers, this game is full of them. In fact, you’ll be playing as one for a good long while as Scout. Scout is the protagonist of Super Swing Golf’s main single-player mode. He’s a generic anime design that works as your primary avatar. He has no personality, lacks style (unless you change his hair color and clothes) and zero charisma. Ah, but this is a golf game, who cares about all that? Apparently someone does, or anime golf games wouldn’t exist at all.
Actually, you can choose to play as the girl, Hannah, right off the bat as well.
And I find it funny that this setup irked you, considering the IDENTICAL character selection scenario didn't irk you in your "Mario Tennis: Power Tour" review:
The single player game (likes its GBC predecessor) is an RPG. You select your character (a boy or a girl), name him/her, and choose whether you’re right or left handed. The game begins in earnest at a central “home” area where you can save and switch between Singles or Doubles play. From then on, you’ll have certain stats to build, depending on the style of play you want to progress in, and you can balance that out by customizing your doubles partner’s stats in other fields.By your own words, you select male or female, name and handedness, so why did SSG's presentation of an identical situation bother you but MT:PT's did not?
Also, both games feature RPG elements through upgrades, but at least SSG allows you to choose their clothing to customize how they look.
Quote
In fact, I’m going to digress for a moment here and ponder the existence of this game. Is it made with the solo player in mind or as a multiplayer game? This question is due, in part, to one of Super Swing’s major problems. You have one whole character to choose from in the beginning, and the others are available through a tediously slow unlocking process. Right out of the box, the only way to tell the difference between two avatars is the "1P" and "2P" hovering over their heads.
Aside from the fact that you unlock the other character (either Scout or Hannah) after playing the first story and that I've never seen anyone be confused about when it was their turn in this game, sure.
This is akin to complaining that all four players in SSBM can play as Ganondorf. Games have relied on the "1P, 2P" labels for years to aid in player differentiation. Trying to pin this on SSG as a fault is nitpicking.
Quote
So this game is primarily for single player, right? I couldn’t tell you. In fact, it raises a number of unanswerable questions. Why can’t I make my own character?
You couldn't do this in Mario Golf, either. Just because you're more acclimated to Mario than you are to Scout doesn't make SSG a worse game.
Quote
Why is there a golf genre smack in the middle of Mario Golf games and Tiger Woods losing all the strengths of either game and suffering every weakness?
This is entirely subjective on your part so I don't know what to say to it, but you do realize you can switch the control scheme to be identical to that of Mario Golf, right?
Quote
What if Mario Golf wasn’t fast paced, silly, and charming?
I'd consider buying it this gen instead of avoiding it due to regretting my decision to buy it last gen.
Quote
What if Tiger Woods had no variety or choice?
The only difference between SSG and TW2K7 is that TW lacks the special shots which can make or break a round in SSG but adds the telekinesis I mentioned earlier. That's about it. If character creation was that much of a pull for you, you would probably have missed it more in Mario Golf, especially considering Mario Golf on the GC doesn't have the RPG elements which SSG and TW both feature, mainly through earning money and using it to buy stat-boosting clothes for your character.
Quote
Touching back on the controls for a moment, no matter how the controller is tilted, the club is pulled back. That’s realism, folks. One would think that in order to hit the ball straight, the controller is swung down straight. Truth is, only the developers know. It’s impossible to gauge what was done either consistently or inconsistently from any other shot. Since the movement isn’t 1:1, correction is painfully difficult.
My golf-playing friend didn't have trouble with this. Also, I suspect that you fell into the same pitfall which you will likely do in TW2K7: when driving, hold the club at a 45° angle, not pointing straight down.
Quote
The best part, however, is fighting the interface. The Wii was made to simplify. Super Swing complicates. Sometimes the controller is a club; other times it’s a mouse. In itself it’s slightly cumbersome, but possibly a necessary evil since other factors such as club selection and positioning are involved. However, not everything is available on the screen. For example, how do you access the map? There’s no mini-map to click on the screen to enlarge. Hit the number one button on the bottom of the controller instead. Make sure it’s hit twice, or else the game will simply move to free camera mode. Okay, now that we’re on the map screen, let’s play "Find the cup." Don’t see it? Well, hit the B button and wave the pointer around to move the camera wildly up and down the course until you get lucky and find the flag. Now this is a game!
Again, people who should be far simpler in mind and gaming skill than you had no issue with this.
Quote
No need to ponder the target audience anymore. The answer is obvious: no one. Super Swing Golf is obnoxious, gimmicky, featureless, and, despite its best attempts otherwise, humorless.
This review is obnoxious, nitpicky, devoid of critical merit and likely inspired from personal issues happening at the time of its writing. Due to the sheer number of contradictions in your logic and opinions you've stated in other reviews, you clearly have some sort of angst against this game the likes of which can only be described as a
vendetta.
If you want my first guess, I would lean towards the notion that someone who you've come to dislike greatly enjoyed this game, making it impossible for you to enjoy it and making the overly negative and exaggerated review you've given it a form of lashing out at them.
Don't fret, though. You're not the first person to attempt to pass off an angry, prejudiced opinion as a critique and you won't be the last.
Topic: REVIEWS: Super Swing Golf PANGYA (Read 32972 times)
