Cursed to Golf by Chuhai Labs

Golf video games have a storied historical past in video video games. Whether it’s million-dollar sports activities franchises advertising themselves on the actual professional tour golf expertise or foolish variations like Kirby’s Dream Course, digital rounds of 18-holes appear to captivate audiences persistently.

So it appears solely pure that somebody would attempt to mix this business traditional with the at the moment booming Rogue-like style. Cursed to Golf does simply that, combining arcade-y golf motion with the construction of video games like Slay the Spire and Monster Train. The query is, does it reside as much as this pedigree?

reverse the Curse

As a anonymous professional golfer struck by lightning and despatched tumbling right down to Golf Purgatory, you might have however one easy objective: golf your approach again out of the underworld. Of course, issues within the underworld work a bit in a different way. These 2D programs are huge and sprawling, laden with extra obstacles than your commonplace sand bunkers, and can ship you careening again to the underside of Purgatory if you happen to go over par. Thankfully, there are objects like par-increasing trophies and magical playing cards that may make it easier to enhance your possibilities.

One of Cursed to Golf’s greatest strengths is its simplicity. Hitting your ball is so simple as selecting between certainly one of three putters, then deciding on shot energy and angle. Similarly, regardless of being labyrinths of turf, the options of every course (traps, objects, interactive objects, and so forth.) are straightforward to grasp, that means you’re not often caught off guard by something it’s a must to cope with.

The recreation additionally gives some further technique by way of its card system. You earn playing cards as you play (or purchase them from shops on the overworld map), they usually offer you useful powers like stopping your ball mid-air, or destroying close by obstacles. Again, easy, however useful in planning your approach by means of a course.

Curses and Epitaphs

While Cursed to Golf initially looks like a hole-in-one, it sadly has a couple of obtrusive flaws that drag it down. For starters, the programs rapidly start to change into large and time-consuming, making failing a run draining versus motivating you to do higher subsequent time. This wouldn’t be as a lot of an issue if there have been everlasting unlocks or different rewards for development, however there’s nothing. For such a whimsical and accessible recreation, defeat feels ruinous.

It additionally actually doesn’t assist that elements of the sport are fiddly. The recreation solely permits you to pan your digital camera to this point whereas aiming a swing, that means you outright can’t see the place your shot will land when doing lengthy pictures with a driver. The reality you can’t confirm the standard of one of many three kinds of shot you may make seems like a baffling design oversight.

To cap it off, Cursed to Golf sadly feels prefer it performs its hand too early. After a couple of rounds, you’ve seen all of the traps and weirdness it has to supply. Worse nonetheless, regardless of insisting you can select a number of paths by means of a course, the riskier paths virtually by no means have a large enough reward to justify not taking part in it secure.

Cursed to Golf is finally nonetheless a strong recreation, with intuitive mechanics and a beautiful 16-bit presentation that lends it infinite attraction. It’s simply unlucky that its simplicity serves to make its shortcomings all of the extra apparent.

Cursed to Golf is on the market by way of the Nintendo Store, Sony PlayStation Store, Microsoft Xbox Store, and Steam.

Watch the trailer for Cursed to Golf under: