What the Golf review? he will explain to you how he made this little jewel to go right into the hole in our icy hearts
As we will see during the review, What the Golf? part of the sport that gives it the title to turn it into something completely different. Since the world of video games was born, the developers actively pursue two great ways of understanding the medium: as a tool for simulating reality or as a means of overcoming it by offering experiences that would otherwise be impossible.
If we want a similar dichotomy it is also present in the cinema, born with the Lumière and Méliès films, but let's not stray too far from our small playable title for now only through the Apple Arcade subscription (soon coming on PC, then on Nintendo Switch )
Game mechanics
At the level of game mechanics What the Golf? it is almost disarmingly simple. All that is required of the player is to give strength and direction to the shots. However, it is the outline that makes the whole experience a magnificent folly. Triband's work is the game of golf reinterpreted in a Dadaist key, in which the goal is not necessarily to ditch a ball with as few shots as possible, but to enjoy what we can call a kaleidoscope of associated absurdities to each other spontaneously. After the first hole, the ball is transformed and becomes any object in the scenario. Thus the player finds himself throwing houses, animals, cars, the hole itself, the golfer and so on in an unpredictable whirl of situations, which become the focus of the gameplay. Golf as a sport emerges marginalized, almost ignored.
Basically it is just a pretext to create visual word games and to delight the player with the countless surprises offered by the courses.
After a few minutes you start asking yourself what will be the object launched in the next hole and what particularities the new route will have. It should be noted that in order to maintain the pleasure of discovery unchanged from beginning to end, the pace of play has been decidedly sustained: each hole can be finished in a matter of seconds and the following is accessed from a hub area where it is necessary to continue to throw the ball towards the unlocked paths. Even in the latter there are plenty of surprises, since soon what appears to be formed only by a series of corridors becomes a real small campaign in its own right, with lots of crossroads and bosses.
Gameplay
The developers took enormous liberty in designing the holes. Normally they are displayed from above, but there are also some framed from the side, with the latter being the excuse for the addition of extra mechanics, such as the possibility of hanging the ball to make it swing, or of otherwise impossible scenarios, such as that inspired by the Portal series.
But there is much more: some levels even turn into a kind of first-person shooter, others become obstacle races, others become skill competitions to avoid being thrown off the track. There is no lack of quotes from other video games, with levels inspired by Superhot, others by Guitar Hero, others by Katamari Damacy.
The tones of What the Golf? they are always light-hearted, in a sense irreverent, as if the gameplay invited the player not to take seriously what appears on the screen, giving it the right weight. At the bottom is a golf game designed for those who hate golf, as the official description states ...
Total the Triband title ends in five hours, considering the time needed to finish all the holes, plus the time to overcome all the challenges (they are unlocked after the conclusion of a hole), plus some extras. Actually, for the completists who want to enjoy it 100%, the playing time gets longer, but let's say they make history for themselves.
