Mario Golf: World Tour

Mario Golf: World Tour was developed by Camelot Software Planning and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 3DS. It was unveiled in a Nintendo Direct on 14 February 2013 and pencilled in for the second half of that year, but slipped to May 2014, arriving in Japan on 1 May, in North America and Europe the next day and in Australia on 3 May. It was the first new Mario Golf in about a decade, the previous one being Mario Golf: Advance Tour on the Game Boy Advance in 2004.

The game is split into two halves. Castle Club is a more grounded career in which your Mii works through tournaments on three full-length, realistic courses. The Mario Golf side lets the Mushroom Kingdom cast loose on themed courses packed with items and hazards. It was also the first game in the series to support online play, with friend matches and regular tournaments.

Reviews were mostly warm, and Metacritic lists an average of 78/100. Critics liked the swing system, the presentation, the range of modes and the online features. The main complaints were that Castle Club is short and that you can only play it as your Mii, not as Mario and friends.

Golf here is arcade-style rather than a simulation: the aim is still to sink the ball in as few strokes as possible, but the controls are kept simple and rounds move quickly.

• Swing – the timing of your presses on the power meter decides the power, accuracy and spin of each shot. An automatic style is also available, where you only need to judge the power.
• Spin – pressing A twice gives topspin and B twice gives backspin, while A then B or B then A produce the stronger super topspin and super backspin.
• Other controls – the touch screen picks clubs, starts shots and adds spin, the Circle Pad changes the trajectory, Y switches shot type, X moves the camera, and L and R adjust the power bar.
• Items – on the Mario courses players can use Mushrooms, Fire Flowers, Ice Flowers, Bullet Bills, Bob-ombs, Boomerang Flowers, Note Blocks, Tornadoes, Kab-ombs and Gold Flowers. Each player starts a round with a third as many items as there are holes, and more come from ? Blocks on the course.

Each course also allows a limited number of extra-powerful shots, so choosing when to spend them is part of the strategy.

Castle Club is the single-player career, and you play it as your own Mii.

• Getting started – you begin by entering a handicap tournament at the Caddie Master’s booth. After that, stroke play events and course championships open up on the Forest, Seaside and Mountain Courses, and your results push your handicap up or down.
• Trophies – Princess Peach presents the trophies in the Royal Room, and they are displayed in a trophy hall, with better finishes placed nearer the centre and major wins kept in a glass case.
• Gear – coins buy equipment at the boutique, and there are 500 items to collect across the game. Gear changes stats such as driving distance and shot trajectory, and a complete set lets your Mii play like one of the Mario characters.
• Royal Garden – pipes lead to practice rounds on the Mario courses, and training grounds for drives, approach shots and putts reward costumes after 20 successes at each.
• Kamek – summoned in the Royal Garden, he can turn Play Coins into game coins, switch your Mii’s dominant hand, allow mulligans or change your swing type, all for a very large number of coins.

Once all three course championships are won, Costume Challenges become available.

Outside Castle Club, Quick Round gathers the classic Mario Golf modes:

• Single player – Stroke Play, Match Play, Speed Golf, Point Tourney and Challenges.
• Versus – rounds against players in the same room, online friends or community members.
• Skins Match – a multiplayer-only mode for two to four players.

Every course has ten Star Coin challenges. Collecting 90 Star Coins unlocks a tougher set of ten Moon Coin challenges per course, and Star Coins also unlock extra characters and courses.

Online, players could take part in regional and worldwide tournaments, most of them running for about two weeks with a leaderboard, unlimited retries before the deadline and gold, silver or bronze trophies for the top places. Mario Open events used the Mario and downloadable courses over nine holes, sometimes with a fixed character, limited items or coin collecting, and paid out coins and Mii clothing. Private tournaments could also be set up. Nintendo’s official tournaments wound up in early 2019 with the World Tour Final, and online play ended for good when Nintendo Network closed on 8 April 2024.

The game card holds ten courses:

• Forest, Seaside and Mountain Courses – the realistic Castle Club courses, each 18 holes and par 72.
• Sky Island – 18 par-3 holes, unlocked by completing the One-On, One-Putt challenge.
• Mario courses – six nine-hole, par-36 courses. Peach Gardens is open from the start, while Yoshi Lake, Wiggler Park, Cheep Cheep Lagoon, DK Jungle and Bowser’s Castle unlock at 7, 14, 21, 28 and 35 Star Coins.

Six more courses were sold as downloadable content: the Mushroom Pack (Toad Highlands and Koopa Park, with Toadette) on 2 May 2014, the Flower Pack (Layer-Cake Desert and Sparkling Waters, with Nabbit) on 22 May, and the Star Pack (Rock-Candy Mines and Mario’s Star, with Rosalina) on 19 June. Mario’s Star reworks a course from the original Mario Golf with a Super Mario Galaxy theme. The Season Pass bundled all three packs and added Gold Mario.

Twelve characters are playable from the start alongside the Mii: Mario, Luigi, Peach, Daisy, Yoshi, Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, Bowser, Bowser Jr., Wario, Waluigi and Boo. Toad, Kamek, Koopa Paratroopa and Birdo join at 40, 45, 50 and 55 Star Coins. Each golfer has a straight, draw or fade trajectory, a shot height, a driving distance and ratings for sweet spot and control, and star versions hit further still.

• Mario Golf: World Tour – Cheats / Unlockables / Hints

• Mario Golf: World Tour – Replacement Game Manual (2.39mb PDF)

• Mario Golf: World Tour – Box Art

• Mario Golf: World Tour – Desktop Wallpaper

• Mario Golf: World Tour – Screenshots

• Mario Golf: World Tour Review by Dante Vocaturo

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