Mario Golf: Advance Tour – GBA – Review

Tuesday – 4:00pm

It was a typical summer
day.  I slept late, ate breakfast at the time that I should have been eating
lunch, and sat on the couch like a lifeless vegetable.  The sun was shining
beautifully, taking my attention away from the TV for a few moments.  Then a
review copy of Mario Golf: Advance Tour arrived.  Now it could have stormed
heavily outside and I wouldn’t know the difference.  Although I didn’t know it
at the time, Advance Tour was about to become my lifeline for the next 48
hours.  Only food, water, and the occasional nap would keep me from playing.

6:00pm

In many ways Mario Golf:
Advance Tour is a sequel to the GameCube version, Toadstool Tour.  The core
gameplay has been faithfully re-created for the small screen, but most of the
courses are new.  Advance Tour has new characters, new mini-games, and an
all-new story mode that attempts to make the game more like an RPG.

Toadstool Tour’s swing
meter is back (and functions in the exact same way).  The only significant
difference is the technology, which results in shots that are less precise and
less realistic.

The environments are
strictly two-dimensional with the camera’s primary position directly above the
course.  The camera switches automatically for certain shots, giving you a
third-person view of the action.  This usually occurs when a tree or some
other object blocks the way, making it easier to hit the ball around it.

8:00pm

The game appeared to have
many game modes, but I became too engrossed in the singles tournament and
doubles cup to care.  These tournaments are very similar to the tourneys
featured in Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour.  The courses are different, giving
returning fans something new to enjoy.  The incentive for completing each
course is also different.  Advance Tour is dubbed a Role-Playing Golf game,
and while you won’t see ugly monsters or cast magical spells, you do gain
experience points for completing each course.  It goes without saying that the
better you do the more points you’ll gain.  I’ve found that the course is
worth sticking out even if you’re losing because points will be awarded no
matter how badly you do.

These points are not
given to Mario as you might expect.  Mario is here, as are Peach and other
members of the Nintendo gang.  But the tourneys are connected to the story
mode, which stars two new characters, Tom and Ella.  Tom is playable; Ella is
a computer-controlled character who plays only during the doubles
competitions.  Normally I’d be against having a computer-controlled golfer on
my side.  But until you begin to grasp all of the gameplay details, Ella’s
performance will likely be better than your own.  Her moves aren’t perfect –
there were times when I wished I could have steered her in a better
direction.  But I guess that was implemented to make her more human and less
like a computer-controlled aid.

Wednesday – 2:00am

Time to check out the
story mode’s Club Lodge.  Wow, look at all the trophies!  I wonder who might
have won those?  The game is far from over through.  Those trophies are only
the beginning.

Exiting the lodge, I find
myself on a small world map.  Many of the map’s locations seem to be blocked
or under construction, indicating that I must accomplish something important
before I can proceed.  What I needed to do wasn’t hard to figure out — win
more tournaments.  I met with defeat in the singles tourney, so I grabbed my
partner and won two doubles competitions.  This led me deeper into the night,
which quickly became morning, leaving me exhausted and wishing I had more
energy to continue playing.  (It was 6:00am before I put down my GBA and
entered the land of Nod.)

Wednesday Afternoon

I would have started
playing sooner but reality got in the way!  Grrrr!

Today I discovered the
connection between Tom, Ella and the Super Mario universe.  During the tourney
Tom and Ella are staying at the "Marion" Club Lodge.  Inside the lodge is a
stained glass window of the mushroom master himself, Mario.  Light shines
through the window, and guess who’s standing by the light at all times? 
Toad!  Talk to him, enter the light and you’ll be transported to a wonderful
world: the Mushroom Kingdom.

6:00pm

At last, golf courses
with the essence of Mario.  Bomb-oms, plumber-eating plants, that
ball-and-chain guy – those are just a few of the things that’ll make you
smile.  The environments have a true Mario feel, with stars, pipes, courses
that are shaped like Mario’s head, and others that are up in the clouds.

Thursday – 6:00am

Aw crap, is it morning
already?  I didn’t really care about the rising sun or the ticking clock that
screamed, "Time for bed!"  So I continued playing…

…And fell asleep with
the GBA in my hands!  I was lying stretched out on the floor with a pillow
(the most comfortable way you can play your GBA).  As I waited for Ella to
take her town, the big "Z" hit me.  I woke up quickly and played some more,
fell asleep again, and fought my tired feelings for as long as I could. 
Finally the battery died and I realized it was time to throw in the towel.  If
the battery hadn’t died, it’s likely that I’d still be attached to my GBA.  I
would have thrown away the idea of sleep and forgotten all about the review.

Now that I’m wide awake I
must get back to the game.  But before I leave you, I must further convey how
good this game is and how much better it gets.  I started out liking it.  I
thought it was a better-than-average port of the GameCube version.  After
realizing that most of the content was new, I thought it was definitely worth
an 8.0.  Then a few hours later the game bumped up to 8.5 with the assumption
that it just couldn’t go any higher.  I kept digging and found more courses
and more reasons to keep playing.  By the time I was ready to write the review
the game had broke the barrier, earning the 9.0 that I wasn’t sure it could
achieve.  The GameCube version did, and now I have the perfect portable
companion.


Reviewer’s Scoring Details


Gameplay: 9
Golfing at its
best.  Advance Tour does what Toadstool Tour did but in a whole other way. 
The courses are fun, challenging, and impossible to give up on.  The story
mode’s mini-games present even more challenges and are a great way to gain
experience points.  You can repeat mini-games for fun, but they purposely
lower the EXP earned to keep players from stocking up!

Graphics: 7
I can’t say I’m
thrilled or disappointed by the graphics.  Not the GBA’s best work, but they
get the job done.

Sound: 7.9
A decent mixture
of new music and classic Mario tunes.  I would have liked the soundtrack
better if all the songs were taken from Mario, but the developers wanted new
music to go with the new characters.  Worth listening to, but it does get
repetitive after a while.


Difficulty: Medium/Hard
It seems like
Nintendo’s most challenging games are on the GBA.  Advance Tour’s mini-games
aren’t too tough, but it’ll take some time to get through the many
tournaments.

Concept: 8

Multiplayer: 8.5
Since golf is a
turn-based game, you only need one GBA for multiplayer games.  If you don’t
like sharing, plug in a link cable for two-player games (only one cartridge is
needed).  Two game packs are needed for three-player games; three game packs
are needed for four-player games.

Overall: 9
Somebody stop
me!  I can’t stop playing!  I think I can.  I tell myself it’s only a phase. 
"I’ll quit tomorrow," I tell my family, worried that I’m throwing my life
away.  "It doesn’t control me."  But it does!

Look, I don’t want to
scare anyone, but if you don’t hear from me in a week, call the video game
authorities and tell them what happened.  By that time it’ll be too late to
save me, but at least they’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that in this
day and age, when budgets are too big and graphics are too pretty, there are
still games being made that can take control of our lives.

During the summer there
isn’t a quality more appealing than that.