Hot Shots Golf (PSX) - 12. Japan Tournament

With Everybody's Golf finally leaving PlayStation exclusivity, even debuting on PC of all systems, I thought it made sense to return to the beginning, back to when Golf games were fuzzy as all hell and built up primarily by using sprites rather than polygons.

Hot Shots Golf (or Everybody's Golf) is a golf game that you can enjoy without actually enjoying golf itself, a strange statement to make, for sure, but the easy accessibility of it's mechanics have forever stood the test of time. The rules are kept single - go for PAR or better (i.e. beat holes with as few swings as possible). The trick to Everybody's Golf comes from understanding the terrain, wind, and most importantly the placement of shots. Certainly, going for a perfect drive is one thing, especially if your golfer will always hit straight on Tee Off, but making sense of slicing shots and hooks to divert the direction of swings, or adding spin to either heighten or lower your ball in the air, can make a great deal of difference in getting Birdies or better on each course.

Do not let the cutsey visuals fool you either, Hot Shots Golf is brutally hard, with matches often reaching nail biting finales as you scores go level pegging with your opponents. You need to be absolutely on-it during tournaments and Head-to-heads, which does somewhat betray the "Everybody" nature of the experience. Oh well.

I may have broken a couple controllers trying to get this playthrough recorded of Hot Shots Golf, mostly because so many attempts have been thwarted by rookie mistakes. Although, to give an actual criticism, it can be very hard to tell the elevation of some surfaces due to the dithered nature of the game's textures. The later Hot Shots Golf games do not have this problem and it truly is just an issue with this being such an old release now.

All in all, Hot Shots Golf is an addictive, if infuriating, experience made tougher due to the perils of late 90s 3D rendering. I would advise playing the later games, or even Mario Golf given how much further Camelot (the developers) refined the style of control used there. A victim to time unfortunately but it still continues to be absolutely engrossing in spite of that.

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Any copyrighted footage I use is covered under fair use laws, or more specifically those listed under Section 30(1) of the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1989 and under section 107 of US Copyright Act 1976. This video exists purely for the purpose of research and criticism. I do not make a profit from any uploaded content, nor do I intend to. Thank you for watching.