Cursed to Golf

I went 29 whole years without playing golf and I genuinely thought I was okay with that. Recently I took up golf as a hobby (maybe I’m getting old…) and it reminded me of some of my favourite sports games from my childhood. I sunk countless hours into the mid 2000’s Tiger Wood’s PGA tour games, making myself as a character and levelling up until I could out-drive the GOAT himself. I figured I’d search for the latest Tiger Wood’s games in Japanese (Which I did find, reviews to come soon!) and on my travels I found this little gem. Cursed to Golf is an 8-bit, rogue-like puzzle adventure centred around golf and your ascent from hell. The colour, the characters and the whole concept is so unique that and I’m surprised I hadn’t heard of this game before. My currently golf crazed brain fell in love with the pixelated indie vibe instantly and I found my self playing and replaying for hours!

Platform and Languages – 7/10

Cursed to Golf is available on Playstation 4 and 5, Xbox One and One S, Switch and Steam for roughly £8-16 depending on the platform.

You can choose from a selection of 10 languages from the pause menu and any time. You’re able to change the language while in a round, the store or the range making for easy checking of the vocab.

Glossary

Usability – 5/10

Cursed to Golf shows great potential from the get-go. You’re swiftly thrown into the intro/tutorial section where you, as your alive counterpart, are on the verge of winning the championship. The commentators conveniently tell you exactly what shots you need to play and help by starting to build your golf-based lingo with all 3 club types. A large proportion of the golf specific words, like club names, shot terminology and objectives, are in Katakana, and while this has the advantage of being easy to read, it feels like less opportunity to develop your kanji related language skills. The bulk of language throughout cursed to golf is physics based, such as velocity, angle and the balls position, but there are some good narrative aspects too as you progress to new areas and unlock new skills.

Your character, affectionately called “Wee one”, amongst other names, is tasked with progressing through each area, befriending or beating it’s bosses and taking down the Green Keeper. The dialogue is presented in “Click-to-progress” text boxes with clear font and comedic, colloquial manners of speech. The character personalities are distinct, especially the Scotsman, and you can interact with them frequently during their holes or at the Eterni-Tee store. The downside here is that for standard holes and the majority of the game play you won’t be having conversations but instead will be playing shots. There is little to no text during your actual play time and some of these holes can take a good chunk of time (and retries) in order to get back to readable content. One exception being the Ace cards.

Ace cards take the regular game of golf and add numerous fantastical ways to alter your shot. From turning your ball into a rocket or phasing it through a wall, each unique card makes your the game all the more puzzling but also features a funky title and brief description of the ability. You can unlock these cards occasionally after or between holes, or you can buy them en masse at the Eterni-Tee shop. On the screen you acquire these cards, or in the binder collection where you can view them all, they show quite clearly however during play these cards can be a little small in the corner of the screen making it less viable for studying. Aside from this there are fewer and fewer options to find more vocabulary. The only other notable mentions are the extra skills you can unlock after besting each of the bosses and the additional menus from the shop, such as the easter egg filled costume selection.

I went on a roller coaster ride with Cursed to Golf. I started the game in love with the style and narrative and then swiftly fell into frustrations with pernickety aiming and frequent bad luck (much the same as regular gold I suppose…), but towards the end, the story and setting brought me back. Although the variety of text isn’t wide, each aspect has its strengths. The narrative is broad, interesting and colloquial, while the ace cards are limited, direct and formal (ish). For a game of brevity that’s quite cheap and focuses on a different interest I would recommend it, just don’t hate me when you get to the piranhas…

Challenges and Methods – 4/10

Chatting between holes

Conversational dialogue is always useful for picking up new words in context of the characters situations. While the overall vocabulary of Cursed to Golf is quite wide you will find than many words repeat due to the nature of discussion. It’s one of the few games that is brief enough and repetitive enough (in a good way) to warrant reading and learning all the words, especially as the dialogue drops off in the mid point.

Ace in the hole

The beauty of the ace cards is that they are limited and related closely to the topic of the gameplay. This means that as you experience a new one you can quickly read it, build your lingo and apply it right away. As you progress new cards are also added preventing the descriptions from getting stale. While it is more difficult to read the cards while you play it is doable so try and read your ace cards before you use them!