I'm probably especially bad at this because of my admittedly bad spatial intelligence but I missed some glaring features that would've made the gameplay more tolerable, mainly a way to see the trajectory/arc of your previous swing to adjust a new one and the ability to undo your last move, probably limited to one or two times per level. Without these, I had to switch to story mode and it let me enjoy the atmosphere and, especially, the radio - an amazing idea greatly executed, with top notch sound design and music.

Brilliant world design, storytelling, music, and visuals trapped in a middling golf game weighed down by a bevy of terrible design choices.

Just hitting the ball around the wasteland that was Earth with the incredible radio playing is a rad experience. Listening to the radio and enjoying the visuals of the post-apocalyptic wasteland is amazing. It’s hard to talk about the radio without giving too much away, but it’s honestly one of the coolest things I’ve seen in a game like this. Fully voice-acted with great music and stories that give you so much flavor into the state of the world you’re in. I loved every second of it. I could honestly just listen to the radio without playing the actual game and I think I would’ve had a better experience. But sadly the game requires you to golf to see more of the game and actually perform well in golf at that.

Every level has a diary entry associated with it that gives you context for the level and insight into what your character is thinking and feeling while going through these environments. However, these diary entries that actually tell you more of the story behind the game are locked behind getting par on every level which turns this from a chill vibey experience to a stressful, frustrating game of trying to perform well in an OK golf game so you can actually experience more of the story the game is telling. Additionally, diary entries unlock once you finish a level, so in order to read it you have to wait until the next level, pause the game, sit through the way-too-long “opening the menu” animation, scroll down to “diary”, and flip back a page to the prior level, all so you can then read the guy’s thoughts on the level you finished and hope you remember the previous level well enough to understand the details he’s referencing.

Also worth noting that the “Retry Level” option is in the pause menu, so every time you want to restart the level on your journey for par you must pause the game and sit through that long, unskippable animation. Every single time. Any game that has levels designed around trying to beat a score or a time but doesn’t give you an easy way to retry the level is straight-up bad game design.

Eventually I just gave up on trying to get par on all the levels to organically experience the diary stories in the game and just looked them up online so I could read them as I go. Which, honestly, is a better experience anyway so you can actually read the relevant comments for the level while you’re still on that level.

It’s honestly a shame that the actual act of playing this game is such a mixed experience because the world they’ve created is so incredibly fascinating (and often eerily real) that I wanted to squeeze every last drop out of it. It’s too bad the game ends up getting in its own way at every hole.

+ Notalgia Radio rules
+ The world, lore, and storytelling are all incredible
+ The music owns
+ Fantastic visuals. A post-apocalyptic world never looked so good

- The golf part of this golf game is not great
- Story diaries only unlock if you perform well even on “Story Mode” difficulty
- No easy retry button
- Bad UI choices like long pause animations
- Radio/dialogue doesn’t pause when you pause the game

It's a clever premise that seems like it would be fun but is more frustrating than anything. The gameplay doesn't feel fine-tuned and it's too simplistic. You only use the analog stick and a single button, and it feels like wasted real estate when there are so many functions that it would be nice to have, like an undo button, a power selection that's separate from the angle selection, or hell even just a button to restart a level so you don't need to pause, wait for the slow animation to play out that brings up the menu, then navigate over to the restart button. It's also tedious just how slowly your character jet-packs over to the ball after hitting it. It's a JET PACK, move FASTER. The art looks decent but isn't super readable and it's tough to tell which parts of the environment are collision objects and which ones your ball will go straight through. Had potential, a bit of a letdown. Weird that they changed the title post-release from Golf Club Wasteland to Golf Club Nostalgia. That's obviously a much worse title.