I've been playing the Hot Shots Golf series since I was just a kid, and I always adored the Japanese charm of the game's settings and characters, as well as the addicting golf mechanics. However, I've never actually "finished" any of these games (i.e. defeating all the main golfers) until now. Everybody's Golf acts as a full-fledged, AA-budget reboot of the Japanese series...and I say "reboot" as a mixed impression.

Most of everything is here from the previous games. Wacky characters, fun gameplay, gorgeous courses, the works. It retains the charm and blissfulness of a world that I would love to live in, particularly backed by a fun opening movie with an original song by Owl City. What's a completely different turn here (aside from the added fishing mini-game, which I just won't talk about) is the way of progression and customization. Whereas the previous games would have you select a character to play as, with their own indicated skills, Everybody's Golf has the player create their own character and level up their stats through tournaments. It's very RPG-esque, and the EXP learned goes towards unlocking a new character to face. Once you defeat said character, you unlock their clothing and such, and the game loops from there.
For me personally, I couldn't stand this. The original formula was already fine by itself, but I get why they modernized it like this. My gripe is that the grind to get EXP (and even coins for unlocking clothes) is heavy, forcing you to play tons of randomized tournament sets. It gets very repetitive after a good while. I just prefer the original design of just playing tournaments to unlock characters and coins that you can use to buy non-cosmetic items in the shop. This was clearly designed to be more of a social online golfing game than a traditional one.

If this is your first dive into this series, I don't think you'll have too many issues with it. Otherwise, the grind is apparent.