This is my second review for this game. The first one is available here; I'm writing a new one because I feel like there's too many comparisons, too much saying it is good for merely being what other golf games are not. And while it is true that this game is the exception in the horrible genre that is golf games, using such a framework doesn't sell you at all into the searing complexity of this world or the beautiful way all these little interlocking systems cascade together to make every stroke and every hole an exciting and fresh ordeal.

The first time you play a Neo Turf Masters game after the tutorial, starting with any course not all the features are there. It begins as just feeling out the different clubs and the controls. But eventually, wind is added. Then grain, then increasingly more difficult and involved holes. There is obviously one goal - to get the ball in the hole - but the level design makes it so much more; will you glide along the fairway or will you take a complete crackshot? Will you aim low and risk the bounces or will you shoot to the sky and submit your ball to the wind? From the first stroke all of these possibilities spread out infinitely and the joy in revelling in them is unmatched. "Addictive" is a term I like to avoid in games as much as I can help it, but this game has utterly cast a spell on me.

Any game can make winning feel good, but it takes a great game to make losing feel good and Neo Turf Masters does it in spades; it's genuinely been a very long time since I've discovered a game with as thrilling a minutae and as elegant building of systems to make every action maximally engaging as Neo Turf Masters.

Sorry if this review is rambly, this game really does sweep me off my feet