fun little golf game. as a kid, never made it past the third cup. as an adult, it was joy-inducing to see all the little uses of characters/items in each course as you progressed. so many things to love: character choices, mechanics, color pallete, modes, and unlockables.

one big thing for me were the animations for each character upon completing a hole. these are the animations I feel like i wish came back to modern games in some way - not that modern animation is anything to scoff at, but the character and charm of these old ones feels unparalleled in the present. double bogey as wario? accidently crush yourself with a boulder and then waddle around in anger. hold-in-one as yoshi? flutter around in excitement. definitley nostalgia for me, since I grew up playing prime gamecube, but those old character models/voices will never get old for me. it feels like the same boo model is in literally every mario game on the gamecube. they just never changed it.

i really enjoyed the mechanics presented here, even if I didn't know that you manually had to toggle where you're character would hit the ball, as opposed to only selecting the target pre-shot. that was fun to learn while on the back 9 of my last tournament. finessing each shot by changing up my club, power, distance, and location of where I hit the ball made it so that no shot ever really felt impossible.

lastly, if i didn't have save states playing my *legally back up physical copy" on emulator, i don't know what I would do. i was only able to complete this game in 10 hours because I could mess around with my options and see what would work best. unlocking shadow mario through completion of the ring attack mode would've taken me at least four times as long could I not have saved my spots.

a lovely, inoffensive game that is great to relax with and enjoy the vibes.