Everybody’s Golf: Hot Shots Review

Everybody’s Golf is a long-running sports simulator owned by Sony. Until now, it was a franchise exclusive to PlayStation, but with its most recent release, Everybody’s Golf: Hot Shots, the popular golfing franchise has made its way over to Nintendo Switch. Despite being Sony-owned, this latest game is actually published by Bandai Namco and was developed by Hyde, instead of the series’ long-running developer Clap Hanz. It’s a new start for this popular franchise, but one that leaves a rather awkward first impression.

Everybody’s Golf Hot Shots attempts to be a celebration of the entire series, with a cast pulled from every mainline game and a plethora of courses, clubs and customisable options for its characters, including new costumes, colours, emotes and more. Including the Caddies, Everybody’s Golf: Hot Shots boasts the largest roster in the series to date, and yet when the game begins there is only the bare minimum available: two characters, one caddie and one course.

It is a rather bizarre choice, especially given that four-player multiplayer is offered, meaning in a full game characters have to be repeated. Add on to this that unlockables can only be acquired through the single-player content and it makes Everybody’s Golf: Hot Shots feel predominantly like a single-player game. A very odd choice for a sports game, which often thrives off its multiplayer options.

The content itself cannot be unlocked easily either. It is all tied to the Challenge and Story modes. In the former, any character can be selected and used to earn points and money through the various tournaments, some of which have gimmicks like the tornado holes that suck balls in. After enough points are gathered, a Vs. match will become available, and clearing this unlocks a new character and sometimes a new course… Kind of.

Technically, it unlocks the new character’s story mode, and only upon playing that will the golfer become available in all other modes. It’s a very single-player focused system, and due to its nature, multiple rounds of golf will need to be won on the same courses over and over again to earn enough points to advance. It gets a bit repetitive, and is only alleviated by how fast Everybody’s Golf Hot Shots actually is when playing solo, not having to wait for every other golfer to take their turn.

Not every character is unlocked this way, nor the caddies and costumes. Some are rewarded by clearing a set number of challenges with a specific character, while others require the loyalty or trust of a golfer or caddie to be raised to a certain amount – something that happens after every game.

The content does not end here. There are a plethora of single-player and multiplayer modes to partake in, both offline and online. This includes Wacky Golf, a new mode with special or bizarre rules, like the golf course being filled with landmines that explode when a ball stops on them, or a mode that randomly selects the clubs you are allowed to use. These modes are great additions to the game, and overall the overwhelming amount of content that Everybody’s Golf: Hot Shots has is absolutely a positive in the long run. It just requires an extreme amount of effort to unlock, even just to get to the basic standard of content that a golf game should start with.

Another positive is the gameplay. Mario Golf: Super Rush, the Switch entry in the Mario Golf series, and Nintendo’s equivalent to Everybody’s Golf (even made by the same developer originally), changed up a lot of the core gameplay that fans liked and it left a bad impression. Everybody’s Golf: Hot Shots feels like the golf game that Super Rush should have been, keeping the traditional ‘three-button press’ setup for controlling golf swings.

Hot Shots is a traditional golf title in set-up and presentation, meaning genre enthusiasts can easily jump in and understand exactly what to do (although for newcomers, the game provides a tutorial and glossary to reference to help guide players along). On top of its traditional style, there are customisation options for the UI layout and camera angle, allowing for more dynamic and cinematic games of golf.

Modification doesn’t end there, as characters have different outfits with customisable colours, and their stats can also be tweaked using purchasable food items. Perks and abilities can be attached to golfers and caddies for extra benefits. The UI can be adjusted to fit multiple different playstyles. The camera can be altered and the default camera can be changed, along with aim assistance and other accessibility or difficulty features. It truly allows for an entirely customisable experience in a way most other golf games do not.

From a purely gameplay perspective, Everybody’s Golf: Hot Shots passes with flying colours. Unfortunately, from a presentation standpoint the game goes the opposite direction on the quality scale. Graphically it is passable, looking like a PS3/Wii U era game with its models and lighting – and that is fine. The problems are more on a technical level.

Pop-in for shadows and high-poly environmental objects, like trees, are really bad. It’s common practice to have different poly versions of models that get swapped out depending on the distance from the camera. An object further away from the screen can be rendered at a lower framerate or polycount without impacting immersion due to it being far enough away to not be noticed. As long as it seamlessly renders in the high poly model when the camera gets close to it, the illusion isn’t shattered. Seamless is the key word here and one Everybody’s Golf: Hot Shots missed as when the camera pans over a course, the tree pop-in as the camera gets close is extremely noticeable, and gives the game a poor quality.

Character animations also feel off at times. Every character has an animation it plays depending on whether they achieved a birdie, par, bogey, etc., and with the worst scoring animations, the movement, dialogue and voice acting gives off the impression of the character being upset. However, the faces always seem to default to a smile that doesn’t match what’s happening. It feels really jarring and is an issue that was resolved back in the PS2 days of gaming, so to see it crop up again is awkward.

That might be the ultimate descriptor for Everybody’s Golf: Hot Shots. It’s an awkward game. On the one hand, the gameplay is fantastic with a ton of customisation, content and everything fans of the golfing genre would want, which easily makes this the best golfing game on Nintendo Switch currently. However, everything around the gameplay, which was standardised in this genre decades ago, walks the line between terrible and great. Having a plethora of content is fantastic, but making it all long and obnoxious to unlock is annoying. Having fun character and course designs is let down by an outdated-feeling presentation.

Everybody’s Golf: Hot Shots is fun and fans of the genre will find a lot of enjoyment out of it, especially if they can look past the graphical issues (framerate-wise it runs pretty smooth, except for when it is the CPU’s turn for some odd reason). There is a lot of single-player content to enjoy. For those looking to play this as a multiplayer experience, be prepared to do a lot of pre-game grinding for new content; otherwise enjoy the same 18 holes and two over-the-top teenage golfers over and over and over again.