Mario Golf: Super Rush; cursed decadence in game form

 Nintendo needs to get a hobby

Okay so I know this isn't a new topic, not in that it's a game that's already been released but rather that it's a reveal from quite a while back that I've only just gotten around to, but bare with me here. I spent ever single one of those extra days in quiet contemplation about what the heck it is that this game even is and why it exists. I found myself broaching the very depths of my reasoning at attempting to justify the amount of... effort, that has seemingly gone into bringing this to life. And then I have to think about the target demographic, the market viability, all of this nonsense just wrack at my greymatter to no end. And you may say something of the lines of "But why do you even need to consider any of that anyway?" To which my answer is simple; because I need to know what Nintendo was thinking when this was conceived, greenlit, made, anything-ed. You don't understand my mania, that's fine, but let me try and break it down for you.

Firstly, I think we should address the obvious about how this is another title that propagates the retcon of Mario Mario and his professional life. Still do I remember the days when the Kingdom's most knowledgeable toaster-professor was celebrated for his profession as a Plumber. And what wholesome days they were. Heck, an entire generation of kids grew up thinking that their local plumbers were going around stomping goombas and rescuing Princesses down there, and maybe they were; I don't know the in's and out's of the plumbing profession. But I guess somewhere along the way it just became 'uncool' to wade around in other people's filth all day so that folk can having working toilets. (Yes, Plumbers work on more than just toilet pipes; that's just the image I can't get out of my head right now.) That marked Mario's speedy exodus from the craft that put him squarely on the map, and Nintendo's prolonged campaign to cover up his past for the sake of his public image. Oh that's right, Nintendo know they can't afford anything to tarnish the name of their most profitable asset. (They're in it together I tell ya!)

I may never forget the horrific day when Nintendo fully addressed how our man had been seen taking a suspicious amount of holidays from his green pipes of old. They called him 'Sporty', noted his various hobbies of 'Tennis or Baseball, Soccer or racing', and almost as an afterthought tossed in 'As a matter of fact, he also seems to have worked as a plumber a long time ago...' A long time ago? What is he, too good to work on public infrastructure anymore? Too good to work full stop? He sounds like a retiree in his fifties trying his hardest to insist that his day to day is really fulfilling, pointing out all the hobbies he has time for now, whilst internally swallowing the fact that everyone can see he's hollowed out from the inside, replacing one passionless activity for the next and never being content with any of them. A jack of every sport, but a master of none. So what might keep his attention this week, I wonder? Various Olympic games? Carpentry? Space exploration? No, this time it's Golf. (Maybe he'll find the answers he seeks in abyss of the cup)

Oh good lord, another one? For 22 years now, Mario has been retiring to those greens for that most affluent of sports; golfing. (No shade on actual golfers, I'm sure you're all very affable people in person. I'm playing up the stereotype.) There's already been Mario Golf for the NES, Mario Golf for the Gameboy Colour, Mario Golf for the N64, Mario Golf: Advance Tour (Guess the system), Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour (Gamecube), Mario Golf: World Tour (DS), and now Mario Golf: Super Rush. There's so freakin' many of them! What more could Nintendo possibly add to a golf simulator in order to give it value? Surely there has to be a point at which throwing in all the club types, stage hazards, possible environmental shifts, air resistances, tee materials and whatever else a Golfing game could need, hits that ceiling. In the words of Scotty, "I'm giving her all she's got, captain!" (Note: I Don't think James Doohan ever actually said that exact line, but go with it)

But this is Nintendo we're talking about here. If anyone can take a punctilious and stuffy sport like Golf and inject the thing with faff to try and make it fresh; it's those madmen. Though saying that, even at a base level this Mario Golf entry has so many systems imbued into it that I genuinely think it's going to be one of the most sophisticated golf sims on the market when it launches; if that means literally anything given the the PGA series is owned by 2K. (2K and sports titles? That's a yikes.) And even if I'm being presumptive with that claim, I can definitively say that 'Super Rush' certainly looks the best with it's cool courses and rather pretty rendering. (Modern sports games may shoot at looking realistic, but they just feel so lifeless nowadays)

This gets weird, of course, when we see Nintendo scramble to justify that 'Super Rush' subtext, leading to an almost crazy golf reminiscent mode called 'Speed golf'. Yep, this is a version of Golf that is all about shooting as quickly as possible to pot first (and still under Par, I presume) whilst actively running from each shot to the next. And there are powerups to let up get there faster or mess with the other opponents during shots or between them. They made a golf game into a racing one. With Mario Kart rules. But that's just the gamemodes. Then there's storymode. Yeah. Nintendo threw in a whole mode where you walk around as a Mii taking quests and working your way up various golf tournaments in order to become the new god of golfing. (Winner becomes the Mushroom Kingdom's new dictator, right?) And, of course, the story mode has a levelling system attached to a rudimentary RPG interface so that your Mii improves stats like their 'drive distance' or how much spin they can put on the ball. Nintendo, guys; why have you put so much into your silly golf game?

I noticed this trend in their last tennis game which similarly had an unnecessarily story mode attached to the side of it; it speaks of Nintendo's chronic habit of going above and beyond to the point of perhaps going too beyond. Who's honestly looking for a storymode in their Mario golfing game? Isn't the most we're really expecting something along the lines of motion controls, or family settings? No, Nintendo want this to become your next months long obsession that eats up your free time until the next sports game. Party games aren't just for parties anymore; now they're just as much about eating up the spare hours of the kids as they lock themselves in the silent dark of their bedrooms, grinding for the next few meters on their drive. You're feeding on our completionism Nintendo, it's sick.

Seriously though, I can't get over how overdesigned this game is. It's as though Nintendo have taken personal offence to the amount of underbaked, tossed together AAA games are on the market today and thus adopted this vigilante thirst for making even the most basic of game ludicrously stuffed with content. Arguably too stuffed. As much as I think it sounds cool, I have to wonder if this added development time isn't perhaps taking effort away from some of the other, more grand, projects that could really use it. For example, did we really need a developed story mode added onto a Golfing game when those resources could have been diverted to an upcoming story-based game like Breath of the Wild 2? I'm sure that we're talking inconsequential snippets of time 'wasted' in the bigger scheme, but that won't stop me throwing side-eye everytime I see this game, and other's like it, advertised. I love the hunger, guys, I just wish it was channelled in other directions.