These days, you expect wild and wacky things form Mario’s sports titles, but it wasn’t always like that. In Nintendo’s early days, Mario appeared in sports games that weren’t named after him, with Mario’s Tennis on the Virtual Boy, but it really started with Mario Golf, appearing on both N64 and Game Boy Color.

But Mario Golf isn’t a wild and wacky golf game – there’s no crazy powers or abilities, no silly clubs or balls. It’s just golf….but really good golf.

In the previous 3 golf games on the N64 (none of which were available in all regions), each one only had a singular golf course each. Mario Golf, on the other hand, has six full 18 hole courses, starting with fairly regular golf course designs (with Mario-style background elements) to more unrealistic courses with big cliffs, lots of islands and some themed after characters. They’re all nicely detailed in 3D and many manage to look visually interesting as well.

To unlock the courses, you’ll need to earn points by gaining XP, winning tournaments, beating other characters and generally doing anything in the game. Interestingly, winning a tournament is enough to get the next course on its own, so it’s nice to have an alternative method to get them.

The main golfing mechanics take a “if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it” approach, using the tried and tested system Nintendo used in NES Golf. Press the A button and the bar will move, press A at the right point for power, where the bar will move back and press A to get as close to where you started for better accuracy. You do have to account for different terrain types and the wind, as well as your character’s own abilities.

That is my main complaint about Mario Golf – characters hit different distances, and many drift to the side when swinging. I found the game to be easier to stick to the “straight” characters – which meant using a couple of characters made specifically for Mario Golf. With no way to improve stats of characters, I would much prefer to have all characters be equal, but have different sets of clubs make the difference.

On top of multiple ways to play golf – tournaments, head-to-head, speed golf – there are a few additional modes, such as the extremely difficult ring mode where you have to hit the ball through rings, and also some minigolf courses for putting. I found that judging distances while putting was very difficult, not just in minigolf but in the regular mode as well.

There’s an immense amount of stuff to do in Mario Golf, but even with this, some great courses and some solid gameplay, it’s not the best Mario Golf game released in 1999. The Game Boy Colour version of Mario Golf featured a great RPG mode and a way to improve your character’s stats (which, incidentally, you can import into the N64 game).

Great

The courses get tougher and tougher, finishing with the deadly Mario’s Star course, in which the greens are little more than tiny mounds and the fairways are brush strokes on giant portraits of characters from Super Mario 64. What all the courses have in common is the amount of thought put into designing each one.

Martin Kitts, N64 Magazine #34. Review Score: 90%

Remake or remaster?

A remake that combined the courses and features of both the N64 and GBC Mario Golf games would be amazing.

Official ways to get the game.

There is no way to buy a new copy of Mario Golf, the only official way to play is to rent it via the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack.

Re-releases

2008: Wii Virtual Console

2015: Wii U Virtual Console

2022: Nintendo Switch Online (Subscription Only)