The first – and last – third party game on the 64DD, made by Media Factory. It was available for sale for only two weeks from Nintendo of Japan’s website, with estimated sales between 3,000 and 10,000 copies. The gameplay feels like a more refined version of Seta’s early N64 game The Glory of St Andrews: you hold the stick back to the power level you want while a dot on the golf ball pulsates, then you have to time your swing down for when the dot is at its smallest for the most accuracy. Some sources say that Seta published this, yet the logo on the box and in-game is Media Factory. It's still possible Seta developed it, or it was based on their engine, but their logo appears nowere in the game.

One annoying thing is that your golfer then gently puts the club down before swinging. It makes the actual swing feel very detached from your actions. It’s a much harder system than the likes of Mario Golf, but isn’t too bad once you get used to it, but it never stops being a faff to use, making the entire game feel dull. Japan Pro Golf Tour 64 seemingly takes a quantity over quality approach, with a whopping 10 golf courses available at the start of the game, and a ton of tournaments and different modes to play through, including a career mode and “Network Competition”.

The online features of Japan Pro Golf Tour 64 are really poorly documented, with some places stating that it had online play, online leaderboards, and the like. However, the Network Competition mode could have worked in any regular N64 game. When you open it, you’re prompted with a password entry. Entering a valid password will then load up a specific course and settings. When you’re finished, you’ll be given a password which you would then enter into an external website to submit your score – the game itself never connects online. There are tools for generating and reading these passwords, so the function can be tested out.

It did, however, have one major Randnet feature: DLC. Using the Randnet disc, you could download an additional five 18 hole courses, then patch them into the game by swapping to the Japan Pro Golf Tour disk. While the DLC itself is lost, fans have have created a special N64 cartridge ROM for patching it into the game (which should even work with the real physical game on 64DD), using courses from a PS1 Seta golf game as an example, so all features of this game are fully usable.

That said, every single one of the 15 courses looks identical. There’s no background details (so no visible clubhouse or landmarks), everywhere has the same trees, and you’re always looking at the same hills in the background no matter where you are. It’s just another example of the game’s quantity over quality.

Poor

Well, it’s a golf game, but a very fine looking one. Although it’ll be hard-pressed to beat Mario Golf, Seta Golf looks set to knock the likes of CyberTiger into a cocked hat.

N64 Magazine #40

Remake or remaster?

The interesting features of this game are only interesting specifically for consoles of the time (although the Dreamcast was already doing stuff like this). The preservation efforts of fans is good enough.

Official ways to get the game.

There’s no official way to get Japan Pro Golf Tour 64