A Little Golf Journey

Can I downvote this game? That's what I was asking myself when I was writing this review. Ultimately the answer is "no", but I will caution that this game has a few aspects that really rub me the wrong way. In short, the game just overstays its welcome in nearly every aspect. I understand that it's a small team, and they wanted to maximize their investment, but sometimes less is more. Each world introduces a new aesthetic, and SOMETIMES adds a new mechanic (e.g. wind) that makes the levels more interesting. But often by the mid-point of a world, I am SO OVER IT. Eleven courses per idea is just too much, especially when the differences between individual levels are indistinguishable. Let me describe it to you this way: Of the game's 100 holes, only a couple stand out as memorable. NOW, take this level of exhaustion and add on top of it a star system for "perfecting" a hole, and "Blue Things" to collect, and put them in front of a completionist. I was STRUGGLING. Now you might be reading this and just saying "well then don't play that way" and, fine, I understand that you don't get it, but the psychology behind this game's design is just unintentionally manipulative. It invites you to get good, puts the star-system front and center, and then just when you think you're done, tosses more trinkets at you to collect. It asks for an inch, then takes a mile. This game would greatly benefit from hiding these additional features until after the player has reached the first ending (and automatically unlocking and enabling the undo function at this point), so that one could see whether it was a game worth 100%-ing, instead of goading the player into getting good and then dragging it out. Something else I could've done entirely without was the "invitations" and "Letters between X & Y," which when I first started playing the game made me think there were meta-secrets hidden throughout the game. But no. They hint towards something that doesn't exist. Obviously I'm writing this review at the end of a frustrating completionist's journey, which very nearly ruined the game for me. If I take a step back and look at what drew me to this game, it's the beautiful art, chill sounds/soundtrack, and above-average golfing mechanics. These are all excellent! I LOVED my first few hours with this game. Ultimately, it's not a bad game. It was just over-engineered in a way that made it un-fun for certain types of players, of which I was one.

as a puzzle game is not very deep and feels slightly repetitive but it's very polished, has many different "biomes", good graphics, chill background music, many secrets to explore and challenges plus it's very cheap and works perfectly on a steam deck