Cursed to Golf
Reviewed by Cyril Lachel on
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With a ghoulish sense of humor and a golf course full of haunted delights, Cursed to Golf is the perfect way to say hello to the spooky time of year. Although a bit unfair at times, the randomized levels are fun and there’s a whole extra layer of depth once you master using the Ace Cards. That said, the difficulty is not for everybody and the various boss battles are a lot more frustrating than fun. If you’re looking for a challenge and like your golf courses to be as complicated as possible, then you’ll definitely want to sign up for this tournament. It may not be a hole in one, but Curse to Golf is a real winner.
Rating: 78%
The new game Cursed to Golf is about a guy who dies and gets sent to a golf-themed purgatory where he’s forced to play the most ghoulishly frustrating 18 holes of his life (or death). This got me wondering, what kind of personalized purgatory should I look forward to when I die? Perhaps it will be one where I can play all the games I want, but every single one of them is terrible. If that’s the case, I better enjoy Cursed to Golf now, while I’m still alive, because there’s no way I’ll be able to take a game this fun into the afterlife. It’s a monstrously silly sports game that sees us slicing and hooking our way through the underworld, one hole at a time. Watch out for flying balls, because this is my review of Cursed to Golf.
This is the story of a professional golfer who is tragically struck by lightning right before winning the most important tournament of his life. This sends the unlucky putter to the afterlife, where the ghost of an old Scottish golfer reveals that, even though he’s dead, there’s still a chance to complete the tournament. In order to do that, he’ll need to play through the creepiest golf course you’ve ever seen and beat a series of extremely tough (and dead) bosses. There’s just one catch: Nobody has ever been able to survive the journey, so it’s going to take one hell of a golfer to defeat this impossible course.
If you can’t tell based on the setup, this is not going to be your typical golf game. In fact, it changes the rules so much that it barely qualifies as a sport. By mixing elements usually found in puzzle and maze games, Cursed to Golf is more about survival than beating the competition. The 2D courses are incredibly complicated, with multiple paths and all kinds of warps and pipes sending the ball in crazy directions. Simply locating the out-of-the-way hole is half the fun, and getting there will take a lot a strategy and well-placed hits.
Thankfully, the gameplay makes moving the ball around the course a little bit easier. Bucking the typical set-up, Cursed to Golf first has you stop the moving gauge to choose the speed and then hit the button once again to stop the aim from moving up and down. If you screw up and don’t want to take the shot, you can quickly cancel out of the swing and go back to switching between the three clubs. That’s right, there are only three clubs (drive, iron and wedge), with each of them having a slightly different arch and distance. This game is easy to pick up, but as you’ll quickly discover, it will take real practice to learn the skills needed to make it out of Hell unscathed.
What makes this game challenging is that we start each hole with only five strokes. That means that you can only hit the ball five times before getting sucked into a portal and forced to start again. The good news is that you’ll be able to pick up extra strokes by breaking the gold and grey statues that line the course. What’s tricky is that the statues aren’t always conveniently located, so you’ll have to make real decisions about whether you want to take the shortcut or play it safe.
And you wouldn’t be a real pro golfer if you didn’t have an extra card up your sleeves, literally. Our spectral hero is able to use a series of Ace Cards to give himself a real advantage. Some of these cards are as simple as practicing a stroke or undoing an especially bad putt, while others will add some much-needed strokes to your round. Other cards will allow you to change the direction the ball is heading while it’s still in the air, while some will literally blow-up everything in your way. Collecting and using these cards can be the difference between winning and losing, and in this case, losing means going all the way back to the start and doing it all over again.
That’s right, this is one of those games where you basically hit the reset button every time you lose. And before you ask, yes, the levels are randomly constructed, too. You’ll recognize a lot of the same types of mazes, but you never know what you’re going to get from one hole to the next. This is a tough game that’s clearly meant to be played and replayed over and over without getting repetitive, and the randomized stages definitely help. It never felt like I was repeating the same course every time I restarted, and let me tell you, I restarted a lot. There’s a reason nobody has ever beaten the 18 holes, and it’s because this course will kick your butt.
For the most part, I have no issues with the extreme difficulty. The first couple holes are challenging, but they’re usually short and will ease you into the challenge. The difficulty starts to ramp up as you get deeper into the card and are forced to make real decisions about navigating the maze and whether or not you should go out or your way for those extra strokes. All it takes is hitting the spikes or misjudging the water hazard and you’ll run out of strokes, killing your chances of making your way back to the living. Sometimes you’ll get lucky, while other times the randomized courses will screw you.
As frustrating as it may be, I’m fine with losing because I ran out of strokes on an especially tough course. What I’m not okay with is losing to a cheap boss and being sent back to the beginning of the game. Of all the times when you should be able to demand a rematch, it should be when you’re going up against the annoyingly tough bosses. These characters already hit the ball further than our hero, but they have the advantage of knowing the course. It may take a few tries before you are able to take them down, which means replaying a whole bunch of holes. I don’t care if you take a chunk of my money or make me throw away a few of my cards, there should be a better way to rematch these bosses.
Because of the difficulty, I suspect a lot of players will probably give up before they venture too far into this golf-themed purgatory. That’s a shame, because the different regions add a number of new obstacles and cool changes. For example, the game adds these bouncy pads that will allow you to line up a second shot while the ball is still flying through the air. In later stages you’ll burn down vines and ride on floating platforms. I like how the game keeps adding new elements right up to the very end, which winds up being a lot more epic than I was expecting.
While the approach is a little different, Cursed to Golf reminds me a lot of another melancholy side-scrolling golf game that I reviewed recently called Golf Club: Wasteland. There you played a round of golf as Earth’s lone human, hitting the ball through old museums, zoos, apartment complexes and more. While I like the world building in that game more, Curse to Golf is the one I’m going to come back to time and time again. Sure, it’s challenging and maybe even a little unfair at times, but once you master the gameplay and learn how to effectively wield the cards, there’s a layer of depth that will keep you coming back for more. Keep the 2D golf games coming, because they’re only getting better.
With a ghoulish sense of humor and a golf course full of haunted delights, Cursed to Golf is the perfect way to say hello to the spooky time of year. Although a bit unfair at times, the randomized levels are fun and there’s a whole extra layer of depth once you master using the Ace Cards. That said, the difficulty is not for everybody and the various boss battles are a lot more frustrating than fun. If you’re looking for a challenge and like your golf courses to be as complicated as possible, then you’ll definitely want to sign up for this tournament. It may not be a hole in one, but Curse to Golf is a real winner.
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