Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Super Swing Golf Season 2

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    Super Swing Golf Season 2

    Played Super Swing Golf to the death and unlocked everything available? Wondering if Super Swing Golf Season 2 will act as an expansion pack allowing you to use anything already unlocked over new tracks for a quick start?
    Ah, wrong place.
    Super Swing Golf Season 2 will completely ignore any savegame belonging to its predecessor and will place you once again in control of Scout and Hana in their way into the Pangya tournament. You can start with some extra money if you choose "beginner" when creating a save file, which is something I strongly recommend, as it will take off your shoulders the pain to earn Pangs to pay for Hana's white Chinese costume.
    Speaking about costumes, hair dies are now free and there are new dresses for each character, although everything still needs an ungodly amount of Pangs to be purchased (especially if you already went through the trouble in getting them in the first game), but I guess that's the main driving goal of the game...I wonder if I'll be able to dress Kooh in a more outrageous way than a German WWII helmet, glasses, school swimsuit, black rider gloves and military boots with the magical girl club set and a broom-riding baby witch as a caddie.

    Essentially the game is the same as before, core mechanics haven't changed much; there's still stroke play (played against all characters, the one with the lower score wins) and match play (against a single opponent, wins whoever wins more holes), while the story mode has been completely reworked: like Super Mario Bros. 3 (or World or New SMB), the player moves the character on a map divided into various stages, each being a match against an opponent, a minigame, or neutral spaces that will give you hints; each space can also have events to unlock the characters and so on; it's a nicer way to let you navigate through the courses but you can change your character whenever you feel like, meaning that any private storyline is lost.

    User Interface has been streamlined and made more accessible for those not familiar with the game. Zooming on the map no longer requires to move the Wiimote toward or away from the screen but - and + buttons are used instead, which is a good thing. Due to this there are some other minor changes (like pressing B and operating the d-pad to change clubs while viewing the overhead map), but only seasoned (ah ah) Pangya players will take some time to get used to. Ball impact point is much more clear now, with icons indicating the effect the ball will have, there are three Power Shots now (Cobra, Tomahawk and the new Spike) and the game can still be controlled by either swinging the Wiimote or completely by buttons. I'm used to the latter, as the swing mode required a lot of training and my dog tried once to bite my hands off, plus during match plays computer shots aren't skippable, so it would be a lot of standing up and sitting down, as the swing mode still requires to take a "real", full swing to hit the ball.

    Technically speaking the game runs in progressive scan but it's still limited to 4:3 (and I cannot stop to think that the PC version surely supports 16:10 resolutions, so the guys at Tecmo and Ntree are basically lazy). Graphics are pretty much the same although seems that the occasional hiccups of the first game have been programmed away; animations, models, texture are still the same. The lottery is still driven by a spinning dolfini but there's no gallery.

    No gallery!

    Come on Ntree, the gallery was one of the best extras the original game had, in fact it was the only extra it had, and now it has been removed from Season 2. With no online multiplayer or DLCs, it's hard to justify the full price tag of the game: there are hardly any additions and the interface could have been like this even in the first game if Tecmo and Ntree were more willing.

    While the game is still fun, anyone who already played through the first game won't find too many reasons to play the same thing again to unlock the same items and characters of the previous game; the courses are still the same and I doubt there will be new ones, which is a real shame.
    With the PC version out for free, with more content and periodically updated, Season 2 feels like a mere commercial operation to do some free money thanks to the Wii large installed base.

    It's not a bad game, but it's clearly made for new players or die-hard Pangya fans.

    #2
    Thread bump for some additional infos.

    Overall, the game is more enjoyable than its predecessor; the AI doesn't wildly swings back and forth between ace and total rookie, nor the game throws in your face complex courses like the Silvia Cannon while you're still trying to understand how the game works, shaping the difficulty curve in a much more gentle way, although it has been a bit on the easy side so far: it's possible that the computer would end a 6H stroke play with a score of +4 for completely wrong puts.
    Pangs are still hard to come by and unlockable items aren't slowly unlocked in each tour mode stage but rather you get a full load of costumes and items after playing events: a more progressive unlocking would had allowed to test almost each item rather than going for the most useful and/or fanserviceable (whooo, new word with absolutely new meaning!) costume.

    Spinning Dolfini is now basically useless: you get tickets after playing stroke or match plays, but as there is no gallery, you unlock only disposable items; there are secret rings, but they are extremely rare and spinning that grinning penguin-looking ball thing 10 times consecutively is just tiring, as you end piling up items that you won't really need once you've learned how to play. A Smash Bros. Melee like lottery would have been more enjoyable, I have 50 or more unused tickets sitting in my save file just because the idea of spinning the Wiimote for 50 times tires me - you need to put some effort in spinning it, just like the swing control mode: it's fun the first two times (and I'm speaking about the first game, which was a console launch title), then it's just a chore.

    Still, I've found myself hooked to the game once again - Tecmo and Ntreev put more effort in making it a worthwhile single player experience, and it shows off. But, please, for the third installment, include online play and have the game read from both Pangya 1 and Pangya 2 savefiles to allow a quick start. Please.

    Comment

    Working...
    X