Camelot Software Planning - Mario Golf: Advance Tour (2004), 5/10

The highlight of Mario Golf: Advance Tour is undoubtedly its career mode, a design shift toward rewarding players for their time spent on the course that feels like an extension of Mario Golf (GBC) rather than a full redesign from the ground up. The extra game modes are rather uninteresting in practice, and the experience of the play itself becomes defined by its role-playing elements rather than the satisfaction of golfing. The mechanics are simple enough, even too simple, as they lead the player into mastery too quickly. The experience quickly becomes a simple exercise in minimizing one's mistakes rather than strategizing against the course, wind, club selection, top-spin, or any other nuance in gameplay that sparks creative interest in later titles. The developers leaned too far into its namesake for gameplay structure without extending what was already in place.

The challenge of the "role-playing" mode is rather simple as well, and there is no reward for participating in smaller role-playing elements, continually pointing players toward the golf course. The role-playing mode attempts to setup its characters with a frustratingly dull introduction sequence, rather than leaning into its established Nintendo cast, and while the narrative ambition is welcome, here it yields very little in terms of satisfaction or interest. While the gameplay on the course is engrossing for a certain indefinably small amount of time, it does not create a lasting joy, which some games of the franchise have indeed achieved, such as Toadstool Tour. The limitations of the Game Boy Advance are a serious consideration with Advance Tour, just as they were with Mario Golf (GBC) and the identically titled Mario Golf (N64), but these twin titles utilize their console advantages in the interest of gameplay strengths, where Advance Tour seems to be fighting against its technical limitations, resulting in a rather disappointingly standard golf game experience.