Cursed to Golf - Switch Review

On the path to becoming a golf legend, The Cursed Golfer becomes just that, cursed, and as such, is dragged down to Golf Purgatory. Cursed to Golf is a 2D golfing roguelite adventure where you must work your way up to The Greenskeeper by facing a series of challenges with nothing but a golf club (and the help of Ace Cards... we'll get to that later). In a sea of indie golf games, it begs to question whether the cursed hook is eough to differentiate it from the rest.

The Good

Golf games have become increasingly popular amongst the indie scene, arguably since Golf Story landed on Nintendo Switch early in the system's life (still waiting for Sports Story). With a niche within a genre slowly becoming oversaturated, the first thing that developers need to get right is its core gameplay mechanic... the golf. In Cursed to Golf, the golfing is stellar, and the ingeniously designed courses mitigate boring the mindlessly wacking pitfall that golf games so commonly fall into.

Let's face it, golf is a little boring. Not for everyone! It can be fun to play on a nice day but I can never envision myself sitting back on the couch and watching a tournament. In order to make it a fun gaming experience, developers often rely on implementing arcade mechanics or quirks to make the gameplay a little spicey. Chuhai Labs's solution was the addition of Ace Cards which provide a variety of once-off mechanics. These include additional golf balls, exploding balls, the ability to stop a ball mid-flight and many more (I won't spoil the fun). You'll start off with a few cards but the better you do, the more you'll obtain.

Cursed to Golf is a roguelite and as such, each course (aside from the boss courses) are randomised and makes each attempt unique. As the difficulty ramps up, the courses require more and more precision, making for some interesting (and sometimes frustrating) challenges.

The humour in Cursed to Golf is fantastic and each character is unique in their own way. For each world, you have a character who is also trying (and failing) to escape the evil clutches of The Greenskeeper. In order to avoid late-game spoilers, the first two world's characters featuring a Scottish entrepreneurial golfer who has tried to escape for so long that he opens up his own chain of golf shops (Eterni-tee), and the second is The Explorer; they're called this because they've been dead for so long, they can't remember their own name.

TL;DR

• Smooth 2D golf mechanics
• Ace Cards
• Multiple pathways
• Fun humour

The Bad

For a 2D golf game that changes its courses each runthrough, the limited perspective often makes it difficult to see where you're hitting your ball. Before taking a shot, you can press the B button to explore the upcoming terrain and if you press A whilst in this view, you can zoom out to see more. However when you're taking your shot, you can only ever-so-slightly move the camera, which often leaves you guessing based on what you previously saw. As the levels grow increasingly meticulous in design, this results in all kinds of frustration.

TL;DR

• 2D plane limits your view

Final Score: 9/10

Cursed to Golf accomplishes something that many indie golf games don't - it manages to be different. Not only that, the controls are smooth, the art is clean and  it all cultimates to a golf game that stands out amongst the crowd. Cursed to Golf is an indie gem through-and-through.

Thank you for checking out our Cursed to Golf Switch review, thank you to Thunderful Games (via Plan of Attack PR) for providing the review code and thank you to our Patreon Backers for their ongoing support:

• Andrew Caluzzi (Inca Studios / Camped Out)
• Bel Cubitt
• NintenVania Podcast
• Rachelle Suri-Tucker

For more reading, check out our Blossom Tales 2: The Minotaur Prince review.