The Switch has had a strong first year in terms of games. Nintendo's powerhouse characters such as Mario and Link have leaped onto the big and little screen filled to the brim with fun. And onto that ports of other great games and smaller great games and you have one great year for this new console. And one of these smaller games is a combination of two genres that may sound silly, but in the end worked out really well. That game is Golf Story, the first game made by Sidebar Games that combines retro golfing with an RPG.

The amount of time from announcement to release was short, but I have been following the game since its first announcement. Despite a lot of radio silence on the game, including the release date being announced days before the release, I still saw the small amount of pictures and information and thought that this was a cool game. So on day one of its release, I got a copy and started playing. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to pour a lot of hours into it due to a ton of other great, but I still have enough hours into the game to talk about the things I love with this game.

This game is really split into two parts: golf and RPG. When it comes to the golf, Golf Story does a pretty good job. The game uses the three click swing meter for hitting the ball, which is a method I prefer in a golf game. But the game has a lot more you can do when whacking the ball. You can adjust how far you want the ball to go, what part of the ball you want to hit for a curve or an increase in roll, back spin and front spin, and more. A lot of this is a bit too much for me, but I found that just whacking the ball is still a viable option. So if you are casual with playing a golf game or love to play golf and want to have all of those extra mechanics, then Golf Story can appeal to both. Also, the game also includes disc golf, mini golf, and a drone game. While these are smaller modes in the game, I still love that they are in the game and I also think they are fun to play. Add on top of that the satisfying sound and vibration of you whacking a ball, wacky courses and holes, the ability to play courses with a friend away from the main game with a good deal of modifiers, added obstacles like gophers trying to steal your ball and more, and you got a golf game that is unique from others. But the golfing isn't perfect. Putting isn't great because the indication of a slope on the green isn't good and I can never get a good gauge of how hard I have to hit the ball. Still, the game is a fun and entertaining golf game if you are in it for the golf.

Now to the RPG part. This game isn't a hardcore RPG, but it is still a fun and funny one. The game consists of eight different courses, but each course is its own little world that can be explored and is filled with quests, secrets, shops, and other things to do. Add onto that the ability to drop a ball anywhere in each world and hit from there makes each area a lot of fun to be in. The game also has good writing with a hint of Australianand interesting quests that make doing the side quests fun. One of the side quests I got started as a simple task: get rid of the gophers on the course. But the quest giver was a conspiracy theorist of sorts, and the guy had me hit golf balls with trackers into the gopher holes. I thought it would end with getting rid of the gophers, but it actually leads to following the gophers to an area where two people were raising a skeleton army and the gophers were actually supposed to get eye balls. Unfortunately, a large percent of missions are more challenges than missions, but they are all still fun nonetheless.

In the end, Golf Story isn't the best golf game or the best RPG, but the combination of the two makes it a great and unique game perfect for the Switch. If you are tired of playing BOTW or Mario Odyssey but still want to play on the Switch, then you can't go wrong with this game. Golf Story is a game I recommend.