NES Open Tournament Golf
Mario and Luigi golf on international courses with caddie advice.
NES Open Tournament Golf, released in 1991, is a sports game for the NES. Developed by HAL Laboratory and Nintendo R&D2, it was published by Nintendo. As the fourth golf game starring Mario and the first in the Mario Golf series, it lets players take on the roles of Mario or Luigi across international courses. The game uses a third-person view for shots and a top-down perspective for putting. It was generally well-received.
Quick Facts
- Developer
- Nintendo R&D2; HAL Laboratory
- Publisher
- Nintendo
- Producer
- Masayuki Uemura
- Director
- Kenji Miki
- Artist
- Eiji Aonuma; Mikio Mishima
- Programmer
- Satoru Iwata
- Kyosuke Shirota
- Kenichi Nakajima
- Composer
- Akito Nakatsuka
- Yumiko Kanki (FDS)
- Shinobu Amayake (Mario Open Golf)
- Series
- Mario Golf
Facts from the source article.
Gameplay
In NES Open Tournament Golf, players take on the role of Mario in a golf simulation that features familiar Mario characters. The goal is to sink the ball in each hole using as few strokes as possible. Before swinging, a top-down view lets you choose your club and set the ball’s general direction and distance. When you swing, the camera switches to a third-person angle. You control shot power by stopping a marker on a power meter with a button press, then press again to decide the shot type. Wind and ball spin can change how the ball moves. Mario’s caddie is Princess Toadstool, who offers advice. In multiplayer, the second player uses Luigi, with Princess Daisy as his caddie.
Family Computer Golf: Japan Course
Family Computer Golf: Japan Course hit the Disk System on February 21, 1987, and plays a lot like the original 1984 Famicom Golf. The screen is split: a bird's-eye view of the course stays on the right, while a third-person view occupies the left. You can choose between stroke play and match play. The course layouts resemble those in NES Open Tournament Golf, but the controls are a bit different. You pick from three ball speeds and switch clubs manually, and the default club is always a 1W—later games would automatically pick a suitable club. The scorecard looks almost the same as the one in NES Open Tournament Golf. The game came on a blue disk, unlike the usual yellow ones, because blue disks worked with Disk Fax machines for a contest in Japan. You could save high scores and enter personal data, then send it to Nintendo via Disk Fax. Contest winners got a golden disk with a harder version of the game.
Re-releases
A version branded as Mario's Open Golf was released for Nintendo's PlayChoice-10 arcade machines, requiring additional circuitry to run. This version was most similar to NES Open Tournament Golf, more so than Mario Open Golf for the Famicom, and lacked the tournament mode option. NES Open Tournament Golf was later released for the Wii Virtual Console on June 18, 2007, the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console on July 5, 2012, and the Nintendo Switch Online service on October 10, 2018.
Other media
Mario Open Golf appears in the manga Cyber Boy by Nagai Noriaki, published by Coro Coro Comic and Shogakukan from 1991 to 1993. A microgame based on NES Open Tournament Golf appears in WarioWare: Twisted!, where the player must sink a putt before time runs out; this microgame later appeared in WarioWare Gold. Mario's outfit from this game is an alternate costume in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, Super Mario Odyssey, and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate; Mario Golf: Super Rush and Mario Kart Tour also included Luigi's outfit.
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