A solid, if not noticeable, Super Mario sports title for the Switch
At their best, Super Mario sports titles go well beyond the game they're trying to imitate. You don't have to care about cars or racing to enjoy Mario Kart, just as you don't need to know who Pep Guardiola is to have fun with Super Mario Strikers. Sports are just a starting point. From there, Nintendo designers expanded on that with all kinds of new and interesting ideas. Mario Golf: Super Rush, now rolling out to the Nintendo Switch, does some of this. There are familiar characters with superpowers, courses with strange obstacles, and a new mode that's supposed to focus speed over everything else. In the end, though, the Super Rush ends up feeling just as great as golf.
Super Rush at least gets the basics right. Swinging the racket is fine, and that's true whether you're using a standard controller or Wii Sports-style motion controls. It's able to walk the same line that Nintendo games often do, being easy to pick up but also providing a good amount of depth once you start learning how different clubs work and how to add spin to your shot. Golf works well enough, and is backed by some Mario features, like weird obstacles (you can use hurricanes to give the ball a boost in the air) and character-specific powers (there are special shots that freeze the ground on impact or generate an annoying thunderstorm).
This is all fine if you just want to play a few rounds with friends. But several modes get in the way of the fun, and Super Rush is especially stressful if you're looking to play solo.
First, there's Speed Rush, the game's signature innovation, a mode that is geared more around speed than accuracy. The idea is that after you hit the ball, you run behind the ball to take the next ball as quickly as possible. The faster you are, the better your score. But in practice, running on golf courses is hard and actually slows things down; It takes more time to run 160 yards than it takes a game to slide there. This might be forgiven if the running procedure was fun, but instead you're burdened with a rapidly depleting stamina scale and a limited set of actions (including the often pointless jump) that turns the whole process into a chore. (To make matters worse, if you finish a hole quickly, you still have to sit back and watch your opponents play, even in single player modes.)
There's also an "Adventure" mode, which plays kind of like a simple golf RPG. You play as Mii going through the process of becoming a pro in the Mushroom Kingdom. You will travel to different courses, talk to characters, earn skill points to upgrade your Mii, and take on bosses. It's a nice idea, but it never really rose to the level of previous games in the series, like Mario Golf: Advance Tour, which were more based on role-playing elements and have a surprisingly entertaining storyline. Instead, it's a pretty flat story that made me skip the dialogue in order to make it to the next tournament. (Which usually means playing golf more quickly.)
The highlight of the pack is "Battle Golf", easily the fastest mode in the game. It's a nine-hole course that takes place in a giant stadium where the goal is to sink three shots first, while navigating things like Thwomps and bombs. It's basically the spirit of Mario Kart but of golf, and it's a lot of fun. Even better, matches finish up very quickly, making it an almost perfect party experience.
I can only wish more of the game had the same vibe, Nintendo feel as Battle Golf. I wanted more odd courses and patterns, and more opportunities to get into weird situations. Instead, the solid mechanics and colorful world are dragged downhill by the story mode with a nice story, and a fast-paced version of golf that is actually pretty slow. It's still fun, especially with two people hitting balls on the same switch. But while Super Rush plays golf right, it lacks what makes Super Mario games so special.
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