Retrospective: Nettou Golf - a Golfing Hidden Gem for Dreamcast

Given the plethora of Golf titles available on virtually all Sega systems leading up to the Dreamcast, it’s somewhat of an oddity that, even with the Dreamcast's shortened lifespan, there was only a mere three golf titles released worldwide, one of which was a sequel. 

Tee Off was the only golf title released in PAL regions (meaning a poor showing for the home of Golf itself!), as well as NTSC, and isn’t a terrible game. While its name change (from Golf Shiyouyo) and cover reworking completely belie its cutesy presentation and characters, it's still a reasonable enough effort. Its sequel never left Japan.

Whilst there were stories and news reports that Sega had been in the process of converting their arcade title Virtua Golf, no real evidence that this was actually in the works exists from what I can see. For more information about Virtua Golf, check out Dreamcast Today's article.

There was another golf game, however, that is probably not as well-known by many. Step forward Nettou Golf.

A Dreamcast version of this with a trackball controller would have been incredible. 

Nettou Golf isn't well-known to us Dreamcast gamers in the West due to its Japan exclusivity, but, in my opinion, it’s rather good, and surprisingly playable without needing an English translation of any sort. The fact it was published by Sega themselves (it was developed by Data East) is vaguely curious to me considering its lack of a worldwide release. Given that the name derives from "NetGolf", because the game had online capabilities, it's even odder considering Sega's global touting of online play as a big marketing push for the Dreamcast, but it was apparently decided we weren’t considered as a territory for the game. Seems like a bit of a missed opportunity at the very least given how little in the way of a translation would have been needed to cover a game in this genre.

As previously mentioned, Nettou Golf is very accessible despite the language barrier. Not only does Google Translate do a very competent job of allowing you to understand the menus and modes, but I discovered this handy site (pictured below), that despite now being defunct, appears to be a couple's attempt to provide others with enough understanding to functionally navigate through certain less heralded Japanese games that were likely never going to get a localisation of any kind. They only translated seven games prior to stopping, but luckily for us, one of them is Nettou Golf.

Xtreme (virtual) sports

Long time no posting, I see... Well, with so many consoles and so many work to do it gets hard to give my little Dreamcast the attention it deserves. But lately I've actually been playing a little on it, mainly extreme sports games. Don't ask me why, maybe it's withdrawal symptoms for not playing some Tony Hawk in a long time. The thing is, I never got THPS2 for my Dreamcast, since I already have it for the PC and PSX (yes, I know what you're all thinking, OMG I play PSX too!!!). I had other things, though, neglected things, games I bought without giving them much attention. Until now, that is. So, without further adue (that's what I meant to say, isn't it? I sometimes mess up with english expressions...), here's what I've been playing:

Mat Hoffman's Pro BMX


This one is pretty similar to Tony Hawk, which is no surprise since they both run on the same engine. There are a few key differences, though, mainly because here you have a bike instead of a skate, so the jumps are shorter, the tricks are more difficult to do and you can't ride backwards. These are not necessarily problems, and they don't break the game, but something else does: the controls. The gameplay sucks, not because of the mechanics involved but because it's hard to properly control your bike. That's not to say the game is rubbish, and it should please the more hardcore Tony Hawk games/ real-life BMX fans, but the others should at least try it first.



Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX


Another take on virtual BMX, this one distinguishes itself from the Mat Hoffman's game due to its more realistic approach. If, like me, you've played that one first, you'll need some time and practice to get used to this game. The jumps are shorter and the tricks aren't as fluid and easy to execute, but when you do nail them you'll feel like a pro. But, of course, that can also be seen as a flaw, since most people will throw out the controllers in frustration when they fail again and again and the objectives of the game get really hard, really soon, so unless you're a pro you'll get stuck pretty early. A game for the hardcore.



MTV Skateboarding


OMG this game sucks... What? It's true! It actually started out quite well the first time I played it, with this song in the background, but the gameplay is so fucking obtuse. It's rigid, unresponsive, "un-fun" and it just plain sucks. Seriously. With a rather great (or so I hear) Tony Hawk game on the system there's just no excuse to play this one.



Razor Freestyle Scooter


The surprise of the bunch. I think Tomleecee already talked about this one, but I can't remember what his opinion was. Anyway, I liked it, a lot. Maybe because I had no expectations. Despite the "vehicle" you control, a scooter in this case, the gameplay is completely TH-style, and if you've played that game you'll have no problem adapting to it. The progression and objectives are in the same style, and it's almost as fun as that game. Despite the kiddy look, some objectives are rather hard to accomplish (get a 6,000 points combo? WTF? I can barely get a 4,000 one!), but you only need to achieve a, usually somewhat low, highscore to unlock the next stage, so you probably won't get stuck easily. Also, the graphics are not exactly the best the system has to offer, but the game compensates some lack of detail and the bland textures with a big resolution and constant framerate and overall it looks good, even on my big-ass 37" HDTV.