Golf (1984 video game)


is a sports-simulation video game developed and released by Nintendo in 1984 for the Famicom in Japan, in 1985 for the NES in North America, and on Family Computer Disk System in 1986 again in Japan. The golfer has been identified as Mario in supplemental materials, though not wearing his traditional shirt and overalls. However, the game Captain Rainbow would instead identify the golfer as Ossan, which happens to be one of the generic internal names Mario had during the development of Donkey Kong. Additionally, the Game Boy conversion of this game would feature Mario on the Western cover art, but not the Japanese version.
Years after the game's release it appeared in many ports for different Nintendo consoles. It appears as an Easter egg in the Nintendo Switch firmware as a tribute to Satoru Iwata.

Gameplay

The main player wears a white shirt and shoes with blue pants and uses a white ball, while the second player wears a red shirt and shoes with black pants and uses a red ball.
The user must first decide whether to play single stroke play or the two player selections of doubles stroke play or match play. The user is then placed at the tee of the first hole with a total of eighteen to play.

Ports

The game has been ported to many other consoles after its release. Hudson Soft released a port of the game for the Japan-only PC-88 and Sharp X1 in 1985. The game was ported to the Japan-only Famicom Disk System on February 21, 1986. Another release was made for the Nintendo e-Reader for the Game Boy Advance. Both the NES and Game Boy versions were released also for the Virtual Console.
The game was released on the Nintendo Switch in the Nintendo eShop on 25 October 2019 by Hamster Corporation as part of their Arcade Archives series.

Easter eggs

The game was hidden as an easter egg and tribute to Satoru Iwata in the firmware of the Nintendo Switch, prior to the system's 4.0 update. Iwata was the sole programmer of Golf and later became Nintendo's CEO. It can only be accessed if the system clock is set to July 11 and then the user performs the "Direct" action that Iwata popularized during his Nintendo Direct appearances while holding both Joy-Con controllers on the Switch home menu. Exclusive to this version is the ability to use motion control.
The nine holes of the golf game in Wii Sports are 3-dimensional versions of the holes in Golf. This is also true of the "Classic" courses for the golf and Frisbee golf games in Wii Sports Resort, as well as the Golf game in.
The game can also be seen in Animal Crossing as a fully playable collectible.

Reception

American video game database AllGame rated the game with 4 out of 5 stars.

Sales

The Famicom version yielded 2.46 million copies sold in Japan.

Legacy

Golf is the first golf video game to feature a power and accuracy bar for swinging the club. The power bar method has been used in most golf games since.