Ep. 003: Mario Golf Super Rush
Fun Bones, Thin Wallet
The honest thesis of this episode is also a fair warning: Alex and Luke both love Mario Golf, they had been waiting for a new entry for years, and what showed up on June 25th was a genuinely fun game built on an incomplete foundation. They gave it a six. They're hoping Nintendo finishes what it started. And they're still playing it — which is either a testament to the core gameplay or to the power of franchise loyalty, probably both.
Mario Golf: Super Rush was developed by Camelot Software Planning and published by Nintendo exclusively for the Nintendo Switch. It's the sixth installment in the Mario Golf series, and the first since 2014's World Tour on 3DS. The game launched with five courses, a short Golf Adventure mode, solo challenges, and online play, with Nintendo promising post-launch content at E3 — content that, at time of recording, had not yet materialized. Metacritic has it sitting at 70, which both hosts agreed is about right for what shipped. HowLongToBeat pegs the Adventure mode at around eight hours — Alex finished it inside a week. Luke didn't bother completing it at all, going straight to course play and online. Alex played a physical copy, which came with the requisite day-one download and a Best Buy pre-order delay. Luke went digital.
What they dig into most is the gap between what Mario Golf: Super Rush does well and what it's clearly missing. The golf gameplay itself earns nothing but praise. Camelot's arcadey formula — overhead view, tight power meter, pull-back putting — translates cleanly to the Switch. A new shot mechanics system adds a second accuracy gauge on top of the power meter, introducing a dispersion cone that widens depending on your lie, which makes rough and tricky positions feel genuinely different from clean fairway shots. The special shots, now tied to a meter that charges through birdies and coin collection, feel more dynamic than in past entries, and the character-specific area effects in Speed Golf — Luigi's ice patch locking ball placement, Mii's fire blast knocking through obstacles — add a layer of chaos the series hasn't had before. Alex took one online match with his upgraded Mii and nearly kept pace with an opponent whose character could drive 320 yards to his 220, which says something real about how much the skill gap can be bridged when the golf holds up.
The critiques are specific and hard to argue with. No tournament mode is the loudest one — both hosts flagged it independently, noting that Mario Golf 64 had it, Mario Tennis Aces launched with more structure, and its absence here turns post-Adventure play into a series of one-offs with no stakes. The AI difficulty has no settings, and the computer opponents can swing from inexplicably bad to occasionally passable without any apparent logic. Speed Golf, which is more fun than it sounds, has one real design flaw: you're always running toward your ball when it lands, which means you almost never get to watch your shot. The Mii golfer gains four-segment shot spin control and special moves through the Adventure RPG progression, but most of that carries over awkwardly to other modes. Online has no matchmaking, just open lobbies. Both hosts landed at a six — "with potential" is the exact phrase — and Luke's advice to anyone who's price-sensitive was to wait and see what post-launch content actually arrives before spending sixty dollars.
Side Quests this episode covered a lot of ground. Luke picked up Going Medieval, an early access colony sim that punished him savagely with a winter raid, and earned his respect for it. Alex grabbed The Messenger on a Nintendo sale after it left Xbox Game Pass and has been enjoying it as a sharp, self-aware ninja platformer. Both grabbed Half-Life 1 and 2 on the Steam summer sale. Alex added Hitman 2016 GOTY Edition and Hitman 2 to his already dangerous backlog. Metroid Dread — announced at E3 and dropping alongside the Switch OLED — came up as the most anticipated game on both their radars for the rest of the year, with Alex noting that the franchise needs Dread to land. Luke is eyeing Humankind as his personal most-anticipated, calling it a Civilization challenger worth watching before pulling the trigger.
This episode is unofficially brought to you in part by Burger King's new chicken sandwich. It was not good. Luke has feelings about it. Don't trust it.
Want to tee it up yourself? Mario Golf: Super Rush is available now exclusively on Nintendo Switch, with post-launch content still in the pipeline. Find the full episode wherever you listen, come argue with us about tournament mode in the Low Five Discord, and let us know what score you think this game deserves.
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