Lee Trevino’s Fighting Golf Review (Nintendo Entertainment System)
What’s more exciting than golf? Fighting golf!!
~by tankMage (July 2024)
Score: 73/100) (Decent)
Lee Trevino’s Fighting Golf, which will be referred to as Fighting Golf from here on, is one of several golf titles which were created for the NES. Golf is not considered a thrilling sport by any means, but there’s a great deal of skill and strategy that goes into it. Fighting Golf does a decent job at capturing the spirit of the sport and there’s something comforting about its 8-Bit simulations of golf courses. In addition to doing the sport justice, it also has four playable characters to choose from and allows up to four players to compete. The downside is there’s only a few different courses and while you’ll likely play them several times to get a good score, it still feels like more could have been added to the game. The user interface for selecting clubs and aiming shots could have been simplified a bit too, so this isn’t an excellent golf game by any means.
Uh, who’s Lee Trevino?
If you’re like me and fairly ignorant about professional golf, you’re probably wondering what Lee Trevino did to warrant his own game. To put it briefly, he is a PGA champion and is considered one of the best golfers in history. Lee was affectionately known as “Merrymex” and “Supermex” as he is of Mexican heritage, which is why he appears as Super Mex in the game’s player roster.
There are also three other playable golfers that were created by SNK: Pretty Amy, Big Jumbo, and Miracle Chosuke. All three characters seemed vaguely familiar to me and I wondered if they were based on other SNK protagonists, but I was not able to turn any information up after digging around on the internet. It’s possible that they are based on more or less forgotten characters from older SNK titles, which are often overshadowed by the developer’s stuff from the 90s. Then again, these golfers could have been spun up from whole cloth and may even be inside jokes. I’d be quite interested to learn what the deal is with these guys if anyone happens to know.
A cozy day on the green.
As I said earlier, this game looks really nice and keys into the laid back attitude of golf. At the same time, it does a good job of displaying terrain. Bunkers and water look like the sort of things you need to avoid (rightfully so) while the fairway is an inviting light green. You also get several different views of the current hole and handy maps.
Four characters, Pretty Amy, Big Jumbo, Super Mex, and Miracle Chosuke all have their own sprites as well as animations. Some of these animations are fairly amusing; a character will fly into a rage when missing a putt or losing their ball in the drink. Pretty Amy can get a bit risqué sometimes, which is even funnier when you think about Nintendo’s “family friendly” policy of the 1980s.
Too bad the graphics have a few issues that break immersion. The worst one being how your golfer will sometimes stand on water to hit a ball by a pond. There’s also not a lot of variety to the courses, but all golf courses are very similar in real life, so maybe we can let SNK slide.
Basic golf action that’s good for beginners.
Fighting Golf has all of the basic elements of golf. Players can choose the club they wish to use and aim the ball. When you’re ready to swing, press the A button to make the blue meter in the lower right decrease, then press A again to determine the power of your swing. The meter fills up immediately after you hit A and hitting it again will determine the ball’s trajectory. Stopping the meter when it’s close to the arrow on its top half will make the ball travel straight and stopping it left or right will make it curve. Wind and terrain also impact how far (and in what direction) the ball flies.
There’s four characters with their own strengths and weaknesses. Some characters have a lot of power which allows them to send the ball far down the course, but this comes at the cost of control and their meters move very quickly. Other characters are weaker, but have greater control, so it all balances out nicely.
The courses are well designed with bunkers, ponds, and rough terrain which makes it difficult to reach the green. Some courses are moderately difficult and you’ll need some skill as well as strategy to get good scores. I enjoyed the courses and it was fun trying to get my handicap down. However, there’s only about four or five (one of which is a very simple practice course) courses and it doesn’t take long for them to get old even though they are a full 18 holes each.
To make up for its lack of courses, players can choose between Fighting Golf’s Strokes and Nassau modes. Players can also choose a Practice course with easy holes. Strokes is a more casual mode that’s good if you want to try out some of the characters and courses. Nassau is competitive, so the game will match a randomly chosen computer controlled character against the player.
The computer controlled golfer is fairly competent and will usually hit Par or just under it. The degree of challenge in Nassau largely depends on who you choose and who the game picks. For example, it’s not hard to beat Miracle Chosuke or Pretty Amy if you’re good at driving, especially with a power player like Big Jumbo. On the other hand, Super Mex Trevino is fairly balanced and you’ll have to really out golf him to win no matter who you chose.
I said the AI golfers are fairly competent, which isn’t an entirely correct statement. Usually they’ll play well, but I’ve seen them slip up really badly, often losing two or more strokes. I’m not sure if this was something the devs intended or if the computer can’t deal with certain situations. Either way, it adds an element of luck to each course, especially when you factor in wind speed and direction.
As a side note, it also takes the computer a few seconds to even do anything on its turn. Maybe it’s making calculations (which shouldn’t take as long as it does) but I’m pretty sure the devs put this delay in purposely for some inexplicable reason. At any rate, it hurts the pace of gameplay. Last on the list of bugs, the game does not always register terrain properly. I’ve seen balls hit the rough by a pond, but the game thinks the ball hit water, so there’s a splash and you lose your ball. It’s not the end of the world and only happens rarely, but it still sucks.
A user interface bogey.
If there’s one thing I really dislike about this game, it’s the user interface. Hitting the ball is fine and works like the bazillion other golf titles out there. What sucks is the system used to view the map, select clubs, and aim the ball. Other games, some of which were released years before fighting golf, put all of these commands conveniently on the D-Pad and B Button. SNK didn’t pick up on this little trick, so you have to push B to aim, then press it again to confirm, then again to confirm your club selection. If you want to view the map, you’ll have to press the B Button, then A, then tap B a few more times. It’s a really convulted system for some simple commands and it’s one of the things that suck some of the fun out of this title.
Mediocre Melodies
NES has some truly beautiful sound tracks that are works of art considering they were created for a relatively primitive chip. Fighting Golf’s line up of songs doesn’t make the cut, sadly. It’s not bad, but it’s just _there_ like the paint on your living room walls. On top of that, there’s only a few songs that play during the action. To this game’s credit, some golf titles have no music whatsoever, so SNK gets points for effort.
The sound effects get the job done. Once again, they are nothing special and are just enough to add atmosphere to the game. I will say that the “wOOOoooOOOoooo” sound the ball makes a it soars through the air gets grating after a while. I doubt any one who plays a golf game on the NES is looking for great sound work, so I won’t hold this against Fighting Golf too much.
Tee up or tag out?
Lee Trevino’s Fighting Golf is fine as games in this genre go. It’s got a few things going for it and is something that may be fun to play on a lazy summer afternoon. It’s also got a few bugs and a user interface that was poorly thought out, so it’s not the best golf game on the NES. If you’re considering playing this game, you may want to try some of its better peers, like the aptly named Golf. If you’ve played the better stuff and want some new courses to putt around on, Fighting Golf is a fine choice.
Thanks for reading my review of Lee Trevino’s Fighting Golf!
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