I will never be able to get over the fact that Camelot released Hot Shots Golf on PS1 the same year they released the first Shining Force III scenario for the Saturn in Japan. These days Camelot just seems to be a Mario sports factory, but there was a time in the 90s when they were one of the most interesting developers in Japan.
Hot Shots Golf (aka Everybody’s Golf) was a major departure from Camelot’s dungeon crawlers and strategy RPGs (obviously). Up to this point they had mostly worked with Sega, but this wasn’t their first PS1 game: that would be the maligned/forgotten Beyond the Beyond, one of the earliest RPGs on the system. Hot Shots Golf was arguably Camelot’s biggest hit to that point, and it’s not hard to see why.
Despite the somewhat strange digitized characters, the game is colorful and inviting. If you don’t want to mess with aiming and club selection, Hot Shots Golf can essentially be played by just pressing one button, making it extremely accessible (and a great party game).
But beneath the approachable exterior lies a ruthless game. Hot Shots Golf is uniquely cruel in a way that only golf games can manage. It uses the timing-based swing meter that dates back to Nintendo’s Miyamoto-designed and Iwata-programmed “Golf” for the NES. The meter here is as unforgiving as ever, with a split second meaning the difference between landing on the green or in a sand trap. When playing against the computer, they never seem to have any issues hitting those perfect shots (except when they bafflingly have an off day and finish a hole with a score approaching double-digits).
While many sports games of the 90s are best played with others, golf games manage to be inherently solo-friendly. The nature of the sport is asynchronous competition, but really you are competing against yourself for a lower high score. Hot Shots Golf increases the replay value further with a decent amount of unlockables (all tied to trophies in the PS4/5 digital release).
You unlock additional golfers (all with unique stats) by defeating them in vs. mode. But the real highlight here is the way you unlock new courses. Remembering their RPG roots, Camelot has put an experience point system into the game. Whenever you get a birdie or lower on a hole you earn xp which goes towards your “level.” Then, when you level up, you get a new course to play (and you gain more xp on the courses you unlock). It’s an effective incentive to keep coming back to the game.
Hot Shots Golf is as addictive as it is infuriating, and one of my favorite PS1 sports games. Revisiting it again, I found myself charmed by its presentation, from the chibi characters to the chill Motoi Sakuraba soundtrack. Being able to save and load games at anytime on the PS5 version makes this a great game to play a few holes between other things. And yeah, I occasionally used the rewind feature when a shot didn’t go the way I wanted. I mean, it’s not like the computer doesn’t cheat.
All screenshots and video here were captured from the PS5 digital version of the game.
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