For those lucky enough to be putting their feet up in Australia or New Zealand as they read this, good on ya.

However, Sidebar Games has managed to keep the pall of boredom away by injecting some local humour into the proceedings.

Just like any RPG, you'll encounter towns of people who need your help, which usually gets old pretty fast. It's immediately clear that while golf is (quite literally) the name of the game, it's not the be-all and end-all of this affair. There's no way this could go wrong, right? It's a small-scale situation, but the the stakes feel enormous. This is your typical redemption story, but instead of saving the world, you're trying to simply restore order to your otherwise bleak existence in memory of your father. That's where the player-character enters-a man who's lost half his life to a soul-sucking wife and the general indifference of others-and the fun begins. It's a not-so-sneaky homage to titles like Mario Golf considering its central conceit: absolutely everything can be solved with a combination of golf clubs, golf balls, and dogged persistence. Golf Story is essentially an RPG based on mundane, real-world concerns dialed up to the nth degree, and it's that relatability that makes it much more charming than it sounds on paper. Those descriptors aren't overly exciting on their own, but then again, the same could be said of what constitutes contemporary RPGs you fetch things, hit other things, and generally do the bidding of others while your heroism goes ignored. Golf Story is zany, unexpectedly funny, and mechanically sound.

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