Is Nintendo Selling Us Unfinished Games?

With the launch of Mario Golf: Super Rush on Nintendo Switch, the internet is having a hot debate around whether or not Nintendo is selling fans of their franchises unfinished games, with the promise to finish them later. Are we actually get Nintendo Early Access titles? Fans have pointed to both Mario Golf: Super Rush and Mario Tennis Aces as two titles that were shipped unfinished, but I’m coming at it from a different perspective.

I speak about this topic with Best Buy Canada gaming Editor, Jon Scarr. You can view that here!

I’m not shy to display and talk about my love of Nintendo. I have a Nintendo focused YouTube Channel after all! But I disagree with the premise that Nintendo is selling us games that should be considered Early Access as opposed to finished products. The amount of content in Mario Golf: Super Rush is much more than most people might realize. The main Adventure Mode might only take 5-6 hours to complete, but there is value in going back to some of the courses within Adventure Mode to get your Mii’s stats up. After all, don’t we all want to play online with our own Mii characters as opposed to the 16 available Mushroom Kingdom golfers?

But even if you are focused on the 16 characters Nintendo provided, there is a lot of work in leveling up these characters to earn their 1-Star and 2-Star club sets. It took me 194 holes to unlock Yoshi’s 2-Star set, and 180 holes to unlock Mario’s. Rough multiplication tells me it would take 3000-3100 holes of golf in order to unlock 2-Star club sets for all of the 16 characters available in the game. Like I said….content.

“But I don’t want to play that much golf, especially across only 6 courses!” OK then, fine. So why did you buy this game day one? Mario Golf is going to appeal to folks who either love golf, or love Mario titles. As someone who loves both, I can continually play all six courses, either alone or with friends, and mess with the settings to try and see what I can do. Sometimes, I create a golfers dream: special shots and little-to-no wind, and go for as many birdies and eagles as I possibly can. Sometimes I ratchet up the difficulty to level 11, and see if I can still finish a few strokes under par. You get out of Mario Golf: Super Rush what you put in. And I’m putting in a lot.

Yes, Nintendo has promised more content down the road, and sure, logic says they could have waited 6 months and launched Mario Golf: Super Rush with a few extra courses and a dozen or so more characters. But why not give us what we get now, and come back later? That’s my plan.