Mario Golf World Tour Preview

Mario Golf World Tour Preview

Mario Golf World Tour is an upcoming golf game that will be released for the Nintendo 3DS.  It has been almost a year since the announcement of this game in February 2013, and gamers have yet to see much of anything.  Although slated for a Summer 2013 release, Nintendo announced a few months later that the game would be delayed into 2014 instead, but were not willing to announce an exact date. 

Between the push back announcement of World Tour and today, the game seems to have become almost non-existent.  Aside from announcing what appears to be a robust online experience, Nintendo has failed to say much else.  Mario Golf World Tour hasn’t even been mentioned in any of the recent Directs. Should fans of golfing plumbers begin to worry?

This is not the first time Nintendo has pushed back one of their own games.  In fact, around the same time it was announced that Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze would be pushed back to February 2014.  However, these two delays are much different.  First, Donkey Kong received a new hard release date, while Mario Golf appears as TBA (to be announced).  Second, details and gameplay of Donkey Kong can easily be found through articles and numerous videos.  Fans of Mario Golf could plow through all of the World Tour content available on the web in less then five minutes.

The game itself looks fantastic.  Nintendo announced there would be a mixture of Nintendo themed courses and iterations of actual courses.  From the trailer, a number of popular Nintendo characters are making a return to the links, including Bowser, Mario, and Luigi.  The game looks fantastic.  What I wanted was a better looking version of Mario Golf: Toadstools Tour from the Nintendo Gamecube, and Nintendo appears to have delivered. 

Hopefully, Nintendo has delayed this game to make it a better and more impressive experience.  Or perhaps, we may see an announcement of Mario Golf for the Wii U, and a joint release date.  Regardless, the bad memories of their Mario Tennis game on 3DS (which reviewed poorly across most major news outlets) are still fresh, and another failed attempt at a sporting title on Nintendo platforms could result in poor sales for future Nintendo spin-off franchises.  One can only hope that the next Nintendo Direct will shed some light on this near invisible game, especially as the apparent release date is approaching very quickly.