Golf Story is proof that Japanese-style RPGs can ‘fore’-go fantasy

Before Golf Story, I thought I didn’t like Japanese-style role-playing games (even though I enjoy open-world RPGs like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and The Witcher 3), but Sidebar Games has helped me realize that the genre works better for me when it gets away from its tired fantasy template. Golf Story is out now for $15 on Nintendo Switch, and here’s the easiest way to describe this studio’s work: What if you were playing a classic Super Nintendo RPG, but the solution to every problem was golf?

I’ve put in a few hours with Golf Story, and I’m liking it a lot (VentureBeat social editor Anthony John Agnello will have a full review soon). Its basic structure has you wandering around a series of themed golf clubs looking for side quests until you unlock a final challenge that typically involves playing golf proper. But all of the smaller quests leading up to that point use golf as the key to puzzles and skill challenges. For example, you’ll convince a kid to get out of gator-infested water by hitting him in the head with a well-aimed golf shot or you’ll unlock a secret putt-putt laboratory by activating switches hidden around the first club.