[inline:1]Minna no Golf is pretty much just an excuse to dress-up ‘Kawaii’ girls in a variety of cosplay-style outfits. The further on you progress, the more interesting and cute the outfits become. Want your little lady pitching in PVC? Go for it. Commanding as a cop? Knock yourself out. It’s Pokemon with putting. Luckily, there’s also a decent game of Golf tucked onto the UMD as well.

Unlike more recent Golf titles, Minna takes the old-fashioned approach of using the “triple-button-tap” to swing: press once to make the power bar rise, ‘mark’ the power bar with a second button press and, as it drops back down, press a third time to halt the gauge as close to the ‘sweet spot’ (a small, coloured space) as possible. Miss the spot, and you’ll add hook or slice to your shot. Get it right, and the ball will flash off down the fairway accurately and speedily.

Fore-play

You can select which caddy’s voice you hear during play. Each one is squeaky-voiced and irritating after about five minutes, with even the comedy Japlish of ‘Eagaroooo chance!’ (‘Eagle chance!’) becoming sickening after a short while. The voice actors should be lined-up and shot, frankly.You initially get to choose from two characters, male and female. Their stats vary from one-another, as do those of the players that are unlocked later in the game, and you can choose characters that excel in different areas dependant on your preferred play style. So, if you like dropping the ball on the green and having it cling to the grass like a magnet, select someone with a decent ‘Impact’ stat. Want power? Choose an avatar with a high power gauge. No single character has a monopoly on decent moves, though, so you need to experiment to find the right huge-headed guy (characters are drawn in the Super Deformed style) for the job.

Stats are built-up by winning competitions, so Minna features a set of tournaments that must be completed in order to level-up. Some victories gift your character accessories such as pink bows, biker helmets and Sam Fisher-style night vision goggles (amongst other wacky bits and pieces), some give you clubs and golf balls that have better stats for, say, putting spin on the ball, or simply by having a wider sweet spot. Complete a set of events and your character’s stats will rise. Complete all events marked with a gold star at one particular level, and you will rise to the next rank, beating a final competitor in each round (who is then available for selection).

It’s a bit blowy…

Striking the sweet spot isn’t all there is too it: you have to keep an eye on the wind, constantly. You’d think that the difference between a three mile-per-hour and an eight mile-per-hour wind was negligible, right? Wrong. In Minna no Golf, 3mph barely stirs the leaves, whilst an 8mph wind is like an Oklahoma twister. Minna’s courses are a blend of realistic fairways, sand traps and the usual golf course paraphernalia, and some mad, bad and dangerous-to-play obstacles that wouldn’t go amiss in a Crazy Golf game. Plummeting pits, volcanic depths and full-size Sphinxes and Windmills are just some of the constructions that stand between you and the pin. These range from the sublime to the ridiculous, with some objects pleasing and welcome (like the sloping rock canyons that can be used to gain distance) and some painfully irritating (the bunkers on the wind-blown, Scotland-inspired course are more like prisons than traps). The game encourages experimentation, daring you to risk bouncing a ball along a rope bridge, or squeezing it between towering Grecian pillars. Safer routes can be played, but exploiting the course for maximum gain is pretty much essential, especially later in the game, when the competition mounts.

[inline:3]Driving and pitching, from rough or fairway, is consistent and generally fair on the player, but putting takes a long time to get the hang of. Variations in height and angle on the playing surface are displayed using a overlayed grid system, similar to that of a contour map. Unfortunately, this visual information isn't accurate enough, meaning that judging the gradient is often down to luck rather than skill. It can be adapted to, with practice, but never really mastered as such.

I’m just a sweet transvestite

What never fails to amuse in Minna is dressing the men up in women’s clothing. Seems the Japanese share the British fascination with transvestism (but nicely glossed-over and excused with the phrase, “it’s only a bit of fun!”, naturally….) Who says games can’t push boundaries and challenge stereotypes? You’ll have a Lesbian couple starring in a cel-shaded adventure next! Oh, hang on….Minna is functionally attractive, graphically speaking, and makes a virtue of its simplicity. The colour palette is appropriate and vibrant, although the engine is only a couple of steps above PSone-capable. Pleasing but far from ground-breaking. Sonically, the effects are decent, but the saccharine-sweet ‘Engrish’ caddy voiceovers grate after a while, as do the twee tunes repeated on each course. Widening the gameplay possibilities, alongside the Tournament game, there are single-course and putting options, allowing for practice and fulfilling the “gotta collect ‘em all” impulse. A two-player mode can be accessed if you can find a willing partner.

[inline:5]The problem with Minna mainly stems from the “Collect-em-up” emphasis. Instead of seeing a large hike in your stats and skills when you beat a difficult opponent, you often just find yourself in possession of stupid trophies, such as a new set of clothes, or a ‘comedy’ club shaped like a Japanese fan. To gain the important pickups and stat-hikes, masses upon masses of competitions must be entered, with only minor variations on the format (stronger winds, harsher penalties for pitching into rough, etc.) to liven it all up. Worse still, completing all the challenges still leaves you far from being the uber-golfer you deserve to be for all your effort: seventy-plus games later and your stats are still ripe for improvement. Preventing a game like this from being a chore means striking the right balance of risk and reward. Minna doesn’t quite manage this, leaving you frustrated at tackling the same courses over and over for little actual gain.

While it lasts, though, and before the ‘seen it all before’ feeling of needless repetition kicks-in, Minna plays a decent game of Golf. Even though it’s only the ‘pitch and putt, Sunday-afternoon-with-the-kids’ game of the genre, Minna no Golf is a dinky little title that’s worthy of your time – playing the back nine, and coming in seven under par after a magnificent final Birdie is as satisfying as you’d expect. ‘Yatta!’, as cute, giant-bonced Japanese Golfer girls (apparently) say.