Ninja Golf is an Atari 7800 video game which combines scrolling beat 'em up with golf simulation gameplay. Released in 1990, it later gained some renown for its outlandish subject matter and unique blend of gameplay styles. The player starts each hole by aiming his ball and shooting it toward the green. He then runs toward the ball, in traditional sidescroller fashion, fighting various enemies encountered along the way. These enemies include other ninjas, gophers, birds, giant mutant frogs, sharks and more. The enemies faced depends on the environment the ninja golfer is currently in. Sharks are encountered in water hazards and snakes in the sand traps. Ninjas are encountered in all the environments, including underwater.
Reviews View More
Ninja Golf exists because golf is a stupid sport played by boring old men. The developers recognized this and realized the only way to fix it was to have you run after your ball as a Ninja while beating people to death in the vain attempt to make golf interesting. The brawler portions are surprisingly good, but the entire loop gets repetitive quickly, and you're still playing golf at the end of the day.
It's golf, it's kicking and punching things, it's a good time. I love this one.
Played as part of Atari 50.
In all honesty this game is more like "90% very mediocre beatemup, 10% golf", and it really isn't very good, but damn am I glad to be able to see something fucking new from this pack, lol. Even if it's repetitive and still has about as effective interest as most of the other games in this pack (roughly 5 minutes), the stupid shitposty premise is an incredibly welcome change of pace after playing a fifth version of Centipede and a fifth version of Asteroids.
In all honesty this game is more like "90% very mediocre beatemup, 10% golf", and it really isn't very good, but damn am I glad to be able to see something fucking new from this pack, lol. Even if it's repetitive and still has about as effective interest as most of the other games in this pack (roughly 5 minutes), the stupid shitposty premise is an incredibly welcome change of pace after playing a fifth version of Centipede and a fifth version of Asteroids.
"Guys we need some gimmick to make our golf game push units"
flips to a random dictionary page
"I'VE GOT IT"
flips to a random dictionary page
"I'VE GOT IT"
Pretty repetitive game play loop with a funny premise. Worth playing for a bit once but you probably won't touch it after.
One of the common threads with a lot of these late-period 7800 games is that they're... quirky, and this one is definitely no exception. The actual golfing is incredibly basic; you don't have a selection of clubs, no wind to worry about and things like sand traps and water hazards simply reduce the range of your swing. Instead of putting greens, the game takes you to a boss fight where you throw shurikens at a dragon until it flies away. All you need to worry about is making under par and that's about it. If you're not much into golf games like myself, this isn't that big of a deal, and honestly this was never really destined to be a serious golf game anyway.
The actual meat of the game lies in the side-scrolling portions where you go after your ball between shots, fighting other ninjas and nasties like giant frogs, gophers and sharks (if your ball lands in the drink). This part of the game plays OK, but the collision detection is a bit iffy and your attacks are very limited as you can only kick and throw shurikens (which have a very limited supply).
The actual meat of the game lies in the side-scrolling portions where you go after your ball between shots, fighting other ninjas and nasties like giant frogs, gophers and sharks (if your ball lands in the drink). This part of the game plays OK, but the collision detection is a bit iffy and your attacks are very limited as you can only kick and throw shurikens (which have a very limited supply).