It's a bit of a mess.

It's hard to say how much RPGolf Legends is trying to ape Golf Story. On the surface, I can see why it would seem that way, as you've got a chibi golfer protagonist exploring a pixelated island on a golf-centric adventure, doing wacky sidequests along the way. However, in execution, the two games are different enough that I didn't find myself actively comparing the two while playing, and not just for quality reasons.

RPGolf isn't just a bait title, they go hard on the RPG elements here, but twist them in the most aggravating ways possible. You walk everywhere to explore the overworld, but that even includes walking to your ball after every stroke. When you have a 1v1 golf competition, it's turn-based (obviously), but you also have to watch the NPC slowly meander across the course to their ball, while the screen reminds you to wait your turn before hitting again. There are LOADS of violent wild animals outside of the confines of towns and villages, and beating them up with your driver is a novel enough concept, but there's a cooldown on the use of any healing items (if you get poisoned by the omnipresent snakes and use an antidote, you can't use another antidote or ANY other healing items for 30 seconds) and the combat is wonky enough that I never felt like I could consistently avoid damage. When you die and respawn, you're left with a fraction of a single heart as well, which means you have to find a way to heal up before you try again. There are dungeons, which is pretty cool, but nothing inside them was compelling. The same goes for side quests, which are usually simple fetch quests or "do this thing 5-10 times" checklists, and have insignificant rewards.

But the absolute worst thing that the game does is its magic energy meter. Essentially, every hole in the game has a magical barrier around it, and you need your meter at full charge to unlock a single hole. You recharge this meter by getting par or better on any hole, and then going through a slot machine minigame, trying to land on a 25%, 50%, or 100% recharge of your meter. This forces you to replay the same holes over and over just so you can progress to the next hole. If the minigame always had a shot at 100%, that would be fine, but there were quite a few times where I had to beat a hole 4 times in a row, getting 25% at a time for my magic meter. It makes progression more tedious than anything else, especially since the actual golf mechanics aren't that fun or engaging.

My favorite thing the game does, however, is boss fights. You have a monster on a specific golf hole, and you have to beat it into submission repeatedly so you can finish the hole, as the game only lets you strike the ball when you're out of Battle Mode. It's a fun concept and was the clear highlight.

All in all, RPGolf Legends is an amateurish effort filled with bizarre choices (the same triumphant jingle plays when you get a birdie or a triple bogey) that reminded me more of RPG Maker 2003 games than anything from the past decade. Wouldn't recommend, especially not at the $29.99 asking price.