Super Albatross
releases on TBD
A golf game for the PC Engine CD-ROM that features a single-player mode with a story involving cyborgs and other unusual golf opponents.
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Golf is one of those genres I rarely ever play mostly because they don't really entertain me. I mean there are exceptions like Mario Golf is cool until it wasn't anymore thanks to the Switch title. This is part of a series called Albatross Golf done by Telenet. This specific entry was worked on by Laser Soft who you've probably heard of if you've ever played some of the Valis titles.
So yeah this is golf wowee that sure is interesting isn't it. You can change your gender, age, and I think name and can go through many courses just enjoying the sport but we're not here for that no because guess what, this has a story mode!
You heard that right this game has a story mode for you to enjoy cutscenes and do some golf matches against other opponents. If you've ever played Valis II then the cutscenes will look familiar to you as they look pretty much the same in style and how they have this weird green border around them. Sadly I couldn't find out what really was the plot outside of maybe it involves cyborgs? That one guy from the beginning is the final opponent for some reason. If you know Japanese it's probably worth watching at least once. Also a woman just dies in the beginning like this is such a random way to start a freaking golf game!
So you got cool cutscenes but is the golf gameplay any good? In my opinion, no. Now I'm far from a professional gamer golfer so until someone who actually is knowledgeable on this stuff plays and reviews it then you're stuck with me for the time being. You can choose your variety of clubs and do that thing where you hit the ball and you can pick where to hit it though it always aims at the hole by default. The way you do your swing though is weird. You have to look at the animation at the top right and the power is determined by how long you held the button. I'm not really into this personally as it's hard to really get a good idea of power for the middle levels of power.
In fact the game has a multitude of problems for me. Let's start with the fact that the ball is way too slow like if you do a full power shot with a 1W club then you might as well take a drink break cause it'll be up there for what feels like 10 seconds. The green area is also so poorly designed since you can't actually see the hills on it until you both get on it. Meaning you could be at a disadvantage on the putting because you landed in a worse spot. This is easily the worst part of the game. Putting also sometimes sucks as I swear it lands in the hole and yet it doesn't?? I hate it. Seriously why can't I just at least get a preview of the green area before smacking the ball? If you can do this then I never figured it out. Honestly it's probably for the best the CPU isn't amazing because if it was I could see this game being frustrating. At least you have infinite continues for the story mode.
The game looks good in terms of the cutscenes but the game itself is basic golf graphics. This was 1989 so I could cut them some slack but it's never gonna win any awards in this area. The music is actually nice but it also somehow feels unfitting because the first golf game you play has the most depressing music I've heard for a golf game. Why would you put sad music for a game like this? Maybe it makes sense in the story but it just left me confused. There also lacks a lot of sound effects which makes the game feel less relaxing as you're mostly only listening to the music.
Super Albatross feels like a Golf story that just has underwhelming gameplay stuffed into it with not much thought put into it. Maybe it was because Laser Soft never did a golf game at this time but the game's cutscenes carry the game so hard. If it weren't for those I'd just advise skipping the game altogether. There's much better you can play now but maybe even back then that was the case...
So yeah this is golf wowee that sure is interesting isn't it. You can change your gender, age, and I think name and can go through many courses just enjoying the sport but we're not here for that no because guess what, this has a story mode!
You heard that right this game has a story mode for you to enjoy cutscenes and do some golf matches against other opponents. If you've ever played Valis II then the cutscenes will look familiar to you as they look pretty much the same in style and how they have this weird green border around them. Sadly I couldn't find out what really was the plot outside of maybe it involves cyborgs? That one guy from the beginning is the final opponent for some reason. If you know Japanese it's probably worth watching at least once. Also a woman just dies in the beginning like this is such a random way to start a freaking golf game!
So you got cool cutscenes but is the golf gameplay any good? In my opinion, no. Now I'm far from a professional gamer golfer so until someone who actually is knowledgeable on this stuff plays and reviews it then you're stuck with me for the time being. You can choose your variety of clubs and do that thing where you hit the ball and you can pick where to hit it though it always aims at the hole by default. The way you do your swing though is weird. You have to look at the animation at the top right and the power is determined by how long you held the button. I'm not really into this personally as it's hard to really get a good idea of power for the middle levels of power.
In fact the game has a multitude of problems for me. Let's start with the fact that the ball is way too slow like if you do a full power shot with a 1W club then you might as well take a drink break cause it'll be up there for what feels like 10 seconds. The green area is also so poorly designed since you can't actually see the hills on it until you both get on it. Meaning you could be at a disadvantage on the putting because you landed in a worse spot. This is easily the worst part of the game. Putting also sometimes sucks as I swear it lands in the hole and yet it doesn't?? I hate it. Seriously why can't I just at least get a preview of the green area before smacking the ball? If you can do this then I never figured it out. Honestly it's probably for the best the CPU isn't amazing because if it was I could see this game being frustrating. At least you have infinite continues for the story mode.
The game looks good in terms of the cutscenes but the game itself is basic golf graphics. This was 1989 so I could cut them some slack but it's never gonna win any awards in this area. The music is actually nice but it also somehow feels unfitting because the first golf game you play has the most depressing music I've heard for a golf game. Why would you put sad music for a game like this? Maybe it makes sense in the story but it just left me confused. There also lacks a lot of sound effects which makes the game feel less relaxing as you're mostly only listening to the music.
Super Albatross feels like a Golf story that just has underwhelming gameplay stuffed into it with not much thought put into it. Maybe it was because Laser Soft never did a golf game at this time but the game's cutscenes carry the game so hard. If it weren't for those I'd just advise skipping the game altogether. There's much better you can play now but maybe even back then that was the case...