Players take on the challenge of one of the most beautiful and notorious golf courses in the world: Pebble Beach. These eighteen-holes demand accuracy, finesse, and even at times brute strength. The famous beach-side course is littered with sand-bunkers as well as sweeping fairways and cliff-side greens. Game play takes a classic approach - players control a selected golfer from a third-person perspective. Swing-control is displayed as a power and accuracy meter with which players must start and stop accordingly. Again, the classic-style putting system, complete with a topographic grid, lets the player know of the slope and elevation of the three-dimensional putting surface. As there are no other courses to play, this game is a tribute and testament to the challenging course-design of Pebble Beach Golf Links.
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Any of the "New 3D Golf Simulation" series; I play the Japanese Mega Drive versions. Great golf, majestic music, super stylish interface & box art, and a tea break after hole 9. Play with CPU overclock to make them feel modern!
US: 8/10
JP: 6/10
This is a review for the Japanese version of True Golf Classics: Pebble Beach Golf Links on MD, part of T&E Soft's japanese 'New 3D Golf Simulation' series. I'm re-reviewing this as the localized version of Pebble Beach has two distinct regional changes that heavily impact the overall game, and these differences are relevant to the other unlocalized entries; I found it in better interest to discuss them here so they don't have to be repeated across later reviews.
The US version will be referred to as 'True Golf Classics'; the JP version will be 'New 3D Golf Simulation.'
The first and lesser difference is 3D course rendering: All of the New 3D Golf games use a dithering map on top of the course's polygons to indicate differences in surface texture and terrain height. In True Golf Classics, these dithering maps are removed, and the polygons are simplified to solid, mildly darker color tones. The effect on shot trajectory is noticable but unlikely to impact most play, as terrain has minimal effect on fairway/rough control and both versions give the player a dedicated terrain grid during putting. It's likely the dithering was removed for epillectic/visual reasons; the pattern is a little hard on the eyes, arguably moreso with CRT filtering factored in, and was probably a hangover from the PC-98 version, which were designed for sharper monitor displays.
The second and much more damning difference is the power meter: Both versions use the same visual format, but the power scaling has staggering changes. In True Golf, the power scale is slower at the base of the meter and faster at the top, and upon reaching max, it reverses direction. In New 3D Golf, the meter moves at a fixed, faster speed, and resets to 0 upon reaching max; this means that unlike True Golf and similar US golf games (pga, for example), if you time a max power shot even 1 frame too late, the strength rolls back to the bottom of the meter and you'll shoot the ball at 1% power. It's clear this power meter style was considered too difficult and changed for western releases. You can circumvent this harder meter style by 'practicing' your shot - hitting B instead of C repeatedly to stop the meter and see where your timing lands you, ala Wii Golf. But even with this difference, the potential threat of losing a whole stroke to a late swing makes non-putting swings in New 3D an obscene exercise of caution, remediable only through save state play. In most scenarios, I'm open to JP games being more difficult for reasons that impact the overall user experience or thematics of play, but this is a scenario where the original control style is just Not As Fun - and I can get used to that for these upcoming T&E Soft games I want to do, but like any grudge, it's one I want an open-floor to vocalize frustration towards. I don't like this meter style and I'm only respecting it out of personal love for the systems and vibes of the New 3D Golf series.
So yeah, for this reason, I consider the JP version of Pebble Beach a star below the localized version. I don't intend to dock any of the other New 3D Golf games for this harder shot meter; I make this reservation explicitly for this version because if posed with the option to play JP or US, the US run is objectively more comfortable and fun to me.
JP: 6/10
This is a review for the Japanese version of True Golf Classics: Pebble Beach Golf Links on MD, part of T&E Soft's japanese 'New 3D Golf Simulation' series. I'm re-reviewing this as the localized version of Pebble Beach has two distinct regional changes that heavily impact the overall game, and these differences are relevant to the other unlocalized entries; I found it in better interest to discuss them here so they don't have to be repeated across later reviews.
The US version will be referred to as 'True Golf Classics'; the JP version will be 'New 3D Golf Simulation.'
The first and lesser difference is 3D course rendering: All of the New 3D Golf games use a dithering map on top of the course's polygons to indicate differences in surface texture and terrain height. In True Golf Classics, these dithering maps are removed, and the polygons are simplified to solid, mildly darker color tones. The effect on shot trajectory is noticable but unlikely to impact most play, as terrain has minimal effect on fairway/rough control and both versions give the player a dedicated terrain grid during putting. It's likely the dithering was removed for epillectic/visual reasons; the pattern is a little hard on the eyes, arguably moreso with CRT filtering factored in, and was probably a hangover from the PC-98 version, which were designed for sharper monitor displays.
The second and much more damning difference is the power meter: Both versions use the same visual format, but the power scaling has staggering changes. In True Golf, the power scale is slower at the base of the meter and faster at the top, and upon reaching max, it reverses direction. In New 3D Golf, the meter moves at a fixed, faster speed, and resets to 0 upon reaching max; this means that unlike True Golf and similar US golf games (pga, for example), if you time a max power shot even 1 frame too late, the strength rolls back to the bottom of the meter and you'll shoot the ball at 1% power. It's clear this power meter style was considered too difficult and changed for western releases. You can circumvent this harder meter style by 'practicing' your shot - hitting B instead of C repeatedly to stop the meter and see where your timing lands you, ala Wii Golf. But even with this difference, the potential threat of losing a whole stroke to a late swing makes non-putting swings in New 3D an obscene exercise of caution, remediable only through save state play. In most scenarios, I'm open to JP games being more difficult for reasons that impact the overall user experience or thematics of play, but this is a scenario where the original control style is just Not As Fun - and I can get used to that for these upcoming T&E Soft games I want to do, but like any grudge, it's one I want an open-floor to vocalize frustration towards. I don't like this meter style and I'm only respecting it out of personal love for the systems and vibes of the New 3D Golf series.
So yeah, for this reason, I consider the JP version of Pebble Beach a star below the localized version. I don't intend to dock any of the other New 3D Golf games for this harder shot meter; I make this reservation explicitly for this version because if posed with the option to play JP or US, the US run is objectively more comfortable and fun to me.
Kinda surreal to be playing a golf game this old with realtime 3D courses, notwithstanding the several seconds it takes for frames to update on the course flyover lmfao
But for real this rocks, it's got a lot of standardized features from 5th gen golf games and a really chill lounge soundtrack. If you can sacrifice the smoothness of other golf games, the robust mechanics and overall vibe more than make up for it. See my other review for the original JP version and its differences.
But for real this rocks, it's got a lot of standardized features from 5th gen golf games and a really chill lounge soundtrack. If you can sacrifice the smoothness of other golf games, the robust mechanics and overall vibe more than make up for it. See my other review for the original JP version and its differences.