Anime golf you ask?? Yes and it works, with some flaws that shouldn't be unexpected.
So clearly you can tell by the cover the game is golfing, with Anime characters. I am a fan of video games, and anime, not so much for golf, but the game was cheap and thus the reason for the purchase. I will review the game in 3 sections: Gameplay/Story, Audio/Visual, and Overall/Replay value.
GAMEPLAY/STORY: 7 out of 10. So what is Pangya Fantasy Golf? Well it takes place on Pangya Island where conflicts are resolved by playing Pangya aka golf. Since the game is basically an anime, you have all the anime cliches present in the story. You have all the young characters, 14 year old male/female, your typical under age anime girl,( i never understood the Japanese fascination with animated 10 year old girls, it's borderline disturbing, you have some older female characters, and I use the term loosely, as in anime terms, 18 - 25 year old females are considered old, two older male characters, and you have the typical fantasy characters, in this case are giant bear people, and dragon people. There's, I think 8 characters you play per episode and each character's story arc is broken up into either scenes or matches, and you have to go through every characters episode before you can move to the next chapter of the story. I understand this adds game play time to the game, but it's a little ridiculous because the characters are all in each others episodes, and they don't coincide with each other, it makes no sense, I wish that you could've just completed the game with a single character, at one time, and then went back and played a different character to get that characters side of the story instead of forcing the player to play as all the characters at the same time. As for the story itself, in all it's anime cliche goodness, you have the presence of evil set to take over the island and only the descendents of the "Hero" can stop it. Overall, I don't really know what else you could've been done, and I have to commend the developers for coming up with enough content to make a golf game interesting. The story does feel fluid and though the game can get repetitive and boring, it's interesting enough to keep me wanting to know what happens next even if the story is completely ridiculous.
As you progress through the game you unlock outfits for the characters that can increase the money you get from winning. I don't really care about this, but I will admit, my favorite character is Cecille and I will dress her as scantily as I can. There are other items like club sets, Aztecs (golf balls) and potions. The Aztecs and potions are completely useless and the game can easily be played in its entirety without using any special Aztecs or potions. You have a "Papel" which is basically a living paper bag...only in anime. He has a shop to try to win prizes from Aztecs,potions, to rare outfit sets.
Gameplay: It's golf. There's not much to it, and what the developers tried to do to spice up the game play is completely unnecessary but I can understand why they did it. Let me explain. Everybody knows the game of golf. Well the video game version of golf is really no more than just a power meter going from left to right, the further right you stop the meter, the harder the ball will be hit. As the meter comes back to the left you have to time it within the hit area to actually hit the ball, with a small sweet spot to hit the perfect "Pangya" shot. If you hit to the left or right of the Pangya shot, the ball will hook in that direction. If you miss the are altogether, you miss the shot. Simple. So how do you spice this simple formula up you ask? Well, you add in "special" shots. You learn the special shots as you progress, and I'll be honest with you, I don't remember what any of them are except for back spin and forward spin. Those are the only two you will use, and you don't even have to use them if you don't want, again, the game is completely playable and beatable without using anything special. You have a power meter which can be used during some power shots, again which you will never use, so it's value is almost strictly to just hitting the ball further. The only other variable you have to take into account when hitting the ball is the wind. Each course has it's hazards which are no different than that of golf, with fairway, rough, water, and sand trap hazards. Nothing special or crazy in the game, it's golf. I rate this as a 7 because the game is easy to pick up and play, keep in mind this is on a portable system, you want a game that should be easy to pick up and start playing. It does feel to be on the childish side, though with how some of the female characters are dressed, I don't think this game should be rated below T.
There are many holes to play, but though they look different, in reality there's not much variety. You have your par 3's, 4's, and 5's, there's usually only one way to play a hole, and if you try deviate, you're usually punished for doing so, and I can't quite figure out why. For example you think you can hit a ball across some water, but you really shouldn't, you should follow the course. The map view showing where the ball would end up looks like it would be fine, but 9 out of 10 times, it will fail. I have yet to really figure out how to play the holes with map view. Hitting triangle brings up the map so you can see where you are facing, obstacles, and just generally to know where the ball "SHOULD" end up. It's very difficult to guage at times because there's no consistency. You are using a pitching wedge for 35 yards, you go past the dashes for 30 yards, and you still end up short of 35 yards, it makes no sense, and other times, you'll go to far. As a rule of thumb, whatever distance I need, I shoot for over power, as it will almost always end up being short, and also the computer will auto pick the club for you, which looks good on the map, but for example if it picks a 5 iron to the hole use a 4 iron instead as the 5 iron will almost always come up short even though it looks like it will be fine. This has caused me a lot of frustration at first, but once you get used to how it works, it's easier to predict and figure out where the ball will land.
AUDIO/VISUAL: 6 out of 10: I will start with audio first because I think this is where the game could have been much much better. There's no voice acting in the game, which in this type of game, I think would have been a huge plus and there's no way they couldn't have fit some voice acting into the game, there's no way this game used up a lot of UMD memory. I think with voice acting, it would have made the game more personal, and could have been more of a reason to care about the characters. As it is, you don't really feel for any of them and their situations. The caddies are pointless and worthless, but maybe if they talked we'd care more. It's an overload of characters that nobody cares about. Visually, the game is what it is for a golf PSP game. The graphics are fine, and there's some characters with boob bounce, so that's a plus. The anime scenes are drawn up nice in typical fashion, nothing crazy, no unique style. The courses are relatively generic, they're all the same basically with different colors being used. Overall, the graphics are average, they're not exceptionally good, but they're not terrible either.
OVERALL/REPLAY VALUE: I have enjoyed the game thus far, but it does get boring. I will walk away from it for days, and then come back. I doubt I will play it again once I beat the game, so I guess for replay value it's crappy, and honestly that's because the game forces you to play through every character at once instead of letting you choose a character and going through the game. For the money, it's fine, if you like anime and golf, I don't think you would be disappointed. If you like anime, maybe not golf, and your looking for something that's substantial, then skip this game, the story and characters aren't deep enough to keep the anime fan hooked through a golf game.
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