|
With a distinct Hot Shots Golf feel, except with the extensive use of stereotypical Anime characters, Pangya: Fantasy Golf is sure to draw a crowd from both standard gamers as well as hardcore golf-gamers.
Pangya offers a fully functional "serious" golf game complete with wind direction, sloped terrain and tournament modes, but it does so in a way that should make it more appealing to players who haven't gotten into the sport, or are looking to. The game features 18 different playable characters that one would expect to see in any number of anime cartoons. You have everything from your gruff cop to the broody young anti-hero, and hell, even a dragon (because why not). As you would expect, each character has their own strengths and weaknesses on the course, but there should be enough variety in them for most players to find the character that fits their style best.
But it isn't just the character models that give this game an anime feel. As if the game were a JRPG, there are tons of items to purchase and collect that can affect your stats in many ways. Everything from rings to the the little bag-creature (called papels) feels like they shouldn't belong in a golf game. But the characters are so outlandish in their style and appearance, that they just fit. It's almost like this game shows what anime characters would do on their time off.
Like I said above, there are a ton of items to purchase, and while a lot of them won't actually affect your gameplay (like the clothes the characters wear), many do. As you would expect, you can buy clubs (which range from standard clubs to weapons and umbrellas) and balls, and each type of club or each type of ball has a set of stats that can affect the way you play. An interesting note is that the balls are actually consumed, so you will have to keep buying new ones as the game progresses, which of course gives you the opportunity to try out the different flavors. Rings also have similar effects on your character's ability to control your drive or putt (which makes sense in a strange RPG sort of way).
The last type of item you will be able to buy is the aforementioned papel and the items that go inside them. Papels are bags that sit beside your character on the fairway. They hop and bounce about and react to your moves, but they also do a lot to help your character as well. Not only do they affect his or her stats like the balls, clubs or rings, but they can also hold items (the better the stats, the fewer the items and vice versa). These items are one-time-use potions that will do things like calm your character (so that the meter for hitting the ball slows down) or give them more power.
Okay, that's enough about the anime-style side of things, how does Pangya look like it will stack up as a golf game? Well, it seems to have all the right mechanics in place. While the courses may look anime-style, they seem to be, functionally speaking, fairly standard. There will be 9 courses and you will be able to play 3, 9 or 18 holes (depending on how much time you have), and all of the mechanics you would find in a Tiger Woods game seem to be present. From the long drives that require you to tap a button to mark your power, and then again for accuracy, to the short puts while on the green (and terrain marks to let you know how it slopes), I didn't find anything really lacking in this department. At least nothing so big that people who play other golf games should complain about.
Pangya: Fantasy Golf will also support up to 8 players in Ad-Hoc multiplayer, and since no one would want to have to wait for the other seven players to play through like in the real world, Pangya's multiplayer allows each player to play the hole simultaneous and then move onto the next hole once the round is complete (as opposed to some sort of turn-based system).
Expect to see Pangya hit the streets later this month as a PSP exclusive title. |
