The Hot Shots Golf series has enthralled plenty of gamers over the years. Its mission: make golf as approachable as possible while preserving the sport's unique challenge. Hot Shots Golf employs colorful, cheery characters, relaxing music, and an overall upbeat attitude. World Invitational marks the franchise's debut on the PlayStation Vita. And though it continues the incredible traditions that have made it so popular (and showcases a few sleek additions), it also frustrates on a number of levels and provides little reward for a lot of effort.
The structure of Hot Shots Golf: World Invitational echoes the setup of past games. Single-player challenges get served up in different leagues of play. Leagues contain a series of tournaments and end with a versus match against a rival golfer. This rival can then enter your collection of playable golfers after you win the showdown.
Play in Hot Shots Golf: World Invitational involves several steps. Surveying the course and studying wind, slopes, and hazards usually takes up the first few steps. Then the necessary club selection and shot direction precede the actual swing. Executing a shot entails one button press on a sliding gauge to set power and then a second press to select impact/curve. World Invitational features several different shot systems so you can pick the type of gauge that works best for you.
With World Invitational, controlling most play functions only requires traditional button presses, but several Vita hardware features do exist that supplement camera control. Touching the shot indicator on screen, for example, will bring up an overhead map of the projected area your shot will land. Alternatively, a camera icon sits on the right side of the screen that, when touched, opens up several viewing angles selectable with a simple gesture. These are smart uses of the Vita's touch functionality, as they unobtrusively provide greater control rather than force an uncomfortable scheme on you.
Challenges in World Invitational reward you with points usable in the game's shop. These points can purchase new characters, outfits, clubs, golf balls, and other accessories to complement the experience. Some of these items serve as invaluable tools for the more difficult tournaments, as they enhance your golfer's stats and give them greater prowess on the course.
Unlocking more leagues to compete in means earning gold stars in tournaments. Each tournament, usually featuring a 9 or 18-hole game, pits you against other virtual golfers, and walking away with the best score of the bunch earns you that gold star.
These gold stars usher in all the frustration of Hot Shots Golf: World Invitational. Those taunting, tormenting gold stars! Because advancement in the single-player campaign requires gold stars, getting anything less than the No. 1 spot in a tournament essentially means wasted time. This might not seem unreasonable or unfair, but the disconnect between the elaborate planning of each shot and the milliseconds needed to make a tournament-killing mistake unravel the whole system.
Say, for example, you spend 30 to 45 minutes on an 18-hole tournament and you keep the lead through 17 holes. On the last hole, you spend agonizing minutes studying the course, noting the wind direction and speed, adjusting your shot, and selecting the spin for the ball. Then, in the seconds before executing your shot, you miss the impact zone by a hair and somehow your ball ends up out-of-bounds, wracking your score with a penalty and plummeting your position in the tournament from 1st to 4th.
You complete the challenge without a gold star, and you must now repeat the same 45-minute tournament from the beginning. For all the careful planning and thought you put in, the punishment for a millisecond mistake seems severe. And finally earning that star after repeated efforts feels much less rewarding than the time invested deserves.
These issues have certainly plagued Hot Shots Golf fans in the past. They come with the challenge of golf, but for a game with such a light-hearted attitude the punishment for simple mistakes counters the game's approachable demeanor.
Fortunately, other modes of play exist outside these single-player challenges, including a smooth ad-hoc mode that allows players to compete with each other in tournaments simultaneously. For anyone with Hot Shots-loving friends, this mode adds plenty of play opportunities onto the package.
If you lack the Vita-ready locals needed for a few friendly games, Hot Shots: World Invitational has several modes of online multiplayer. A huge lobby system (complete with adorable avatars) helps players get organized, and from the lobby you can book yourself in tournaments that happen several times every hour.
Alternatively, you can enter daily tournament challenges and post a score to the Hot Shots leaderboards. You only have one chance to post in this challenge, so you need to make it count. If these daily events stay consistent throughout World Invitational's life, they make this Vita launch game a more impressive experience.