This update, incidentally, is the final free update the game will receive, though it is a pretty meaty one. It adds two new characters with Wiggler and Shy Guy, two new golf courses with Shelltop Sanctuary and All-Star Summit, and finally, two new modes with Target Golf – which allows players to play with just tee shots, without needing to know the detailed rules of golf – and One-On, One-Putt – where players must hit the green on the first swing and then putt into the cup on the second swing. Meanwhile, a number of bug fixes and balancing adjustments also arrive with the update. You can read the full patch notes below.

Mario Golf: Super Rush is available on the Nintendo Switch. You can read our review of the game through here.

UPDATE NOTES:

Added Playable Character, “Wiggler”

• Wiggler has been added as a playable character playable in matches. He is a power-type character that uses his long body to send the ball farther.
• When he uses a Special Shot or is attacked, he will become enraged and power up for a certain amount of time:
  • • Ball flight distance increases by 1.1 times.
    • In “Speed Golf”, in addition to distance, running speed and Special Dash speed will be enhanced by 1.25 times. In addition, the Special Dash will change from a straight shot to a special shot that hits the ground and sends out a shockwave.
• His Special Shot has the effect of blowing away balls from its point of impact, as well as the surrounding area, due to the impact of the berries that are launched with it.

Added Playable Character, “Shy Guy”

• Shy Guy has been added as a playable character to choose from in Matches. He is a well-balanced, all-around character that is easy to use in any situation.
• His Special Dash uses the help of the Fly Guys to keep him flying until his gauge runs out, or a button is pressed. Use it at the right time to get an advantage over your opponent.
• His Special Shot has the effect of blowing away balls around its point of impact.

Added Golf Course, “Shelltop Sanctuary”

• Added the full course “Shelltop Sanctuary”, made entirely of short holes.
• Shelltop Sanctuary, where Cheep Cheeps fly to and fro, is a short course with all of its 18 holes being Par 3.
• Two difficulty levels can be selected: “Amateur”, and “Pro”. Switching between them will greatly change the location of the green.

Added Golf Course, “All-Star Summit”

• Added the full course “All-Star Summit”, which uses illustrations of Mario and others as a motif.
• This course features familiar characters, and the design of the green and the bunkers is different from other courses, so you can enjoy employing a different kind of strategy.
• The brick blocks strewn throughout the course can be broken by hitting them with a shot, or special dash. Break them to acquire coins that refill your Energy.
• Get on top of the clouds found on the course to travel to opposite banks, or acquire Star Coins to fully charge your Energy.

Added New Mode, “Target Golf”

• A new mode that allows you to play with just tee shots, without needing to know the detailed rules of golf.
• Players take turns shooting a total of five balls at a circular target, competing for the highest score based on points awarded according to the position they hit. The closer the ball is to the center of the target, the higher the score will. If another player scores in an area first, however, the area will not be scored until the board resets. During play, ball types can change, and high-scoring targets appear that offer a chance for reversal.
• In the Play Golf menu, you can play against four other players with a single Joy-Con on a single Nintendo Switch. You can also play against four other players in Local Play and Online Play.
• *Can be played with Motion Controls.
• In the Solo Challenge menu, you can also play the single player challenge content Solo Score Challenge, Target Golf. The challenge is to see how many points you can score before you miss three times, while the ball type and wind direction changes.

Added New Mode, “One-On, One-Putt”

• One-On, One-Putt has been added to Solo Score Challenge, a mode where you must hit the green on the first swing and then putt into the cup on the second swing. The first shot must be on the green and the second shot must be in the cup.
• You can play this mode on New Donk City and Shelltop Sanctuary, which consist of short courses only, in Amateur and Pro configurations, respectively. In Shelltop Sanctuary, there is a Special difficulty level that requires you to use a special club for each hole.

Game Balance Adjustments

• Changed the amount of Energy Gauge recovered when obtaining coins from 1% to 4%.
• Adjusted the number of coins that drop around you when you are attacked.
• When attacking another player with Special Dash, the coins dropped by the opponent will now be automatically collected.
• Stamina consumption when dashing with the B button has been reduced.
• When Stamina has completely depleted and the B button is being held down, after a fixed amount of time, Stamina will recover and the player can start dashing again, even if the B button is continuously held down.
• CPUs now aim more to collect the Coins and Hearts on the course than before.
• CPUs will now aim Special Shots and Special Dashes at other players more than before.

General

• Medals are now displayed on the Main Menu, which allow you to check your completion of challenges and achievements.
• A guide explaining how to play will now display every time at the start of using Motion Controls.
• Spin will no longer be added after Pin Shots, and Flag Shots.
• Adjusted the positioning of some of the garbage cans and benches in New Donk City.
• Fixed an issue where Wario’s Special Dash would sometimes hit an invisible wall above other players while going airborne.
• Fixed additional issues to improve playability and game balance.

Each character is fairly unique in their own ways. Koopa Troopa’s Special Dash allows for freely changing the direction of movement and can be used to dash on water. Hitting other players will increase acceleration. Ninja, who has the highest Speed in the entire roster, can glide with his Special Dash and his Special Shot will knock away other balls while bouncing.

As for the new playable courses, Blustery Basin is snow-themed and has Snow Pokeys, Cooligans as a new obstacle and blizzards which result in stronger winds. Spiky Palms is desert-themed and has regular Pokeys, Spikes and rain that reduces shot travel. Update version 3.0.0 also allows for changing the CPU Skill with options like Amateur, Pro and Champ, and adjustments have been to Ranked Matches. For more details, check out the patch notes here.

UPATE NOTES:

General Changes

• In Online Play, for the options “Standard Golf” and “All at Once,” if a player fails to hole-in within one minute after all other players have holed-in, they are treated as if they’ve given up—as is the case in Speed Golf.
• Fixed a bug in Golf Adventure’s XC Standard Round that appeared to allow players to take a route other than crossing to the other side with a tornado when “Restart from First Hole” was selected.
• Fixed a bug in New Donk City’s Amateur placement on Hole 13, where if a player had gotten a hole-in-one after hitting the parasol, one stroke would be added to their score.
• Adjusted some collision detection for buildings and other objects placed in New Donk City.
• Adjusted CPU behavior for New Donk City.
• Fixed a bug where animation and voice weren’t matching-up during the ranking display for Ranked Matches.
• Fixed a bug where Daisy’s voice and animations weren’t matching up when she hit a bogey.
• Made several other fixes, and adjustments to game balance to improve enjoyment and playability.

For starters, Toadette has been added as a new playable character, while New Donk City from Super Mario Odyssey has also been added as a new course. A new mode for Ranked matches has also been introduced, while the update also improves the motion controls in the game, though exactly how that has been done hasn’t been detailed.

Nintendo says more updates for the game will continue to be released later this year, which is definitely good news. Mario Golf: Super Rush was a little lacking in content at launch, so it’s good to know that Nintendo plans on adding more stuff in the coming months.

Mario Golf: Super Rush is available exclusively for the Nintendo Switch.

https://twitter.com/NintendoAmerica/status/1423267664068284422

Meanwhile, Mario Golf: Super Rush debuted in third place, and similar to Ratchet, it saw the biggest ever launch (in terms of dollar sales) for a Mario Golf game, beating a record previously held by 2003 GameCube title Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour. Yet another new release in the charts is Scarlet Nexus, Bandai Namco’s new anime-style action RPG, claiming fifth place upon debut. 

Tony Haw’s Pro Skater 1+2, meanwhile, saw a sudden surge in sales. Thanks to the launch of the game’s Nintendo Switch version, it jumped from No. 51 last month to seventeenth place in June. Meanwhile, Sea of Thieves also enjoyed a similar resurgence, climbing from No. 36 to No. 20, driven by its A Pirate’s Life expansion.

You can check out the top 20 best-selling games in the United States for June 2021 below:

* Digital sales not included
^ Xbox digital sales not included

In third place is Mario Kart 8: Deluxe which rose to third place despite sales dropping by 19 percent. Animal Crossing: New Horizons also saw sales drop by 22 percent but still managed to hit fourth place. Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart’s sales dropped by 54 percent, causing it to place in sixth for the week.

Grand Theft Auto 5 sales were up by 20 percent and it ranked in seventh place while The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild placed at tenth thanks to sales rising by 31 percent. Scarlet Nexus debuted in eighth place last week but has since dropped to 27th due to a 62 percent drop in sales. Check out the full top ten best selling physical games in the UK for the week ending July 3rd below.

The issues are, as should be obvious at this point, not anywhere in the mechanics or how the game plays. Controls are remarkably simple and intuitive, and a really comprehensive (but not overbearing, which is important) onboarding system introduces players not just to how the game translates golf concepts, but also to those golf concepts themselves – meaning even newcomers to the sport can easily jump in and learn the rules as they go along. The mechanics are so much fun that even if you have no interest in golf, you’ll end up having a lot of fun with this game.

A lot of that comes down to the simplicity. Although golf is a nuanced and complex sport, Nintendo’s traditional design mentality is in making everything simple and intuitive to the player, and that ends up making Mario Golf’s translation of golf mechanics really easy to grasp. From shot power to the spin you add to the ball, from terrain and altitude advantages to even knowing to pick different golf clubs for different occasions, everything ends up being extremely simple. Controls are kept simple and transparent (both, motion control and button controls are supported), and the challenge comes not in remembering a dozen different things, but in being able to do them well.

"While at its best, and purely mechanically, Super Rush is extremely good, it’s the troubles that lie elsewhere that drag the game down and keep it from meeting its full potential."

Nintendo adds to this great translation of golf with some delightful twists – each character ends up having special abilities they can use, for example (which can be anything from a faster dash between holes to special shots), and the golf courses themselves end up getting incredibly imaginative and out there. Nintendo are arguably the best at level design in the industry, and Camelot brings some of that flair to Mario Golf, with some incredibly well designed courses that, again, stand independently as great works of level design, and can help the game appeal even to those who wouldn’t have any interest in a straightforward golf game, bringing a Mario Kart style chaos to proceedings that can make Mario Golf a delight to play as a party game, or as a more lighthearted and arcadey one (there are, obviously, some more basic golf courses included too, so those who like their golf traditional can still get that).

There’s a lot else that the game does right – it’s the first Mario Golf game since the Gameboy Advance one to include a story mode, for example. Online play is included, and works well, and you can play with friends in private lobbies or matchmake with filters you can use to set preferences. The many characters it includes all feel different to play as, and all feel viable. The Speed Golf mode is great.

It’s remarkable then how much it manages to stumble, in a lot of cases attaching caveats to its should-be well-earned wins. Take the story mode, for example. The older handheld Mario Golf games had these fleshed out RPG story modes – in fact, those story modes are why this franchise (along with Mario Tennis) have so many fans to begin with. But much like Mario Tennis Aces, Super Rush’s adventure mode is a very thinly disguised tutorial of the mechanics that is ultimately unfulfilling as a singleplayer campaign. Or let’s talk about the online – on a functional level, it’s great. But it lacks basics, such as a progression or ranking system, or the ability to create or host tournaments.

We talked about how great the courses are – and they really are! – but there are also only six of them, which is a shockingly low number, particularly given that the inventiveness of the courses is the key thing that makes the game stand out. Effectively, this means that the game’s long term appeal is stunted – there is a story mode, but it’s short and unfulfilling. There is an online mode, but the lack of tournaments or lobbies means that ultimately you’re simply playing to engage with the mechanics with other people, rather than against the CPU. And when it comes to engaging with the game’s mechanics, there is a shocking lack of content, so you end up running into a sense of rote and repetition much sooner than a game like this should.

"It really is a shame because as mentioned, what’s there is incredible. And if you can put up with the repetition, and basic QoL – at least, until the updates presumably flesh things out – you end up with an incredibly fun and inventive game, that is remarkably well designed and engaging as a traditional golf game, and as a mad dash Nintendo multiplayer one."

One could point to titles such as Splatoon 2, Mario Kart 8, ARMS, or even Mario Tennis Aces, that all started out with very barebones content – and ended up being stuffed with content and endless hours of playability after many free updates. There is every reason to expect that Mario Golf Super Rush will end up getting loads of new courses or characters or even game modes going forward. Mario Tennis Aces did, after all. But in the here and now, it makes it a significantly harder sell for $60 USD. It’s a full price game, and it can often be hard to shake the feeling that it’s not quite coming up with enough to be worth that full price. In a few months, assuming good updates, sure, it could be. But right now, it’s the lack of content, particularly  can add a significant caveat in any recommendation for the game – particularly since there is basic QOL functionality missing that can end up frustrating even what is there.

As mentioned already, there is no tournament mode, online or local (other than the tournaments you get in story mode). There are no replays or highlight reels. There isn’t even a way to restart a game in progress with a CPU character, something that especially stands out in the story mode.

"A lack of content holds Mario Golf Super Rush back, but purely mechanically and in terms of design, it stands as one of Mario’s best sports game outings in a very long time."

It really is a shame because as mentioned, what’s there is incredible. And if you can put up with the repetition, and basic QoL – at least, until the updates presumably flesh things out – you end up with an incredibly fun and inventive game, that is remarkably well designed and engaging as a traditional golf game, and as a mad dash Nintendo multiplayer one. I think that what’s here makes a compelling case for itself – but it’s a much harder sell than it needs to be given the lack of content and features, to the point that I have to exercise caution in any recommendation for this game. I do think it’s really fun. I also think, however, that there is a dearth of content, currently, and I can foresee many that find it disappointing because of that.

But if you can make your peace with the low content (which, again, is hopefully not going to be a factor in a few months), this will end up being a really fun game – and if you are primarily intending it to be for family or party multiplayer sessions, then you will still get a lot of mileage out of it. Mario Golf Super Rush is held back from being as great as it could be – but even with all the compromises, it ends up being pretty damn good.

This game was reviewed on Nintendo Switch.

Scarlet Nexus is another new release debuting in the top 10, and like Samurai Warriors 5, occupies two spots in the charts. The PS4 version has sold over 20,000 copies and comes in at No. 5, while the PS5 version is at No. 9 with a little over 11,000 units sold. The total sales are lower than what you’d expect from a new anime action RPG releasing in Japan. Meanwhile, The Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails is in at No. 8 with over 11,000 units sold, while The Caligula Effect 2 debuts in tenth place with over 10,000 units sold.

On the hardware front, the Switch is, once again, the highest selling console, having moved over 72,000 units across the week. The PS5 trails by quite a large margin, having sold over 23,000 units.

You can check out the full software and hardware charts for the week ending June 27 below.

Software sales (followed by lifetime sales): 

1. [NSW] Mario Golf: Super Rush – 80,430 (New)
2. [PS4] Samurai Warriors 5 – 55,675 (New)
3. [NSW] Samurai Warriors 5 – 38,691 (New)
4. [NSW] Game Builder Garage – 23,280 (126,008)
5. [PS4] Scarlet Nexus – 20,160 (New)
6. [NSW] Ring Fit Adventure – 13,756 (2,654,669)
7. [NSW] Minecraft – 11,888 (2,019,432)
8. [PS4] The Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails – 11,230 (New)
9. [PS5] Scarlet Nexus – 11,008 (New)
10. [NSW] The Caligula Effect 2 – 10,243 (New)

Hardware sales (followed by last week’s sales):

Nintendo Switch – 72,951 (75,077)
PS5 – 23,438 (15,346)
Xbox Series X/S – 4,113 (3,684)
PS4 – 2,548 (667)
3DS – 519 (481)

[Via ResetEra]

Mario Golf isn’t the only new release in the top 10 this week. Also in the top 10 is Bandai Namco’s new action RPG Scarlet Nexus, which comes in at No. 8. 58% of Scarlet Nexus’ sales were on the PS5, 21% on the PS4, and 20% on Xbox. Meanwhile, Olympic Games Tokyo 2020: The Official Video Game debuts at No. 11, with 51% sales on PS4, 29% on Xbox One, and 21% on the Nintendo Switch.

The rest of the top 10 is dominated by familiar names, with the likes of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, the Nintendo Switch version of Minecraft, Ring Fit Adventure, and Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury all figuring in the charts. 

You can check out the full top 10 for the week ending June 26 below.

Mario Tennis Aces released last year to mostly solid reviews, though some felt it lacked in content a bit. Well, Nintendo has been working to correct that, as the game has received various updates with new characters and modes post-launch. Today we get a look at another addition to the growing roster with the Fire Piranha Plant.

You can see the character reveal trailer below. Piranha Plant has already shown up in Smash, so perhaps it’s only natural that he show up in this corner of the Nintendo universe to dominate another sport. He’s surprisingly agile for a giant plant in a little pot, as he can do very quick spin shots, and, like his name implies, he uses fire with his hits for that little extra burn.

Mario Tennis Aces is available now for Nintendo Switch. Fire Piranha Plant will be available to those who play in the newest online tournament June 1-30th. After that he will be available to all players starting July 1st.

Mario Tennis Aces came out last year, but is still getting frequent updates, including one earlier this month when they added the new Ring Shot Mode. Now it seems like Nintendo intends to get more eyes on the game, as they have released a special demo for the title that will run for the weekend, or an entire week, depending on region.

You can download the demo now, and it will allow you to play various online modes, either solo or co-op. If you don’t have Nintendo Switch Online, the demo will cover you, as you’ll get an e-mail after downloading the demo for a free week long trial. You can check out the product page for all the details. Those in the US will see the demo event for April 26^th-28^th, while those in the UK region will get to play a full week up to May 3^rd. Players who participate can even unlock Mario’s classic overall look for use in the full game.

Mario Tennis Aces is available now exclusively for the Switch, and you can read our review to see our take on the game.