Golf Peaks from Afterburn and 7Levels is a fun and short arcade-style mini-golf experience that is worth your time and money on Nintendo Switch. Find out why in our Golf Peaks review!
Golf Peaks throws you right into the action as soon as the game boots up, showing you how you can aim your shot with the left analog stick, and then send the ball moving in said direction with a simple press of the A button. For each level, you will have a set number of moves, represented by cards with images at the bottom of the screen. These will also have a number which relates to the number of spaces the ball will move when hit. You can switch between the cards with the ZL and ZR buttons so that you can use the right one for the occasion. You can also control the action with the Nintendo Switch’s touchscreen when playing in Portable and Tabletop mode.
The first set of levels will show you the basics so that you can understand how to use the aforementioned cards, what each one does depending on the image it displays, how slopes play a big part in the way the ball behaves, how walls are going to be your best friend, and how you should never feel overwhelmed about the experience since you can take your time to it at your own pace, using the B to move back and remove your last move, or how you can just hit the Y button to reset the whole level for you to give it another try from a fresh start.
And once you’ve gotten comfortable with the basics, the game will introduce additional elements to spice things up. While golf is certainly right there in the title, the only elements the game has in common with golf is that you hit a white ball so that it moves from Point A to Point B so that you can get it into a hole to claim victory. Golf Peaks is a puzzle game, and it’s a very fun if short one. How do sand traps affect your performance? Is the dark sand trap that seems to be moving the same as the light colored one? (Hint: it’s not). What does water really do? Why are these X squares making me so jumpy?
You’ll soon be juggling slopes, walls with angles you can hit to change the ball’s trajectory at a 90 ° angle, hazards that try to trick you into sending the ball into them, and the different types of strokes to hit the ball with. Some will send it forward in a straight line, others send if flying at the distance specified in the activated card, and some mix up one stroke after another, all in one action. Will sending the ball flying three spaces and then having it move one more space as soon as it lands be just what you need? Or will it send the ball into the void, forever lost to the emptiness? Or not since you can just press the B button to go back one move or press the Y button to save that ball as you reset the whole puzzle.
Each of the nine worlds in the game has nine levels for you to complete. Once you’ve done this, you can either decide to move onto the next world or to take on the three extra levels in the world so that you can 100% it and add a golden crown for that world at the top of the stage select screen. The three extra levels will take everything you’ve learned up to that world and mix things up with a layout that won’t allow you to solve the puzzle at hand as quickly as you would for one of the main puzzles.
Golf Peaks is a very fun puzzle game that gives us an isometric take on a more arcade-style mini-golf experience wrapped with a nice layer of “think hard about what you’re going to do.” It has over 100 puzzles to offer at its budget $4.99, and I highly recommend that you give it a go on Nintendo Switch. The only complaint I have for the game is that as soon as I was done, I was up for playing another 100 stages, so hopefully, we get that this year as either DLC for the game or a sequel with some new gameplay mechanics thrown in to mix things up!
Disclaimer
This Golf Peaks review is based on a Nintendo Switch copy provided by 7Levels.
