Pebble Beach Golf Links

One of the worst golf games I played for the Defunct Games Golf Club was Bandai Golf: Challenge Pebble Beach on the original Nintendo. In that review, I praised the detail in recreating the Pebble Beach course in California with the limitations of the NES even though the options and gameplay were piss-poor. When I learned of Pebble Beach Golf Links on the Saturn, I was sure that this will be the perfect retro rendition of the famous course. It's even made by T&E Soft. Sure, T&E's record with the Golf Club was up and down over the years, but I still had reason to be optimistic. The good news is that it is a better retro round on the course than the Nintendo game. The bad news is that it's still a barely average golf game.

Despite the different publisher, Pebble Beach Golf Links is still very similar to the last Saturn game from T&E I covered, Masters Haruka Naru Augusta 3. The presentation is almost the same with each hole introduced with FMV, except here the videos include tips from PGA pro Craig Stadler. The game has added a ball flight camera that follows the ball with each shot. While a neat idea, the Saturn clearly couldn't handle it. The textures get removed as soon as the ball moves (during aiming, as well), and the framerate drops to slideshow levels. While it doesn't drop to the headache-inducing levels of Mansion of Hidden Souls on the Sega CD, it still ends up looking very unappealing. The FMV golfers and caddies have jerky animation, too, but that was an issue in the Masters game also.

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While the rendition of Pebble Beach is much improved over the NES game with more realistic physics, the gameplay is still average for T&E Soft's output for the time. The piecemeal nature of setting up each shot is thorough right down to setting foot position for fades and draws, but it's rather slow, making a one-player game take an hour on average. Fortunately, games can be saved and continued at any point. The gameplay modes are okay, adding tournament and skins modes to the traditional stroke and match play. Strangely, there's also a watch mode which makes no sense. Why would anyone want to just watch a match this way?

Pebble Beach Golf Links is pretty much just Masters Haruka Naru Augusta 3 on a different famous course. In that sense, it is the best-playing rendition that was available at the time. However, it is still just an average golf game overall for the Saturn. If you want to play on Pebble Beach, stick to the PGA Tour games on the sixth-gen consoles and later. If you want to play golf on the Saturn, stick to VR Golf 97. Mark a bogey on the scorecard for this one.