Cursed to Golf review: A hole-in-one experience with a golfing twist

Title: Cursed to Golf
Developer: Chuhai Labs
Publishers: Thunderful Group, Thunderful Publishing
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows, Xbox Series X and Series S, PlayStation 5
Release Date: August 18, 2022

Cursed to Golf may seem like just another 2D Platformer on the outside, but the Rougelike game brings together a great story that really adds a twist to the game of golf. Cursed to Golf is a one-of-a-kind “Golf-like” game that will keep you busy for hours at a time. Just like any other Rougelike game, every time you play a round of golf, you can expect something different. It really lives up to be that hole-in-one Chuhai Labs were striving to achieve.

In Cursed to Golf, you begin your journey to become the world’s best golfer. You control a golfer named “The Champ.” You are on the 18th hole of the Championship and all you have to do is make it into the final hole to become the GOAT (the greatest Golfer of all Time). As you make your way through the final hole, a storm begins to brew. It now becomes a race against the storm. Just before you are able to complete your final hole and win the Championship, lightning strikes and kills The Champ. The Champ then finds himself in Golf Purgatory after dying!

When you make your way into Golf Purgatory, you are not alone. You are greeted by another golfer called The Scotsman. The Scotsman is basically your right-hand man as he begins to explain everything that just happened and why The Champ has found himself into Golf Purgatory. The Scotsman also goes on to explain what Golf Purgatory has to offer and why golfing down there is a whole lot different.

The main goal for Cursed to Golf is to ascend back up to the real world and get out of Golf Purgatory. In order to do that, you will have to conquer 18 holes filled with challenges, curses, traps, and much more in order to ascend back up to the top.

The dialogue in this game makes you grow attached to each of the characters that you encounter throughout the journey. Chuhai Labs does a great job to build that bond between each of the characters and it makes you genuinely curious as to what new characters you will meet along the way.

Before you begin your journey up to ascension, you spawn at the Eterni-Tee shop. This is where you can purchase Ace Cards, store Ace Cards in your Card Binder, and even change the outfit of your character. As you progress through the game, you will notice that you will be using this shop a lot. There is a lot of simplicity when it comes to the Eterni-Tee shop, which is great. You never want to over complicate the smaller aspects of a video game.

Changing your outfit is another cool part of the game. Customization is king in today’s video game world. There are a decent number of options to choose from. However, the one thing that I was a little disappointed in, was the fact that there was no option to purchase any additional outfits with your in-game currency. I think that the ability to purchase outfits for The Champ with any money you earn throughout the game would be a neat feature to add for all the leftover money you never end up using.

Cursed to Golf also has traps and obstacles along each of their courses. At no point do they ever feel like too much. There is the right amount of difficulty that this game has, that makes you want to perfect your gameplay and try and conquer Golf Purgatory. Each mistake that you end up making allows you to experiment with something different until you get it right. It is not too hard nor too difficult and after a few plays through, you will catch on fairly quickly.

The music and visuals were also very well done. The main song that is featured in the game constantly finds its way to get stuck in my head. The visuals also were very well done, and the old school style look is perfect for this type of game.

The lengths of each hole can be very lengthy at times. There are times where it feels like you have been on a hole forever. Occasionally, length is great thing to have in a video game. However, with 18 holes to try and conquer, sometimes the length of some of the holes feels like it drags on a little bit. There is nothing worse than failing on the 15th or 16th hole, after it took a couple of hours to get to that point only the restart at the beginning.

As you can expect from a Roguelike genre video game, defeat only makes you want to play the game over and over again. Each round that you play will require a decent amount of time to get through all 18 holes. If you fail, you go back to hole one and have to start over again. The music, characters, and just the right amount of difficulty makes the replay ability worth it.

All in all, I really believe that Chuhai Labs did a fantastic job with not only creating a twist on golf, but also creating a twist on the Roguelike genre. Despite not enough customization features and some of the holes being drawn out very long, Cursed to Golf really steps up to the Fairway and is a hole-in-one experience that everyone should give a try.

Cursed to Golf Score: 8.0/10

Cursed to Golf really takes golfing to the next level. The wide variety of holes, traps, and Ace Cards really makes you want to play this game over and over again. With a golf game taking a risk to join the Roguelike genre, it swung and definitely did not miss. You will find yourself playing Cursed to Golf many times over just so you can finally see if you can conquer Golf Purgatory and ascend back to the real world.

A copy of this game was provided to App Trigger for the purpose of this review. All scores are ranked out of 10, with .5 increments. Click Here to learn more about our Review Policy.