A Hole-in-One
The first Mario Golf version had serious problems on its graphics, but here the problem has been completely solved, all the holes and courses are awesome, the water, the trees, the rain, the sun, the sand... Everything is great, the characters are really nice and the opening movie is really funny.
The gameplay is simple and won't take long for you to learn. The best improvement are the spins, Nintendo has managed to find a simple way to put a lot more of technique and capacity of creation in the game, now you will have many ways to try to stop the ball near to the pin, you can try a backspin, a top spin or even let the ball fly naturally. Sometimes during some trouble shots in strange places the camera will not work perfectly and you won't be able to see the green. Besides, in some putts you won't be able to see the hole because the characters simply stay in front of it.
Another problem of this game is the difficulty, they should have put an option where you could change the CPUs level because once you have learned all the courses, greens and fairways there won't be any CPU able to get 10 strokes near you, so playing alone will get boring easily.
There are lots of modes beside the tournament. There is the ring shot challenge where you will have to get some rings and finish the hole in the par or better. The speed golf where you need to finish the holes as fast as you can. There is also a contest to see who lands the ball closer to the pin and another where you need to make birdies in all 18 holes of par-3 course. In another mode you will be challenged by the characters and if you defeat them you will be able to upgrade them into star characters.
The multiplayer is very nice and four people can play sharing the same controller because you won't play all in the same time. But unfortunately sometimes the pace of a four-player match will be really slow because of the time you will need to wait until your friends do their strokes.
Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour is an awesome game, that has lots of different modes and long hours of fun and enjoyment. But think about the CPU skills before getting this one.