Developer: SETA Corporation Publisher: SETA Corporation
Released: November 29, 1996 5/10
The first golf title released on the N64, Eikō no Saint Andrews takes advantage of the hardware with a 3D modeled representation of The Old Course, but unfortunately does little else to make it worthwhile. Though certainly playable, both for an import title as well as its controls and presentation, which differ from other classic golf titles, Eikō no Saint Andrews’ key flaw is that it doesn’t do anything all that interesting, all while looking and playing the part of a 1996 N64 release.
The main struggle to see Eikō no Saint Andrews as all that memorable or worthwhile nowadays is displayed right in the title: like many older golf titles, this is a game that only offers one course to play, albeit a very famous one, in The Old Course at Saint Andrews in Scotland, often referred to as the birthplace of the sport. It’s certainly a high-value license to carry, on par (pun intended) with the likes of similarly-licensed Pebble Beach Golf Links and, to my knowledge, more famous than Waialae Country Club, which would later be the feature course in one of the only N64 golf games to reach the west.
Common practice in the industry or not, though, the expectation for a singular featured course would probably be to do it justice with picturesque graphics and painstaking recreations. While it’s easy for most golf fans to recognize The Old Course’s devilish pot bunkers, the Swilcan running across the 1st and 18th fairways, and the railways sheds of the 17th “Road Hole,” it’s tough to imagine anything Seta have done here to qualify as “painstaking detail.” Other than not succumbing to any distance fog — surprising, given the location where it would have been appropriate to use — this is not a great looking game. Textures are fuzzy at best, with minimal detail. Differences between the wide, rolling fairways and thicker, unkempt patches of rough they squeeze through is a matter of a few shades of green. The same goes for seeing the Hamilton Grand and other iconic buildings off in the distance, as their models convey what they are without issue, but look overly boxy and unrefined against the skybox when you try to look directly at them.
There were two positives I was able to take away from Eikō no Saint Andrews, though unfortunately both could only do so much for the package and weren’t without drawbacks. The first is the music, which reeks of your classic yacht rock energy and really bops. I definitely appreciated the up tempo vibes, but was hugely disappointed since there are only two tracks in total for the whole game. Definitely a bummer after a few holes once you realize it’s not going to change up, and a further highlight of the barebones amount of content on offer here.
I did also appreciate the very early use of the analog stick to swing, rather than the classic three-click meter or something more convoluted. It’s a very primitive version of the control scheme we see in nearly all golf games now, pulling back on the analog stick until reaching the desired strength in your backswing, then pushing forward to follow-through. It would be a lot more welcome, however, if you didn’t also have to time the whole thing so that a reticle on the ball allowed for precise impact on top of everything else. It’s tough to say how much of a difference it makes, but knowing you’re not going to get an accurate bit of contact will literally stop you in your tracks because of how badly that can turn out. This means that rather than going for your nice, clean motion, you’ll freeze and start to play chicken with the reticle, ultimately losing some degree of distance and impact quality so as to avoid a complete shank or top-off.
This can be especially harsh once you’re on the green, alleviated only by the fact that Saint Andrews doesn’t have particularly tough greens on the whole. With only two possible levels of power — 50 ft. and 100 ft. — it’s already tough to gauge power on a shorter putt, and even worse when having to factor in margin for error when you won’t know if you hit cleanly until the last second. This essentially leads to there being almost no easy putts or gimmes, as anything in close can have such a wildly inappropriate amount of power. Two foot putts can still be left short, while 10 footers can turn into 12 coming back the other way without much actual error.
Overall, while I’m happy to see such an early version of an innovative control scheme that uses the new hardware, it’s way too unrefined to get much enjoyment out of. This is especially true as players will probably only get used to the gameplay as they tire of the lack of content. Your standard set of rule sets and a few generic golfers doesn’t add much to the experience, and even less so while playing just the one course. The number of rounds it takes to get used to is roughly the same as it takes to get tired of the locale. As a result, even without much else on the system, Eikō no Saint Andrews is probably not worth seeking out, though a round or two is worth a try for golf fans. It’s also very accessible as an import, as even though the menus are mostly in Japanese, the fact that you don’t have to worry about pace of play means that you can look up what you need to, but are mostly okay to just hop in and start swinging that analog stick around.
