Mario Golf: Advance Tour

Mario Golf: Advance Tour
Developer	Camelot
Publisher	Nintendo
System	Game Boy Advance, Wii U Virtual Console
Release Date	Game Boy Advance JP April 22, 2004 US June 22, 2004 EU September 17, 2004 Wii U Virtual Console EU August 28, 2014 JP September 10, 2014 US September 25, 2014
Rating	ESRB: E

Mario Golf: Advance Tour (known in Japan as the similar-sounding Mario Golf: GBA Tour) is a Mario-based golf game for the Game Boy Advance. It is a direct sequel to the Game Boy Color Mario Golf and is also a counterpart to Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour for the Gamecube.

Story

The player chooses one of two young golfers (Neil and Ella) to control. This rookie is on a journey to win the tournaments held by four different clubs in order to become a professional golfer and earn the right to compete against the champion, Mario.

Gameplay

This game follows up on the Game Boy Color game and features the same four clubs as well as RPG elements. This includes an overworld to explore and people to talk to outside of the golf games, which utilize standard golf gameplay. The player gains experience from golfing games which helps to boost the character's stats. It is also possible to unlock custom golf clubs. The graphics, character expressions and sound for this game are notably similar to Golden Sun, which Camelot had made prior to this game.

There are also several multiplayer modes, as two to four players can play golf on the same game without the link cable, although it is still possible for multiple players to play a game with the link cable. Players can also trade golf clubs between their games.

Advance Tour can link up to Toadstool Tour to transfer Neil and Ella into the latter game as playable characters. Additionally, this will unlock four more Mario characters (Luigi, Bowser, Wario and Waluigi) for Advance Tour.

Legacy

Ports/Remakes

• In 2014, this game was released for download on the 3DS as part of the 3DS Virtual Console.

Sequels

After this game, a decade went by without any further Mario Golf installments until Mario Golf: World Tour was released for the Nintendo 3DS in 2014.