PANGYA! Golf with Style isn’t an easy title to review, let’s make that clear from the begining. It’s a golf game, a lot more extensive than what comes standard with Wii Sports, but also with a totally different style. I waited for some time already for a more realistic way of golfing on the Wii, but since my finances aren’t infinite, I let go of EA’s reality-driven PGA Tour. So here I stand now with the Wiirtual golfing club in my hands and no references except for the couple of reviews that can be found on the net.

The game finds its origin in the Far East where it’s a popular and most of all, free, online golfing game. The profit comes from the shop where players get to improve their character. A new dress, a new pair of clubs, some new balls, .. And the more money is pumped in it, the better you can play of course. The arrival of the Wii was a nice opportunity to try to replace the buttons by actual golfing, but did that succeed?

One thing I can certainly say: Pangya! isn’t realistic. The game plays in a fantasy world with cartoon characters in true Manga-style like the Japanese like. As player you’re forced to behold bright colors, control unrealistic characters and ignore flying message bags. I know, it remains a matter of taste but I don’t quite like the super slim teenage girls with big breasts in nurse outfits that parade on my screen. Not to talk about the bunny ears they sometimes have…

The shop I spoke about earlier is in a certain way for free in the Wii edition. You do have to go through the single player part of the game to unlock stuff so that you can get it afterwards with the virtual money (or experience points) Peng. The shop is divided into four categories: Caddie, Character, Items and a lottery game. Even though also clothing for the characters can be bough it would be foolish to use this feature. Your hard earned cash can better be put to good use by buying better clubs or balls instead of gadgets. The different sets of clubs already emphasize how far you have to look for realism as after only a couple of hours you’ll already be using baseball bats instead of real clubs. Also the balls come in all shapes and colors and give you extra Pang when doing perfect hits.

and this brings us to the swinging itself, about the most realistic part of the game – although I must admit this is only a suspicion since I’ve never held a real golf club myself. Contradictory to the simple Wii Sports, Pangya! does have a sensing system that registers accurately the moves of the remote during your swing. A little shift in your wrist and your par – this is scoring within a certain number – falls (all too often literally) in the water: the deviation that occurs can sometimes go up to 35 a 40 degrees. The best result I got by not thinking about the arm movements, you’ll only make more mistakes by stressing out. A power meter does nicely show the strength of your swing which makes it easier to predict how far the ball will fly.

Also the putting is a horrible task. The terrain is nicely detailed but it remains difficult to find the right direction and strength. More than once the ball will roll past the hole or – even more irritating – stop half a centimetre in front of it. The less swings you need to put the ball, the more Pang can be earned. Scoring birdies is difficult, but they do get rewarded nicely.

The single player part of the game contains three different modes. The most important is the Pangya Festa that’s supposed to be the storyline. You compete in the yearly golf festival where you have to get each character separately to the top by winning game after game from opponents that quickly get a lot more difficult. When a game ends with a draw, the amount of earned Pang will decide whos the winner. Irritating indeed, but luckily the progress is kept so that you don’t have to start from zero after each loss. The other modes are Stroke Play, where you play 18 holes against a computer controlled opponent, and Match Play that gives you separate events with a varying amount of holes.

In multiplayer, Pangya! offers an equal amount of gameplay. The two last mentioned modes can be played with one and the same controller while “Balloon Pop” needs an equal amount of controllers as there are players. It’s a nice variation on the standard hit-the-ball-into-the-hole where a player needs to shoot as many floating balloons out of the sky. You can compare it somewhat with the “Battle” from the famous Mario Kart series.

As stated, the game has a ton of bright colors, but the graphics can’t be called overwhelming. I miss for instance some more textures on the grass and in the surroundings. Also the sound could be better since it quickly bores while you wait until the dialogues are gone of computer players have finished their turn.