Eikō no St. Andrews

The Good
An attempt at doing something different.

The Bad
Ugly graphics, controls don't work.

The Bottom Line
The Glory of St. Andrews [Eiko no Saint Andrews] is a Japanese exclusive golf game set on “The Old Course” at St. Andrews. This isn’t the first Japanese exclusive game set on that golf course – the SNES had one as well (although by a different developer and publisher). As it’s only based on one course, it does mean we just get 18 holes.

Unfortunately, this means there isn’t much visual variety. The holes don’t feel very different when playing a video game and once you’ve played each one, it’s just doing it the same with different options. You can customise your character (although the looks are from a few options with the same face and different hats).

The swinging mechanic is interesting and uses the analogue stick well. you move it back to the power you want, then swing it forward to swing. In the bottom right, a red circle decreases in size before resetting and you want to time it to be as small as possible when you swing as this gives you more accuracy.

When putting, it’s difficult to see the shape of the green. The game gives you a few things to try and help. It gives the green a grid pattern, and it also lets you stretch the map of the entire level upwards to see the shape in more detail. None of this seemed to help much.

The Glory of St. Andrews is a fairly poor golf game with very limited options and only one course.