Have you tried… losing your mind - but regaining your life - in Cursed to Golf?

I've always said golf is difficult and demands the acceptance of a challenge - and Cursed to Golf embraces that. Hard. Because, as expected, playing golf in Purgatory on trick courses full of traps, TNT, fans, teleporters, and labyrinthine routes is what I'd call 'nails'. But it's also satisfying as heck when it goes right.

Cursed to Golf begins with lightning striking down your player while on the verge of winning a terrestrial tournament, transporting them to a tortuous, Dantean golf adventure. What awaits you is a golfing challenge that would make the likes of McIlroy and Woods balk. But, regaining your life is possible: you 'just' need to put together a full 18-hole round, mastering an array of downright-difficult multi-layered holes - and devilish boss battles. Throw in roguelike play, those labyrinthine holes, and an armory of aces to mix up your strategy, and you have all the ingredients for a fun - but maddening - experience.

Torture by golf

Your setup is simple: use three clubs and some bonuses to get the ball to the flag, or one of the flags, within your shot count - or 'Par' - but you must learn quickly. While the first hole or two may be relatively easy, it's not just about making your way between fairways and avoiding bunkers - you can quickly find yourself in the deep rough. And there's extra jeopardy: you can only escape Purgatory by completing a full run of 18 holes - fail just one hole and you start all over again. And each new round brings a completely new set of tools you must master and a fresh set of holes, in a new order, 'chosen' by the Greenskeeper, all coming from a massive bank of more than 80 pre-designed tracks. This golf-roguelike gameplay can be frustrating and unforgiving, but what makes restarting a round an easy decision is knowing you won't play the same holes again, freshening up each attempt at ascension away from Golfing Purgatory.

However, you may lose your mind in the process of trying to escape: not only is Cursed to Golf often devilishly difficult but the limited amount of shots you have means planning is essential. You need to invest time in plotting an ideal journey; and I say ideal because, with a mistimed click of a button, or a quirk of a bouncing golf ball, your planned route can become out of reach, meaning working on the fly is your only option. This is sometimes doable, but at times you'll be totally stranded, destined to fail the round - and the deeper you get into a stretch of 18, the more maddening this is. There have been numerous times where I was close to successfully navigating a clever route but clipped a corner with my shot, or failed to manipulate a bit of spin, to see my ball just bounce past a shot-giving idol, or found that there were just no ace cards left to rescue me. The only thing left is to start again.

Those ace cards are a key mechanic of Cursed to Golf. Bought with in-game money earnt from finishing holes or finding on your route, or won when completing certain 'Cursed Holes' (more on those below), these cards can be played to grant you shot bonuses and sometimes, simply, more shots to increase your Par. However, as well as offering fun and ridiculous powers - such as exploding your ball into three, or turning it into a steerable missile, or dropping like a dead weight that can genuinely help you get over the line - these cards might also be the source of my only grumble: while they offer lifelines or shot-changing benefits, they can also prove to be almost too important. It's a bit of a double-edged sword: they are both a fun arsenal of tools, but sometimes are the only means of progressing - occasionally needing to be spammed out in sequence. And this swing to aces means that Cursed to Golf can become a card-playing game (if you have the right cards) rather than a hellish golf game. But, equally, that's also the point - you cannot rely solely on making satisfying shots.

If Dante designed golf courses…

Despite the obstacles, with a plan, you can make it round: aim for shot-gifting idols to smash on the way to up the par count; take shortcuts with fans and teleporters, open new routes by blowing up TNT; and deploy ace cards to get you out of jams or simply buy you some more shots. These can even help with the Cursed Holes; these more difficult tracks throw in more weirdness such as turning everything on screen upside down or making your ball extra bouncy for a few shots. But when you do get a good run going, you'll experience multiple biomes that add variation - and, of course, their own challenges - as well as boss battles played out as a one-on-one race across very difficult and long holes.

However, all in, Cursed to Golf never ceases to be fun and incredibly satisfying when it goes right - even if I have wanted to throw my DualSense in despair occasionally. It's even got a fun aesthetic draped over it in the form of an arcade-y, pixel art aesthetic and jaunty music. It really does feel like it doesn't take itself too seriously - a perfect antithesis of what makes real-world golf sometimes have the reputation it does. If you can ride out - nay, embrace - the infuriating times, Cursed to Golf is a wicked-good, golf rogue-like that Faust himself would delight in.

Cursed to Golf is out now on Nintendo Switch, PS4, Xbox One, PC, Xbox Series X, and PS5.