Review

Gameplay 80%

Vista Golf is based on mini golf courses, where you need to reach the hole by bouncing the ball on walls and there are obstacles such as windmills and moving platforms to add challenge to your task.   The control is simple. There’s a white circle around the ball, and to hit it, place your finger inside the circle, and drag it back to set the strenght and angle of your shot. Release your finger and you’ll hit the ball. You like regular golf, there’s a set number of hits to make a par, and you wouldn’t want to go over that number. After 18 holes, you get your score, and the lower number of strokes, the better. You can move the camera around by touching the screen outside of the white circle and dragging it to rotate. You can also zoom in and out with a two fingers pinch motion. There are currently 3 courses of increasing difficulty. The first one doesn’t have obstacles, and the challenge comes from hitting the ball with the right power and angle. The 2nd course has moving elements to block the moving ball, and also steep zones where you’ll find it harder to calculate just the right amount of strenght so you don’t lose momentum before reaching the hole, or go past it because of the extra speed.

Graphics 67%

Vsita Golf features low poly 3D graphics, and instead of showing perspective, it features an isometric look, so it has a pretty distinctive look when you move around the camera.   For a casual game, the visual style may work, but it really feels uninspired and becomes boring to watch since it lacks shading, textures or other elements besides the green platform with orange borders. The rocks, trees and tiny islands get tiring to see pretty fast. The background is just water, and it does have liquid light reflection effects, and you can even see the mirror image of the level, but overall there’s nothing very noteworthy.

Production Quality 81%

If you wanted to have a mini golf in your pocket, Vista Golf accomplish that with a casual yet challenging game. It currently has three 18 holes courses, with the developer planning to add more in future updates.   Just trying to reach the hole is entertaining enough, some holes even have a Par over 5, giving you very difficult tasks to accomplish. Besides regular play, there are online leaderboards and many achievements to keep you busy.

Value for your Money 94%

Vista Golf is free on Google Play and the Apple App Store. It does has video ads, but they work in a special way compared to similar titles. When you make a mistake and want to retry a strike, you have to watch an ad, and then the play will rewind to the previous ball position. Otherwise, you’ll see no advertising.

Launch Video

Summary

Vista Golf is a simple, casual and relaxing mini golf game that you can carry around to play a hole or two whenever you have the time. It starts of easy, but by the 2nd course you’ll have a hard time just reaching the hole after 5 hits. The graphics could’ve been better, but the overall experience is enjoyable if you want to bounce balls on to walls instead of send them flying 100 yards like other mobile golf games. Pros

• Very simple controls but challenging courses
• Over 50 holes currently available to play
• OnLine leaderboards and achievements

Cons

• The low poly graphics get boring to watch after a while
• It’s hard to tell how far the ball will go, other games have a more accurate power prediction

Game Help Guru Rating 83%