Clap Hanz Golf is an excellent arcade-style golf game that is basically a modern take on Hot Shots Golf or 2017’s Everybody’s Golf for Playstation 4 but on mobile. The characters are silly, the courses are gorgeously colourful while keeping their stylish art appearance, and their unique flick-based swing system is a love it or hate it mechanic, but it certainly gets the job done.
There are a bunch of courses and modes to play through, and since it’s a premium Apple Arcade game, you’ll get access to a wide variety of customisation options that use gameplay to earn instead of asking you to make an in-app purchase. This keeps the focus on playing instead of whether or not you are missing out on cool items and trinkets, and it’s honestly a breath of fresh air.
Perhaps the biggest change in this version of the series is the switch to team-play golf. You have specialists that excel in the long, mid, and short game of golf and picking the right three-person team for the course is up to you. It’s all a nice change to such a celebrated digital sport and it fits right at home in your pocket.
Playing through
There’s a campaign mode called Tour, and it’s where you’ll likely be spending most of your time in the game. In Tour, you’ll not only learn how to play but will collect new characters along the way to expand your abilities. With RPG-like statistics such as power, control, miracle, and impact which get boosts as you use characters multiple times, it pays to stick with your favourite golfers in order to have them stronger when it’s time to hit the links. Miracle seems to be the only one that may not make sense at first, but it basically means your ball will be more likely to fall in when near the hole.
When assembling a team for each course, you’ll pick your rag-tag gang of three from your arsenal of available characters, or you can opt to have the game automatically pick them for you. This is useful when you’re still trying to figure out your strongest characters, and will make the game feel more like an arcade version of golf than the underlying RPG system that sometimes seems slapped on.
Playing through the holes is carried out on a map that shows you the locations, and you’ll be playing to try to win the challenges, whether its a distance match against a specific character, a match where you try to get closest to the hole, or a traditional match where your goal is simply getting the lowest score. Each win will net you stars and you need a certain amount to unlock the next boss battle which will then unlock a new course.
Boss battles play out the same as most of the courses, with the addition of playing only a one-versus-one match against the AI opponent. Once you beat them, not only do you unlock their character, but you expand your course offerings as a new one will be unlocked. They aren’t terribly difficult for the most part, but you’ll likely have plenty of practice by that point so you should know the course you’re facing them against like the back of your gloved hand.
In Control
Once you’re on the course, the controls are tutorialised for you, but they basically boil down to three main things: swing, clubs, and camera. Your swing is carried out by sliding your finger down the right side of the screen until you’ve reached the intended power, and then sliding it back up to complete the shot. Most of your effort will be spent trying to keep it as straight as possible to achieve a straight shot or you can also purposefully choose to slide it left or right to achieve a draw or fade. When you’re near enough to the flag, it will show up on the power meter to help indicate to you how close your shot will be to the hole.
Clubs are standard fare, but there are some additional things to know about how the game handles them. You will have a club button at the bottom left of your screen, and while most of the time the proper club will be selected for you, there are also options to set the range for these clubs. That means when putting you can choose between close, medium, and far to ensure you have the right range for your shot. This may seem like not much of a deal, but I can’t even recall how many times that I’ve missed a putt in a golf game due to overshooting the swing.
Finally, the camera is a really useful tool, and the sooner you master it, the better of a golfer you’ll be. If you double-tap the screen, you’ll zoom into where you’re currently aiming at the course. This can help determine whether obstacles such as bunkers or water hazards are nearby, or can be used to get a better picture of the distance you’ll be able to hit. Moving your finger left or right allows you to move your shot left or right and this can be done regardless of whether you’re zoomed in or not. Additionally, there’s a camera button on the right half of the screen that lets you choose your zoom level when it's behind your golfer.
Loads of modes
Beyond the Tour mode, there is a Survival mode, Score Attack, and a Local Multiplayer mode which uses Bluetooth to play local matches. In Survival mode, you take on one-hole stages one after another and try to achieve the highest ‘Survival Score’ on the charts. Each hole has a set score and character to use, and if you go over that score, it’s game over and your final tally is run. Score Attack challenges you to get your lowest score on certain 9-hole courses. Each character has their own rank for each course and it’s a great task to see how low you can go when playing through multiple holes.Local Multiplayer offers many different options and you can also play up to four players in stroke play, otherwise match play is limited to two. You can pick many different game-changing options such as cup size, weather, and length of the match, whether you play 3, 6, or 9 holes. It’s a great addition to those who have multiple devices, but it would have been nice to have some online connection capabilities to put your skills to the test against the world.
Clap Hanz Golf final thoughts
This golf title is a wonderfully executed master class of how to properly handle mobile golf. It leans heavily on its previous titles in the series to deliver the experience, but why fix what’s not broken in the first place? The lack of extended multiplayer offerings to play against other challengers online is a bit of a letdown, but the core experience is so much fun that you’ll likely be able to forgive them for the omission.
The graphics are really quite excellent for both the colourful gang of characters and the elegantly-designed courses that they galavant around, and there’s plenty of detail to look for as you smack your ball from spot to spot. The UI is especially wonderful and delivers all the information you need to make educated shots towards the hole.
I never felt cheated by the systems in place nor did I feel like a bad lie was anything more than my finger sliding the wrong way on the upswing. On that note, it is possible to use a controller, but I think I prefer using my finger over using the right stick to execute my crucial shots. At the end of the day, it’s a clever and fun golf game to relax with and with plenty of options from modes to customisation of your favourite characters, you’ll always have something to keep you busy.
