1CC for 18 Holes (Neo Turf Masters)

Despite liking golf games and Neo Geo stuff, I somehow never touched this and that was a mistake. This game rules. Thanks to @HOBO and @hideous_pizza for making me see the golfing light. An absolutely perfect golfing experience and a surprisingly great arcade game experience smashed into each other. And I am going to get good at it, goddammit, but before that, I figure I should fill you all in on this game.

Who Our Golfers Be

There are six different gods of the green here for your selection. Some are more man than god, but all are giants in the field of hitting a small ball at a hole. They are:

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YOUNG HERO

Name: George Spinner
Country of Origin: USA baybee
Summary: That Big D Energy (where D= Divorce)

It seems as though his in-game title of YOUNG HERO is pure irony, as one look at this dad tells you that he has a few kids that he only gets to see on alternating weekends. He is not young, though he keeps telling himself that in case he ever decides to get “back on the market”. The thing is that he’s just not really good at anything. He’s not awful, but he’s just average, both on the course and off, and eventually, his first wife just needed something more. When he’s not on the greens, you can find him nursing a beer at the local BW3 or slowly pondering if his children can ever respect him again.

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TECHNICIAN

Name: Thomas Stewart
Country of Origin: Great Britain
Summary: Do I Make You Horny, Baby? (NO I DO NOT)

It’s not the length of the drive, but the curve and the height. That’s how the saying goes, right? It should be, at least for Tommy’s sake. My dude rocks the Sally Jesse Raphael look, which gets him none of the ladies, but does mean he can do some technical shit with a ball (if you know what he means (what does he mean?!?!)). He’s probably got the weakest drive of the game, but look at how he holds that putter. You know he’s got game (golf game, not dating game). Will likely die alone.

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VETERAN

Name: Frank Adams
Country of Origin: Australia
Summary: Just Slightly Not Too Old For This Shit

Frank is a veteran of the Golfing Wars, having seen it all out here on the turf. Frank’s moustache says he knows the score, and he knows what he needs to do. He has no times for distractions like “forming meaningful relationships” or “good sportsmanship”. Frank is here to win, any way he can. One way he can’t win is by hitting the ball far; just not really his jam, as the kids (he never had) would say. His jam is getting himself into jams (like the rough) and getting out of them pretty well. When you’ve been in this much shit, you learn how to get out.

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SHOT MAKER

Name: Robert Landolt
Country of Origin: Germany
Summary: Now, What Y’all Wanna Do? Wanna Be Bakers, Shot Makers, Fakers?

Let’s just put it out there: like half the time, this guy sometimes looks like Josh Brolin with a bad fake goatee and a haircut that says he never met a Great Clips he wouldn’t frequent. That aside, this German’s game plan is simple: hit the ball hard and straight, then drain that putt. Sure, he might look like he has some relatives that somehow migrated to Argentina, but don’t underestimate him due to that. His recovery ability is, how do you say, not so good, which is probably why he has kept his life as simple as possible, because god only knows how he would handle a broken heart.

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POWER GOLFER

Name: Fernando Almeida
Country of Origin: Brazil
Summary: Smash Mouth Mullet

Fernando is a basic man. He hits shit hard. That’s it. He barely aims. What the fuck is a putt?

As in golf, so in life. Fernando doesn’t plan for second dates. He barely plans for first dates. This doesn’t often go well for him. It never goes well for him. But at least the ball flies far. And that mullet game is on point.

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PUTT MASTER

Name: Toyoshige Takeno
Country of Origin: Japan
Summary: King Shit of Putt Mountain

If we were playing Neo Putt Putt Badasses, Toyo here would be the absolute GOAT, but we are not. We are playing golf, not putt putt, so my dude has got problems. If he gets on the green, he is solid gold, but getting there ain’t gonna be easy.

Due to a lack of frustration in his short game, Toyo is pretty well adjusted in life. He got married and has two kids who almost don’t hate him. He is pretty vain about that hairline though, so he rocks a visor at all times in the hopes of minimizing that fivehead. You ain’t fooling anyone, bud.

Where The Golfing Be

Golf can, apparently, take place in a bucnh of different places all over the Earth. Who knew?

GERMANY

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Baden National Golf Course can kiss my ass. You might think this course would be the easiest, since it is the first one, and maybe you are right, but I don’t think so. This is the one I have started working on for that precious 1cc and it is a harsh mistress. Hole 1 is an easy as hell birdie that can still fuck you up if you aren’t bringing your A game, but it goes downhill fast from there. Hole 4 just yells at you that you better learn how to hook and slice, or else you are going to become best friends with Germany’s own pine trees. Some of the holes even feature said pine trees in the MIDDLE OF THE GODDAMN FAIRWAY. What the fuck, Germany? That’s not how golf holes are supposed to be designed. Even Mario knows that.

JAPAN

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It’s a good thing this game was made by a Japanese studio, otherwise calling your golf club the Fujiyama Oriental would probably come off pretty racist. This course has a lot of shorter holes with some tricky shit, and even more of THE GODDAMN TREES IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FAIRWAY. Who does this? Why do they do this?

You might think that since the holes are, on average, shorter than other courses that this would make our fellas with less driving power a bit better here. You might be totally wrong. The men of the long ball can get to the greens even faster here, so enjoy your wrongness.

USA

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Clearly, no one on the development team has ever been to the Grand Canyon. This is not to imply that I have, though I am pretty sure palm trees and water hazards are not Things of the Canyon. I mean, neither is planting trees in the middle of the goddamn fairway; that never stopped the mad lads at Neo Turf Masters, so don’t let it stop you. Like everything else in America, bigger is better on this course, with long holes that are so long that even POWER MASTER can’t really exploit the long game to his advantage.

AUSTRALIA

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Hey, do you like water? I mean, really fucking like water? You ever want to golf on a goddamn archipelago? If you answered “shit yeah, my dude” to all those questions, then welcome to the Blue Lagoon Golf Course, where half the holes are effectively islands, and you better bring some solid ass drives because otherwise that ball is going to be yet another thing polluting the oceans. Sorry, Great Barrier Reef, golf is actually more important than silly shit like “diverse biomes” and “the non-extinction of aquatic species”. Just accept this.

You Can 1CC…Golf?

Technically, yeah. So the way they made golf into an arcade game kinda rules. You start the game with 3 Rests (lives). Each hole by default uses one Rest; if you par the hole, you lose one rest. Birdies give you and extra Rest, effectively making the hole cost nothing, but going over par makes you lose an extra Rest. When you hit zero Rests, game over. That’s it. So a 1cc would be getting through all 18 holes this way before running out of rests, which means basically birdie or better every hole but two pars or one over par. This shit is hard.

So How’s It Going…?

Not terrible! The game is still hard as shit, though I have managed to get to hole 8 in Germany before my golfer runs out of Rests and has to GAME OVER. The Hamster release of the game on Arcade Archives (under its way less awesome Japanese name of Big Tournament Golf) has a high score mode that makes you use only one credit, so it’s nice for forcing me not to cheat on it. Not that I am tempted, nope, I would never give in on that. Notably the one site I saw for competitive Neo Turf Masters had unlimited credits as part of its rule set. Not I!

In Conclusion

This game rules. Play this. Talk about this. Work to 1cc this. Possibly fail forever. Semper scribito.

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I like watching TAS videos of this game, you get to see & hear a lot of animations/effects you don’t normally, it shows you how much attention to detail they put into making this game

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Baden is a HELL COURSE FROM HELL why are there so many holes that have massive elevation changes. evil.

how many times have you heard “player one is having a baaaaaad day”?

I am also going to try getting through one credit, it’s not going to go well but I’m going to try

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motivation music:

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Reminder that I’m Select Button’s reigning Neo Turf Champion and that the Roger Landalt can I made is a masterpiece

And also that I never get Landalt’s name right

Best game, everyone should play it, you’ll never beat me though, I’m the best

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put Robert Landolt in KOF, cowards. absolute hero of the Neo Geo

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I’ve long held a secret wish: replace the digitized gameplay character sprites with the hand drawn sprites directly from, or in the style of, its prequel Major Title 2

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everyone’s shirt is so rippled… their eyes, so bugged

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I haven’t heard it that much! Because this game is a dick and even a Par costs you a life! That being said, I have heard it, and it is brutal.

Robert is the A++ golfer in this game, though I enjoy Frank Adams as his backup, because seriously, the rough just doesn’t matter to that dude at all. Too bad about his shit putting game though. Maybe when he finally officially gets Too Old For This Shit, he can learn the ways of Toyo’s Putt Putt Pro Challenge.

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we should do a BEAUTIFUL GAME REDUX of Neo Turf Masters so i can hear about what a bad day i’m having until the game decides to mercifully end the hole

but this time… i’ll practice

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Power Golfer and Putt Master

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Yeah let’s do this why not.

I’ll make a thread for it soon.

Edit: I made a thread

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came here to say this, too! i’m ready to turf

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The 6 golfers are all clearly the same one guy using props to slightly change his appearance, which helps explain the delusional « Young Hero » title of one of his persona

I got to 1CC Baden’s first half with PUTT MASTER, the game’s great

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Look, was I humbled a bit in the Second Beautiful Game Neo Turf Masters Invitational? OK, a bit. I mean, me and Bobby McG…Landolt did pretty well in round 1, solidly just making our shit and getting the job done. But round 2? We went to America. Arisona (sp) specifically, and I learned a lesson I have learned time and again.

Fuck the USA

fucktheusa

No really, that course can eat shit. Was it maybe my fault for only really practicing on one course (Germany)? You could say that, sure, but you would be wrong, because I am the greatest golfer ever and nothing will stop me, not even your petty “accurate claims” or “well reasoned arguments”. Eat shit, Arisona.

My loss in the tournament also came thanks to Robert Landolt’s absolute shit ability to recover from anything. Like unless that ball is on the fairway or the green, this dude (formerly my dude, but nay, no more) can’t do shit with it. And as the tournament winner showed, Thomas Stewart, the master of Coke bottle glasses and actually being able to handle his own fuck ups, is maybe the new hotness. So:

Sorry, not sorry. In my first shot at a German 1cc with my new best bro, managed to make it all the way to hole 10, so yeah, FOH Bobby. Tommy Stew is the new…

tiger_woods

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I’ll never give up on you, Bobby…you’ll always be the one for me…

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My wife and I had a tradition of playing a round of this every night in bed before falling asleep during the pandemic—it’s also one of the all-time great arcade games!

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What— what the hell. Where you been man

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Around! Mostly Twitter tbh. Over the weekend I was reading—of all things!—my old issues of The Gamer’s Quarter and thought, “shit, I gotta get back to the forums”

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