The proliferation of sports-themed video games has not only given sports fans an expanded avenue to revel in their favorite sports but it has also created an avenue for people who may not be interested enough in sports to peek into and even immerse themselves in the virtual version of some sports. While some titles within the sports genre focus on encapsulating the real-life experience as much as possible, others swerve more towards utilizing creative ways of adding unique twists to the general mechanics of the game.
Golf Odyssey 2, just like its first installment, takes the core elements of golf and lets players enjoy a completely different yet familiar adventure through unique holes and courses. Instead of the usual 3rd person or top-down view virtual golf players are accustomed to, Golf Odyssey 2 gives you a 2D side-on perspective and challenges you to play golf on peculiarly laid out terrain that has no semblance at all to the holes in conventional golf games.
With its 8-bit graphics and overly-simplified control schemes and gameplay mechanics, Golf Odyssey 2 sets proper expectations relative to how simple and easy it is to pick up and enjoy. As simple as it is, however, Golf Odyssey 2 is not as easy to fully master. Playing through the initial holes should already give you a good enough idea of how challenging the entire adventure can become.
If you struggle to clear holes consistently or at all and want to fast forward to a much better stroke performance, then you came to the right place. Our Golf Odyssey 2 Guide comes with a bunch of useful tips, tricks and strategies to dominate every course and eventually ace every hole!
1. Understand The Basics
Golf Odyssey 2 is designed to be as simple and as straightforward as can be, ensuring that it can be enjoyed by a wide range of gamers with varying ages and levels of expertise. Just like any regular game of golf, the goal is to sink the ball into the hole with as few strokes as possible, with a lower number of strokes securing lower points or better performance.
A stroke is performed by a simple tap and hold on the screen and the power behind each shot is determined by how far you drag your hold. The aim will be the exact opposite of your pull from the tap and hold gesture, comparable to a slingshot effect, and with a 2D side-on perspective, you can expect that the stage will hardly be made up of flat surfaces.
There are no greens, roughs, or hazards but there can be such a thing as an out-of-bounds so a careful review of the stage’s entire layout is necessary before you start taking a swing. Although there are no time limits within which you must take each shot, available strokes are limited within each stage, and failing to sink the ball after the last shot ends your run.
The actual holes or cups in Golf Odyssey 2 are much wider than their real-life counterparts as well as the ones in any other golf game. This makes it a little easier to clear stages considering precision requirements and even luck. There are no winds or changing weathers as well so consistency of performance within each stage even across different runs will be based entirely on how uniform your shots are.
Coins are earned based on the number of holes you sink and your overall performance with each run. These coins, in exchange, serve as the exclusive currency in the game and can be used to increase the golfer’s stats or power. Beating a course increases your rank and grants you access to more challenging courses although you can always continue to play in every other course you have conquered.
2. Apply Some Geometry And Physics
Although it all sounds too educational or scholastic, which may be equated to boring school stuff by some younger audiences, there are a plethora of video games that are largely based on or revolve around the basics of physics and geometry.
In just about every golf game out there, being able to apply more power behind each swing of the club almost always equates to better strokes. However, it is also a given that golf is not exclusively about power. The direction of the shot and its angle play equally vital roles as power and an equally firm grasp of slopes and terrain also helps players forecast the golf ball’s behavior after it lands.
If you have played actual golf or any game that involves a projectile, you should know that the farthest distance a projectile can reach is if it is launched at a 45-degree angle. Just to be sure, this is the perfect mid-point between launching a projectile perfectly horizontal and perfectly vertical.
Although this is fairly easy to estimate and execute in Golf Odyssey 2, the usual layout of stages you will play in can be littered with impediments that will block your shot at that angle. Likewise, there are no scarcities of dangers to striking the ball too far off the target so you will have to assess carefully when to utilize the 45-degree angle concept.
With Golf Odyssey 2’s rather unorthodox yet simple 2D perspective, it will initially appear easy to swing past the hurdles of terrain changes in the initial holes, where relying on gravity and the right amount of friction makes it easier for you to sink the ball without better precision. As you move forward through the stages and courses, you can expect that these same factors paired with the general layout of the stage, will greatly contribute to the increasing challenges that the adventure comes with.
3. Take As Much Time As You Need
As we mentioned earlier, Golf Odyssey 2 makes gameplay a lot less stressful by giving players infinite time on their hands between each swing. Although we have yet to play every other golf title out there, time pressure has always been a part of the ones we have engaged in so the idea of not being pressured to rush into every stroke gives us a sigh of relief.
Despite the absence of time limits, however, some players can easily develop a false sense of urgency especially if they have played several other games that have time constraints. As a casual game as well, Golf Odyssey 2 is designed to be playable and enjoyable even for people who have very limited free time on their hands. As a result, the natural tendency is to try and finish each stage as quickly as possible to move on to the next one.
In some cases, sinking the initial holes makes the entire run worth it as you will earn a few coins even if you fail to finish the entire course. However, Golf Odyssey 2 provides huge sums of gold for clearing an entire course and even if your scores for each stage are not as impressive, you will appreciate every instance of it especially if the total earnings allow you to purchase the next upgrade.
Taking the slow approach towards clearing stages Is not just about raising your chances of clearing the entire course. Especially as a beginner, you will have to consider your initial sessions for every new stage as part of your practice. Your objectives should be aimed more towards mastery of the basic controls in terms of adjusting power levels behind each stroke and determining the optimum angle or degree of each shot to land the ball where you intend to.
Although you should be able to sink aces or score hole-in-ones fairly easily in some stages, some levels simply require more power to navigate the ball to the hole in just one stroke. This means that you will need to earn some coins and purchase several upgrades to do so and a max power shot on those stages will give you an idea of just how much more power you still need.
4. Power Isn’t Everything
While playing to earn coins ultimately leads to having more power behind your every shot, power isn’t all you need in Golf Odyssey 2. There are only a couple of stages that require you to have an upgraded golfer or more power to score a hole in one and you can always clear every level with just your base power given you have multiple strokes available.
While every new upgrade and the relative increase in power in Golf Odyssey 2 is a milestone and an enhancement for the golfer, it is important to keep in mind that reasons for not sinking a shot are largely a result of using too much power than lack of it. Likewise, if it is more of the latter, it is not because your golfer does not have enough power but rather because you simply utilized a lot less power than you should.
Despite Golf Odyssey 2 has simple control schemes and gameplay mechanics, getting yourself accustomed to controlling the power behind each of your shots takes a lot of time and practice. With different stages and shots requiring different angles as well, mastery is largely a product of how you control power and not as much as having more power.
5. Take Mental Note Of Every Stroke You Make
As a beginner, and even as an experienced golfer in the world of Golf Odyssey 2, following the above tips and strategies will help you better estimate the correct angle and the appropriate level of power needed behind each shot to improve your scores across the many different stages and courses. Even as a beginner, you may enjoy hole-in-ones relatively earlier in your adventure than in any other golf game you have or will ever play.
Becoming an ultimate pro golfer in Golf Odyssey 2 however, does not end with simply acing a hole or even a couple of holes in a single run. Being a pro means consistently being able to replicate shots you have made before and likewise consistently sinking aces throughout the same stages. While the recurrence of similar feats in playing golf in the real world or even across most golf video games is highly unlikely, you can generate a more consistent performance in Golf Odyssey 2 with some skillful mental calculations coupled with a bit of memorization.
A careful approach towards making each shot is not limited to simply taking as much time as you need before releasing the shot as we mentioned in our earlier tip. A careful approach should also mean taking note of how much power you have invested in the shot, how long you pulled away from the ball, and the exact angle you have before releasing the shot.
Golf Odyssey 2 makes it relatively easy as well for you to understand how you made a mistake based on the immediate results of every shot. For one, it could all just be an issue of using too much or too little power behind the shot. On the other hand, it could also be improved with a slight alteration of the shot’s angle. It could be a mix of both as well but often it is just one of the two.
As you move from one stage to the next, the change in scenery will naturally impact how you remember your setup in the previous hole and this is similarly expected to compound as you move further through the course, provided that you continue to clear holes in the course. This is where a good memory counts as you will need to keep tabs on what you did across every hole on your next play-through.
Repetition will surely help you remember how you were able to beat some stages. It may take a while to remember all that you did across every hole in a course but once you can secure aces consistently in some holes, then the subsequent play-throughs in those stages will become more a product of mechanical memory rather than mental recollections.
6. More Power Means Projection Adjustments
Every upgrade you purchase for your golfer in Golf Odyssey 2 increases his power by +2. Although this looks insubstantial, you can feel its significance if you are keen on how much it affects your shots using the exact amount of pull and angles you have used in prior runs. With earlier upgrades naturally having cheaper costs, you will easily be able to purchase more upgrades earlier and the result will necessitate tweaks in some of the shots you have previously mastered.
While the concept of having an upgraded golfer in Golf Odyssey 2 takes you a step closer to ultimately being able to ace every hole, it will also require you to make projection adjustments to some of the shots that netted you hole-in-ones earlier. An increase in power does not let you stretch the power line farther. Rather, an equal length of pull behind the same shot will now have slightly more power.
With holes in every stage being much wider than the conventional ones in other golf games, the level of precision required to sink the ball is not as stiff. This means that a minimal increase in power will not necessarily lead you to miss shots that would otherwise have been good before the upgrade. However, there are still instances where just a bit of extra power can spell the difference between sinking the ball and missing the chance to do so.
7. Take Advantage of Ad Options
The first 3 or 4 ranks and accompanying golf courses in Golf Odyssey 2 are what we consider the basic training grounds that beginners should conquer to get a taste of the more challenging courses the adventure has to offer. The maximum number of shots provided to you within these courses seems to make it relatively easy for you to clear them even with at least par ratings on each hole.
Surely enough, failing to clear the initial courses do not normally take a lot of time for you to get back to where you previously played. With fewer holes to clear in the early ranks, each run will only take a few minutes, even if you take as much time as you need. The rush of getting back into the game might initially make you ignore Golf Odyssey 2’s ad offerings but if you pause for a bit after failing to complete a hole, there are 2 ad options available for you to take advantage of.
Despite the presence of in-game ads, Golf Odyssey 2 hosts the type of ads that will not distract you while you are playing, and given that both options for ads follow an expressed participation on your part, you may come to a point in your journey when you would wish there were more of them. If you end a run by completing all holes throughout the golf course, then you will not even see ad options. Otherwise, you will be presented with information on which hole you are in at the current course and have the option to earn an extra ball or a second chance.
A second ball will give you an extra shot while a second chance will have you restart the current stage with all shots available. At first glance, the second choice would seem to be more appealing. However, different scenarios call for different choices here to optimize the extra help you are getting. If you have managed to get the ball close enough to the cup and are fairly confident you can sink it with the next shot, then the extra ball is the best option. On the other hand, if you are situated just close to or exactly where you teed off, then you might as well call for a restart and grab a second chance.
Within each run, you can only take advantage of both ad offerings once so be sure to utilize both of them wisely. Again, with earlier courses that only have 5 or fewer stages, you may be inclined to just ignore the ad options and simply go for another run. If you are on the latter courses that span across 9 holes or more, though, then you will more likely need to hit those ad options and watch a couple of 15 to 30-second video ads. This is recommended even if you feel that both ad boosts will not suffice for you to clear the course as you also need to spend some exposure and practice time in the latter stages.
In any case, keep in mind that you also do not need an internet connection to play and enjoy Golf Odyssey 2. You only need to turn your Wi-Fi or mobile data on your device if you are going on runs that may require peeking through those ad options.
Let us not forget that the whole idea behind Golf Odyssey 2, just like in any other game is to have fun, and whether or not you finish a stage, or sink aces continuously, you should still enjoy the challenges that every new course will offer you. If you are, however, aiming to ace every hole and master every course in Golf Odyssey 2, then we are certain that the tips and strategies we outlined above will be instrumental in helping you reach your goal.
And that wraps up our collection of tips and tricks for Golf Odyssey 2. Just in case you have discovered additional tips and tricks on top of what we provided in this article, be sure to share one or a couple with us in the comments!