Pangya Review: Who Said Golf Was Boring?

Pangya Review: Who said Golf was boring?
By Vincent Haoson (Vincenthaoson), OnRPG Journalist

Whenever you hear the word "golf" pop-out in any conversation, the first thing that comes to mind is either the PGA tour or golf's famous personality, Tiger Woods. It never really actually crosses anyone's mind that Golf can be enjoyable or cute, even if they use their imagination.

Pangya has, in its own right, taken golf to a whole new level. It has successfully created a harmonious mix of the essence of golf and something that's cute and turned it into a game enjoyable to the general public.

Golf is an adventure!

Golf and cuteness combined

To give a brief explanation of what Pangya is, it's basically an online golf game that uses cute characters as its selling point. However, Pangya stays true to the "physics" of real life golf with the exception of a few special skills that could never happen in real life. I think it is suffice to say that Pangya no matter how childish the game looks, still delivers an authentic golf experience. Also, the cute element of the game adds a unique color to the sport and it turns Golf into a sport that's more down to earth than what it is usually perceived. 

Real life and fantasy Combined

One of the things I liked about Pangya is that the game goes beyond the usual Golf game and tries to play around the idea of scientifically possible moves that are humanly impossible to execute. This is seen through the game's character skills which utilizes the usual "physics" concept in golf in an exaggerated manner.

Having this type of skill system infused in Pangya provides players with a creative means to make your Pangya game more efficient and fun. Furthermore, the game doesn't go so far with the fantasy aspect that it turns the game into something unbelievable and illogical which would halve the game's fun factor.

Colorful world which invites you to a personal adventure

Audio

Silence is the priority of real life Golf. Whenever a player goes for a shot it is a requirement for the audience to be silent. The reason behind it is that the golfer needs his total attention and concentration on his shot. If you are quite a golf fan, you would know that the silence before the shot is the most critical moment, however if you are the casual observer, you would find the interplay of silence and walking as somewhat boring.

So in this context it should be quite expected that Pangya, which does follow a semblance to real life Golf would have to follow suit. However, if it did, this would practically bore players to death. The game got around this problem by providing background music that is not too attention getting and is light enough to keep you upbeat and interested in playing.

Characters

If I were to choose something that the game lacks, it would be that the game is not open to creating your own character. This is understandable because if the game needs to keep the game balance players should be limited to a set of characters that have specific strengths and weaknesses.

Equip fashionable items which provide you with stats

However, the game already works well without the addition of any customization to your character model. Each character has their own set of reasons for being there, though the majority of the back stories for the characters are either too cliché or they are too simple for any character development. This isn't really important because you'd be concentrating on the game itself rather than the characters, which suits the game just fine. And with the vast amount of items to obtain, as well as the designing events that are run by Pangya, there's an endless option for changing your character's looks.

Game Stages

The holes you play in Pangya are another example of the game's capability of mixing fantasy into the whole golfing mix. The different courses, this is what you call the areas where you play Golf, provide you with enough challenges that it would take you a lot of games to say that you are quite familiar with it. The different courses in Pangya make it a point that you are not only trying to beat your opponent but also beat the stage itself. The holes have a lot of elements put into the mix that pushes you to be creative in trying to get through the course in as few shots as possible. Pangya has wonderfully stacked the stages different themes that vary in difficulty. This gives the game order in terms of the courses and that it gives players the goal to try and finish this whole set.

The other thing that makes the stages in Pangya fun is the random elements that give each stage something of a surprise hurdle for players. Though of course the random elements are tied to the courses overall theme which makes these elements somewhat predictable to an extent, you shouldn't overlook these elements because they can really hurt your strokes if you don't watch out for them.

Express yourself in the various ingame tournaments

Tourneys and things to look forward to

True to its roots, Pangya is open for golf tournaments which are similar to real life Golf tournaments. Tournaments serve as the game's primary competitive draw due to its rewards and of course earning the right to brag and a possible rank upgrade to boot.

Taking part in tournaments is no simple matter though, you can be whisked away into tournaments that take about 20 holes to finish, which eats up a lot of your time. The tournaments serve as your "grinding" area in Pangya because normal rooms can't just really cut it in terms of rewards and points.

The tournaments bring Pangya's gaming experience into a whole new level because of the competitiveness involved. What was once a cute-golf game turns into a stroke match where it doesn't matter how cute the holes look, it's how fast and how efficient you finish the course that counts.

In the previous seasons of Pangya, the tourney was where it was at, however, season 4, which is the game's latest updated ushered in a lot of things you can look forward to as you play.

There are a lot of game upgrades such as new characters, new game systems such as card skills and treasure hunting, there's also a new character in the game roster and the rewards are better for the stages. The game difficulty has also been increased and you can record your game as you play.

Conclusion

For all its worth Pangya is a game that has truly made Golf into something interesting and fun for gamers. Plus with the introduction season 4 the game has become more interesting and there are more reasons for you to keep on playing.

Pros:
- Harmonious mix of real-life physics and Fantasy
- It has successfully made Golf into something interesting
- Provides an authentic Golf experience minus the boring interludes

Cons:
- The game's bgm becomes repetitive if you play for a while
- Tournaments really take a long time to finish
- Lack of customization may be problematic for players