"Cursed to Golf" is a golf based roguelike where you try to escape hell by beating all 18 holes.
This via various "illegal" moves.


Horrible - Bad - Decent - Good - Amazing

Almost every achievement is story related - exceptions being a hole in 4 to a hole in 1.
The latter ones aren't too difficult, just requiring some game knowledge and map rng.

Pros

• Good card variety
  
• Fun characters
  
• Good graphics and music

Cons

• Extremely long for a roguelike (runs take 2-5 hours)
  
• Bad balancing
  
• Painful amount of bugs

I enjoyed this game a good bit, but that's not to say it's perfect.
The inherent gameplay loop is a bit repetitive as you need to go through 4 areas (some with very long holes) and fight the same 3 bosses over until you beat the game, after which they will not be there anymore.
The card variety is good, but that tends to make it fairly rng dependent on whether or not a boss will be easy to beat. I also didn't see the phantom ball at any point, which is kind of disappointing.

The legendary cards are inherently OP (as to be expected), which can make some holes trivial. The portal card for example lets you skip an entire section of the last hole, kind of defeating the point of a difficult path.
Pins are a fun addition, but come with the same liability towards difficulty. (Mini rocket toggle let me skip 80% of the last course for some reason.) Considering how cheap those are, and how they're both infinite use, and up to 3 different kinds, that basically renders the game difficulty to be a joke if you get good store luck.

Playing courses normally you'll constantly find yourself hitting the par count (failstate), which makes it fairly tedious as you'll have to constantly aim for idols, or spam par count cards. With a boss power up this count also becomes near irrelevant, kind of ruining the point of a difficult game... - To add to that, you can exit to menu to restart a hole at any time, which makes it feel even less like a roguelike and more like a puzzle game.

My final real gripe is that this game is extremely buggy. I'm talking 5 or so freezes, a few loading errors, and multiple crashes. This can be especially frustrating when you're almost done with a hole and the game decides to crash on you (which resets you to the last hole). These feel like things that should've been fixed years ago but haven't yet...

Bad stuff out of the way:
This game booms with charm and swagger and has a pretty amusing story to carry its weight. Every enemy golfer felt distinctly different and had their own cool design. The boss fights were also one of the more interesting parts as their inherent mechanics added a lot of otherwise missed challenge.

The road choice system is fun as you can usually choose between a cursed or normal hole (cursed ones giving better rewards), as well as cash or card rewards.

The hole and sound design are also really good (give or take tnt destroying your eardrums once in a while...), and definitely add a lot of the visual charm that this game radiates.


Not really a roguelike; charming even with its flaws.

If you're looking for a sports roguelike? Absolutely not.
If you're looking for a charming game, and you're fine with the downsides? Sure.

Golf? Love it. Roguelikes? Big fan. So, naturally, *Cursed to Golf* should’ve been a hole-in-one for me. But for some reason, I just can’t get into it. It works great on my Steam Deck, the story is cool, and the levels are visually interesting. But the gameplay mechanics? They’re more frustrating than fun.

• Cool story concept: A unique twist on golf with a supernatural flair.
  
• Visually neat levels: The course designs are creative and fun to look at.
  
• Runs great on Steam Deck: No performance issues, smooth gameplay on the go.

• Gameplay mechanics can feel annoying: What should be a fun mix of golf and roguelike ends up feeling more tedious than engaging.
  
• Not enough variety or excitement: Despite its unique premise, the game doesn’t quite deliver the depth or enjoyment expected.

*Cursed to Golf* has an interesting concept and a lot of potential, but it just didn’t click for me. While it runs well and looks cool, the mechanics are more frustrating than fun, making it hard to stick with even one round. If you’re a fan of the genre, it might be worth a try, but for me, it’s a miss.