Everybody's Golf: Hot Shots

Written by Joseph Moorer on 9/12/2025 for PS5  

For those of you out there keeping score, yes, this is my second golf game review of the year! I don't know too many people who didn't play Hot Shots Golf for the PlayStation 1. Hot Shots has always been the blurred line between simulation golf and arcade-like golf. There are a lot of golf games out there, but the appeal of Hot Shots golf always had its own lane. It's been a while since we've seen an entry in the series, and Bandai-Namco is changing that with its latest iteration of the game. The long-titled Everybody's Golf: Hot Shots is out now, and there's a lot to do here. Even though some of us just want to whack balls onto a fairway, you're going to need a bigger set of clubs to navigate through this game. 

There's a history lesson here, and I have to reference Wikipedia for the dates and information, so take it with a tablespoon of salt. Hot Shots Golf was the first entry for the PS1 in 1997. I played the ever-living heck out of Hot Shots Golf, but I don't remember playing any of the sequels. I don't even remember it switching over to being called Everybody's Golf, though the same Wikipedia page now lists them all under that moniker.

Everybody's Golf had two entries on the PS1, two on the PS2, two on the PSP, two on the PS3, one on the Vita, and one on the PS4. It looks like Everybody's Golf had that name overseas, and it was called Hot Shots in North America. All the games, no matter what they were called, had unlockable characters, different courses, and the three-click swing system. All that is here, and this is the newest console entry since 2017. There are spinoffs like Tennis, and a VR version as well. 

Camelot, Clap Hanz, Japan Studio, and even Sony themselves have had a hand in the previous games. Camelot is also responsible for some of the sports games on Nintendo Systems, such as Mario Golf, and Mario Tennis. Fast forward to 2025, and now we have the newest entry, for PS5, Steam, and Nintendo Switch 2. This is the first entry that has gone multi-platform, and the first one by Bandai Namco. This is not a concern, however, because if anyone can duplicate the zany magic that Camelot used to, it is definitely Bandai Namco. Please note that I am playing the PS5 version, so the following may vary.

The presentation is similar to previous titles. This is not a game where you will be ranting and raving about the frame rate or graphical fidelity. It's Hot Shots Golf. At the start of your character's animated intro, you place your ball on the tee manually. I don't know why there's an option to watch this happen via another animation, versus the button you just press and the ball is placed where you need it to be.

Once you have that done, the default camera angle is a very odd one. There is an indicator to show you where the ball will go, but it doesn't seem straight on. There are five camera angles to choose from, and I'll tell you what I did. I switched to camera angle two and made it permanent in the options. All was well in the world. Once you get that done, it's off to the fairway, kind of. 

While you're waiting to swing, you can check how hard the wind is blowing, see your conditions, and check where the ball can go. Again, there are new roaming camera buttons, and I'll tell you what I did. I went back into my options and set the controls to classic. Now, with the triangle button, I can chase my projected shot all the way to the green.

This also sets the three-click system to the circle button, and the feeling of familiarity came back instantly. All of the muscle memory came back. Holding down on my swing gives it backspin, while holding up on my swing gives the ball a little bit of forward motion. You also have a power shot from the beginning, and later get a special shot, depending on the character. Putting on the green eventually became a breeze. The grid is very efficient, and I was sinking putts left and right after a few near misses. Again, these are in the beginning stages. 

Everybody's Golf: Hot Shots is loaded with ways to play. The singleplayer experience alone has six different ways. Challenge mode will give you the most straightforward singleplayer experience. You pick a challenge and just do that challenge. It could be your standard 9 or 18 holes of golf. It also could be VS an opponent in match play. The challenges start off in a beginner's tier and start you off with eight of them. There are official and unofficial challenges. The official challenges get you where you need to be, while the unofficial challenges will net you more goodies. This is also how you see the different courses available.

There are tips that pop up that tell you if you find normal mode too easy, you can change the difficulty to hard mode, and if you find it too difficult, switch to easy mode. I'll tell you what I did. I just went through and played as many as I could to fill my VS meter, and once that was done, I took on the character to help unlock them in the world tour mode. More on that later. 

The World Tour mode has you playing the story mode of each character you have unlocked. These chapters are six to seven chapters long and will differ in scenarios. There are two ways to navigate through, and that is slow and fast. Slow will take you through the dialogue of the characters with back story, and fast mode will get you straight to the action. Most of the time, once you complete the first chapter, you unlock the character in all modes. There are 25+ characters to unlock. Right now, I'm at seven. Let's move on. 

Stroke play and match play are more modes that you can play the CPU in. Match play can be won if you go three up, and is the quickest way to defeat your opponent, while stroke play is your typical golf game. The more under par the better. I will admit that I didn't touch these at all, as I had my fill of both modes in the challenge and world tour modes. 

Wacky Golf is some of the most fun I've ever had in a golf game. There are four modes. Scramble mode is two players at a time, per shot. You could get a good, nice shot, and your CPU partner could finish the hole for you, if you're lucky. Survival golf has you stealing each other clubs, making it a little more difficult for you to hit long drives, or approaches. Boom Golf will send your ball soaring after an explosion, every time you land on the fairway. You are safe if you hit the green.

The absolute wildest is Colorful Mode. Colorful Mode gives you something different every time your ball lands. It starts you off with tickets, that you can use on yourself, or your opponent. These include hiding your shot bar, or disabling your clubs, and even giving you a 50% boost on shots. You can get a hole in one on a par five with this power up. You can hold as many as five at a time. Once you get a sixth, you either have to use it, or discard it. As you land on the fairway, you can receive more tickets, and even land on a question mark. The question mark will start a spinning wheel, and add more nonsense to the play, such as tornado cups, which suck the ball in at a closer radius. Sometimes, things just happen, like the weather will change. There are more of these variables in wacky golf, but I suggest you find out for yourself. This is definitely the most fun mode. 

There is also a solo mode, which lets you go through any unlocked course, with any unlocked player. You can also win and unlock clubs, golf balls, outfits, color palettes, caddies, and food. This to inform you that all unlockable items and characters seem to come at random. When I thought I had a system by just doing the official challenges in tournament mode, I also had to go through world tour mode to unlock other things. Sometimes Tournament mode would unlock the story mode for a character, and then I had to unlock the character in all modes by playing through the story mode. Others saw me playing through the world tour modes and unlocking characters there, too. There are 25 characters in all, and you'll run into some of them playing world tour. The unlocks don't stop there. 

There is a shop, and all your other unlockable items go there. If you complete a mode, you may get access to a ball that has big air or makes a sound when you hit it. You cannot use this, however, until you unlock it in the shop. Once you unlock it in the shop, you have to equip it to the character you're using. Your character also has to meet certain level requirements to get the better items, so even if you unlock the character, and the item with the character, you still may not be able to use the item. Same thing with the caddies. I have two out of the six I've seen so far, but nowhere in the game does it tell me how to unlock the caddies. They also have unlockable sticker slots. 

Sticker slots, which also have to be unlocked, allow you to add stickers to your caddy. Once you apply the stickers to the caddy, the caddy randomly powers you up depending on the sticker you applied. The sticker slots also need to be unlocked, and that comes with your caddie trust level. The more you use a caddy, the more they level up. The more they level up, the more sticker slots they can use. The more stickers you unlock and go buy at the shop, the more the caddies can use. All of the caddies can use all of the stickers, and no one is better than any other. I don't understand why this is here. I'll tell you what I did. My first caddy is at a trust level 16, but as soon as I got my second caddy, I just stuck with them. If this all sounds complicated, it is, and this bogs down the game. 

So, to recap singleplayer mode, you pick a golfer between the two you have when you start the game. You pick the one caddy that you have, and you go. When you unlock more golfers, you'll want to switch to them too, so you can level them up. The caddy you're stuck with will also level up, until you get the second one.

As you're leveling up, you're rewarded with in game currency, and items. Use those items to get through the matches quicker.  Eventually, you will want an advantage, as every golfer comes with five attributes. Power, Control, Impact, Spin, and Sidespin. I'll tell you what I did. I found one character, Jasmine, and just gave her the best clubs, and the best golf balls. I also fed her lots of food. That's right. You have to feed your golfer food, too! 

Food is also unlocked and rewarded after most of the singleplayer modes. These raise your attributes. I didn't care what the food was, more so how can I make Jasmine the best golfer in the world. The game lets you do this, but then it eventually tells you, with no known threshold, that the character is maxed out in that attribute, even though the attribute meter isn't full. A warning pops up and says, "You cannot increase a stat above its maximum limit." What does this even mean? I'm stuck with seven characters. I want to make them into golf gods. Instead, it locks you out of using certain foods and tells you that you get nothing! It's my money, and I want to spend it on hamburgers, and pumpkin pie. Then I'll go get some golf clubs that make gong sounds, and are good during the day, at my own leisure. And yes, this—all of this—is a thing. It's a lot. 

In couch multiplayer, Stroke, Match and Survival, and Wacky golf are all included. You can only use the courses you unlocked. This is also the case in multiplayer online. You can create a room, find a room, or have a quick match. You select your golfer and caddie, and all six of the other things before you play, so be aware of that. The room creator can be an unlocked room for anyone to join, or a locked down room, with up to a 16-digit generated pass key. Once you're in the room, you can invite up to four people. In world tournament, you can compete with other people's scores online and be rewarded based on where you rank. These tournaments, again, start at random. At the time of writing, the next one starts at 7:59EST on September 30. So yeah.

The main menu tops out with golf lessons, including the tutorial, the massive shop, and a data mode. The data mode shows you all your stats, from player info, to characters uses. It also shows you how many characters you have yet to unlock, by rubbing it in your face. A putt success rate is tucked in there, as well as all the tips you've unlocked, and a library of some of your greatest shots. There's not a real way to record these, as they just happen at random. I have two eagles and three birdies that I don't think are rewatchable, even though the game does. You can delete them.

If I could give some gameplay advice. When you're in challenge mode, or world tour mode, or practically any mode VS the CPU, you can skip every single one of their shots. You can do this to your own shots, too. There will be some frustrating parts, like being in a scramble with a CPU player and not being able to take control of them. That means winning is now in their hands, and there's nothing you can do about it. I yelled at the screen on several occasions watching my "partner" miss a birdie on a par four, three yards away from the cup. Also, sometimes your computer opponent will just go haywire, and hit a ball out of bounds for no reason. They will even hit it backwards, and the next thing you know, they're putting for a +6. And this is on all difficulties. 

Here's some more advice. The characters talk a lot. The banter between them and the caddy sometimes even overlap, and then those overlap with the crowd noises. I groaned every time Mizuki quips, "I must...resist...the dragon...dormant...in my left hand!" I'll tell you what I did. I turned those voices down in the options.

The music is very good, and I found myself soothed by it for some reason. I especially love the music change when an important putt came up. There's also an HDR, VRR and 120HZ monitor mode, which I left all off. If there's one thing that's inconsistent about this game, it's the frame rate. Sometimes it's a targeted 60FPS. Sometimes, I'm hitting it out of bounds because it's slowed to 30 for no reason at all. And before you say it, none of those options made a bit of difference. It's Hot Shots. 

All this to say, I haven't stopped playing it. It's nice to look at, too. The hit sparks and the sound effects are good. You can even play night golf. It's a definite reminder that golf games that don't take themselves seriously are always a good thing. The characters may be too zany for me, but that's ok. There are two other shot gauges that I touched once and I'll never touch again.  Also, don't worry about godlike builds online. There are options where you can change the rules, the weather, and even turn fair play on for the characters, letting you play skill only. Hot Shots is back. And hey, I'll probably unlock Pac-Man in 2026, but at least it's not trapped behind DLC and micro transactions.