Everybody’s Golf: Hot Shots

By Chris Mitchell • October 1, 2025

I’ve been a fan of the famed Hot Shots Golf franchise (titled Everybody’s Golf in Japan) ever since the first title was released on the original PlayStation back in 1997. It was a fun and adorable take on golf featuring a three-button shot mechanic that made playing easy to learn, yet hard to master, and allowed anyone to pick it up and have a good time.

Here we are nearly three decades (!) later with the latest entry, Everybody’s Golf: Hot Shots, the first title in the series to not feature Clap Hanz, developers of the previous entries. Newcomers and casual golf gamers may not mind (or even notice), but there are still a few glaring issues that could make this a swing and a miss for returning fans.

Available on PlayStation 5 (which I’m reviewing on), Nintendo Switch and PC, Everybody’s Golf: Hot Shots was touted to be the biggest and best entry yet, but I quickly discovered this wasn’t the case. For example, they talk about having 25 available playable characters, a series record, but you have to unlock them first. It wouldn’t be so bad if grinding to unlock them wasn’t such a chore and then some. I’m also not a fan on how one of the best features of this series, creating your own character, has been removed in this entry.

It doesn’t help that you only start with two characters at first, both of which are bare-bones and have a tendency to spout cringe-filled dialogue (one of them suffers from Chunibyo syndrome and constantly mentions one of his eyes having powers) that gets repeated over and over on every shot you take, which will grate on your nerves quickly since they only say six or seven different things.

As you play the game, you’ll slowly earn currency and points to unlock other characters, and if you continue to play with a character, you can build loyalty to unlock new trick shots for them, such as homing shots, different kinds of spin shots and more. You can also unlock other caddies that help you by offering tips for your shots, powering up their support skills, and other abilities each have.

There’s also different modes for you to play on and offline. Challenge Mode lets you join tournaments to unlock new characters and harder challenges to become the best. World Tour has you traveling to ten regions across the world to battle it out for the world’s best golfer, and Wacky Golf mode will be where most people get their fun from as this mode has all sorts of crazy rules, obstacles, and challenges to overcome, such as Survival Golf, Boom Golf with exploding golf balls, and more.

The game generally looks and sounds decent, although it feels like you’re playing something from the PlayStation 2 era as you’d think the graphics would be a bit more polished. I also noticed the AI for the CPU players is wacky, as they’ll play like a rookie one moment (especially if you use any CPU teammates) and then make Tiger Woods blush by landing a one-in-hole the next (*cough* your opponents).

Fans of the series will find themselves taking a swing and pulling in multiple bogeys with Everybody’s Golf: Hot Shots, though newcomers or those looking for a family friendly title for game night will get the most from this release. There’s enough fun to be had with the different modes, especially while playing online, but there’s so many slices holding this shot back from being a hole-in-one.