Before
Kirby's Dream Course had
Kirby in a starring role, it was this game.
Special Tee Golf was developed by
Nintendo for the
Super NES in 1994 to be a unique mixture of
miniature golf and
pool and starred a little round red ball with big eyes. The object was to maneuver the ball into the hole around hazards such as a glass
cone that knocks the ball to amazing heights, a singing
flower that blocks the ball's path, or a blue
blobby thing that eats the ball and costs the player one stroke. Finishing a set of eight courses under
par unlocks the next set of courses. There are a total of eight courses and two players can also compete on
Stroke or
Match play.
The game plays nearly the same as Kirby's Dream Course which makes sense since the latter game developed from the former. It uses the same core gameplay engine as KDC and requires the player to line up the shot and double-press the B button as a power meter marks off the energy level of the impending shot. However, unlike Kirby and his power-ups obtained from enemies, the red ball can crash into gold statues shaped like an Academy Award to gain a Power Shot ability, which doubles the size of the power meter for the next shot.
So why have you probably not played this game before? When this game was deemed not up to the Nintendo standard, it was sent back for redevelopment (to eventually become Kirby's Dream Course). In fact, you may have seen a few screenshots of the game in an old issue of Nintendo Power before it was sent away for retooling. It was eventually released in Japan on the Satellaview add-on which allowed subscription customers to download new games to their Super Famicoms for a limited time. Seeing as how it's not available on a cartridge (at least commercially; there's bound to be a few demo carts floating around out there somewhere) you're best bet at sampling this game is to track down the ROM online and use an emulator. Be sure to find a working version, as some versions you may find online are incomplete and only have the first course available for play. However, if you're like me and couldn't get enough of Kirby's Dream Course then your hunt is well worth it.