PangYa

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PangYa is a Korean Animesque Massively Multiplayer online golf game with RPG elements, one of which is an RPG (in this case Rocket Propelled Golf ball). Presently, the major servers for the game are located in Korea, Japan, North America (USA), and Europe.

The game takes place on Pangya Island, a fantasy world which once came under the assault of the Dark Lord, who tried to drain the power of life out of the island/world through a magical barrier. There was one small hole in the barrier, through which the energy was being drained, and the island's sages discovered that a ball of magic directed into that hole could break the barrier. Unfortunately, the ball couldn't be handled directly after it was made - you could hit it with a stick, but every hit would weaken its power. Ultimately, a hero from the "real world" Earth succeeded at accomplishing this feat, and the Dark Lord was defeated.

The game played in honor of that struggle and victory is called Pangya, and players are invited from Earth as well, since that's where the hero came from.

Tecmo published a port of the game for the Nintendo Wii, which was titled Super Swing Golf for American release, and removed the "Massively Multiplayer" part from the game, making it a standalone game that anyone can play alone or in local multiplayer. Story modes are introduced and each character model got their own personalities. A sequel followed along similar lines. A PSP version also exists, published by Tomy as Pangya: Fantasy Golf. This version expands massively on the storyline, personalities and playable cast, making a number of the MMO/Wii caddies playable as golfers and adding a few original characters on top of that - at the cost of the newest MMO character and about a third of the courses.

Tropes used in PangYa include:

• Airplane Arms: Lola/Lolo runs like this when chasing the ball.
• Allegedly Free Game: You really don't have to spend money to play Pangya, but a lot of the best clothing and gear (and several caddies) can only be purchased with real money.
• Animesque: The character designs are all anime-inspired.
• Artificial Human: Nell, made by Cadie
• Awesome but Impractical: An overly high Power stat (precisely, anything greater than 20), which will cause your Control and Accuracy to drop. Okay, it's nice that you can hit 280 yards, but can you even shoot straight?
  • Of course in not-so recent updates, this was changed, as your rank gets higher, you can hit farther with less of a penalty, on top of that, a crimson ring will add 4 yards to your drive without penalty. 280 yards to a Legend Rank Player will only cost the player a small amount of control, and with the cards system allowing for even more control, this has become more of a case of Awesome but Practical
• Awesome By Analysis: There's actually a certain amount of this under Pangya, given the at times slightly mathematical leanings of its gameplay.
• Badass Adorable: Kooh, the pirate captain who hauls around a cannon and has an alternate entrance of her riding on a giant bomb. Possibly also Nell as he's the living heart of the demon king although we never see him doing anything particularly badass.
• BFS: The Blessed Mithril Swords (or whatever they're calling them now) clubset.
• Bishounen
• Boisterous Bruiser: AZER (or in A18/the PSP game, UNCLE BOB).
• Bottomless Pit: Many of the OB areas on West Wiz and Wiz Wiz.
• Call a Rabbit a Smeerp: On golf balls of all things. It's an aztec! No, comet! Orb! Phoenix!
• Catch Phrase: Kooh is very fond of the word "QUIET!". Okay, considering her voice, try saying that three times in sequence...
  • Since the introduction of the Miracle Voice clubs, her Catch Phrase seems to have become "AAARRR!!"
• Character Customization: Tons of outfits and accessories exist for every character, as well as alternate hairstyles and hair dyes. You can play twenty different players using Kooh in a row and never see two identical Koohs.
  • Although the closest you can get to customising the actual character is the one alternative hairstyle and a few hair dyes. It's (usually quite obviously) the same character underneath.
    • Actually, there are several alternate hairstyles available for a number of the characters, and this isn't even including the Afro Wigs. This, combined with an excess of accessories, and certain design similarities among some characters, frequently gives you pause as to just WHO your opponent is using.
• Charged Attack: The special shots, which require a bar of your combo meter and behave in ways golf swings were never meant to behave.
• Cherry Blossoms: The Pink Wind course is designed around this. So are the Cherry Blossom Comets.
• Convection, Schmonvection: Deep Inferno. Apparently, standing next to a pool of lava to hit the ball is not a problem for anyone.
• Cool Boat: The battleship Silvia and its accompanying fleet of subs, cruisers, and aircraft...all of which make up one of the most difficult courses in the game.
• Cute Shotaro Boy: Nuri, Nell.
• Critical Failure: The non-Duostar versions of Lucky Pangya and Control Pills have a 30% chance of failure when used.
• Decoy Protagonist: Scout in the PSP storyline may seem like this the moment the player realizes that the plot focuses and revolves around Kaz, beginning and ending with him.
• Dropped a Bridget On Him: Everyone thought Nell is just another loli, cue the reveal of Nell's real gender. Trap fans rejoiced.
• Dude Looks Like a Lady: Nell
• Dump Stat: Accuracy affects how badly things will go wrong if you don't hit Pangya. For better players, not hitting Pangya is rather less of an issue.
• Emotionless Girl: Boy in this case, Nell, according to his bio.
• Excuse Plot: The MMO's storyline establishes why humans from Earth are playing golf with natives of Pangya Island. The Wii and PSP versions dig deeper, with the PSP story going much, much further.
• Everything's Better with Penguins: One of the caddies is a penguin-ball-thing with a parasol. The two Ice courses have roaming penguins everywhere.
• Everythings Better With Pirates: Kooh. Also the Lost Seaway course, and the season 4 pirate cosplay outfits for every character.
• Fan Nickname: Quite a few players have taken to calling Wind Hill 'Wind Hell' because of the absolute randomness of the wind speed. The level has the highest wind speed in the game, making it one of the most difficult levels for experienced players.
• Fan Service: Everywhere, and to suit just about anyone's taste.
• Firing One-Handed: Max and Lucia's Super Pangya animation.
• Gainaxing: Arin and Lucia. ESPECIALLY Lucia.
• Game Mod: Lots of screenshots and videos with unofficial outfits appear across the Internet.
• Genius Ditz: In the PSP version; Arin. Top scorer in the magic academy and is a Max Fan Girl extraordinary and goes floozy when she's near him. There is at one point where she did keep her cool in front of him, but eventually does something floozy in the end.
• Glass Cannon: If your Power stat is too high, your Control and Accuracy stats will decrease, resulting in greater chances of inaccurate shots.
• Green Hill Zone: The Blue Lagoon, Pink Wind, and West Wiz courses.
• Holiday Mode: Holiday-themed items, contests, and events are a regular occurrence.
  • North Wiz / White Wiz is available all year round, though it's rarely played except during the holiday season.
• Idiot Hero: Scout (Nuri) in the PSP game's story mode. Literal on both parts.
• Idol Singer: Lucia.
• I Don't Know Mortal Kombat: Real-life golf skills are unlikely to help you with the rather unique physics of Pangya, to say nothing of the more fantastical elements such as specialty shots, the use of items to boost your skills temporarily, and so forth.
• Improbable Golf Clubs (User): In addition to the more normal-looking club sets, you have clubs with rockets, household tools, swords, microphones, tunas, scythes ... and anyone can equip them, as long as the player's level is high enough.
• Jiggle Physics: Arin, Lucia, Cecilia, and Cadie.
• Katanas Are Just Better: The driver for the Cursed Obsidian Blades clubset is a jet black katana.
• Lethal Lava Land: Deep Inferno, which has shades of Mordor (it's all the skulls and nasty decorations, y'see.) Comes with its own giant dragons.
• Little Miss Badass: Kooh, the eleven-year-old girl who's also a pirate captain.
• Magical Girl: Arin. Also, magical girl costumes exist for Hana and Kooh, and there is a magical girl clubset which is positively diabetes-inducing.
• Mascot: Papel and Dolfini.
• Menswear Ghetto: Sadly the girls get all the attention. Male characters get very rare clothing option updates.
• Non Indicative Difficulty: For most players, Silvia Cannon is That One Level. However, the wind-altering cannons have a quirk that makes the course easier: each only fires in one of three different directions. So if you know what directions each cannon fires, the wind is suddenly much more predictable and the course easier to play.
• Obvious Beta: Ntreev USA's extremely premature public release of the Season 4 client.
• One Stat to Rule Them All: Control affects how fast the power gauge moves - the slower it goes, the easier it is to hit Pangya - which, at high level, is the most important aspect of play.
• Panty Shot: Kooh and Lucia are the major offenders; Arin is also a frequent flasher. Also 2/3s of the time you hit a birdie with Nell ...
• Pirate Girl: Kooh
• Product Placement: Sunrise paid to have several costumes from Code Geass added as DLC, including the Ashford uniform, and Zero's R2 costume (minus cape).
• Rage Quit: Some players will quit on the first hole or two if they miss getting a hole-in-one or Albatross.
• Remilitarized Zone: Silvia Cannon and, to an extent, Ice Cannon. Although as the military forces are currently stood down, this is a Demilitarized Remilitarized Zone.
• Rie Kugimiya: Kooh's Japanese voice... Where can we hear that again?
• School Uniforms Are the New Black: There are uniform-based outfits for all of the girls.
• Serious Business: Golf is basically Pangya Island's chief industry (plus someone must have gone "Hey look! A bunch of spooky volcanos/mysterious desert/naval fleet stuck in ice! Let's build a golf course there!"), as well as lying at the heart of its backstory.
• ~She's A Man In Japan~: According to the current information (as of Thanksgiving), on the USA Pangya server, Nell is going to be a girl. Whether this is established or whether the GMs themselves are confused about Nell's gender is unknown at this time.
  • Nell is the only character that uses no gender pronouns in his bio on the main page. However his story page contains the female pronouns she and her and calls him a girl. This also agrees with his birthday event where the female pronoun 'her' birthday was used. However a girl in 'her' story comment there's something not right about her and Cadie refers to him as 'the kid' and when Nuri calls Nell a girl she laughs and says 'you need to see beyond the surface of things'.
  • His bio also says 'Nell has a secret that can't be shared'.
• Shifting Sand Land: The Shining Sands course. Comes with pyramids, obelisks, stone archs, and enormous ring-shaped portals.
• Slippy-Slidey Ice World: Ice Cannon (a frozen-over Silvia Cannon) and Ice Spa.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: Deep Inferno, for a course with lots of volcanoes and lava, has a pretty chill soundtrack.
• Spell My Name with an "S": The characters' names vary from Korea to Japan to the US - and within the US, you get some different names between Albatross 18 and the current Pangya. Examples:
  • Nuri (Pangya) -> Scout (Albatross 18 and console ports)
  • Hana -> Erika (Japan)
  • Azer -> Uncle Bob (as with Scout)
• Sports Game: It's golf.
• Token Mini-Moe: Kooh. Subverted for Nell, he's a trap!
  • Albeit only in Korea and Japan.
    • Or maybe not. It's not totally clear whether SG Interactive actually changed them to female, or simply made a mistake based on the fact that there's almost no indication of Nell's actual sex outside of Word of God.
• Tsurime Eyes: Kaz and Kooh.
• Victory Pose: Each character has a set of unique animations for each potential outcome of a hole (Hole In One/Albatross, Eagle, Birdie, Par, Bogey/Double/Triple/+4/Give Up).
• Wave Motion Gun: The main cannon of the battleship Silvia, which serves as a major gameplay obstacle on the course named, appropriately, Silvia Cannon. The sustained fire of the cannon causes the wind direction and strength to change, seriously affecting your shots.
• Wholesome Crossdresser: Nell