Mario Golf: World Tour has hit shelves in North America and Europe, and we’re certainly fans of the game as we awarded it 9/10 in our review. One of the title’s features, which has divided opinion among the Nintendo community, is Mario Golf’s DLC. Nintendo offering additional paid-for content isn’t a really new thing, with games such as Pikmin 3 and New Super Mario Bros. 2 giving players the option of extra levels and challenges in exchange for hard earned cash. However, making DLC available from a major title’s release date is always a hot topic.

When it was first revealed that Mario Golf: World Tour would have ‘day one DLC’ – a dirty term in most corners of the gaming world – the news, understandably, didn't go down too well with some Nintendo fans. With day one DLC being synonymous with locked on-disc content, many people assumed that the big N could potentially be charging for extra content that may already be locked in the retail code, and therefore should be included in the game for no additional cost.

In practical terms this doesn't seem to be the case as the currently available Mario Golf DLC packs are rather sizeable downloads – as opposed to locked on-disc content where the download is usually a tiny unlock file. The argument of whether they constitute value removed from the core content is, naturally, down to individual opinion.

The file sizes for the Mario Golf DLC, in Europe at least, can be seen below:

Three-Pack Set / Season Pass — 489 blocks

Mushroom Pack — 447 blocks

Free-Trial Course Pack — 138 blocks

Upon downloading the new pack — or season pass — the content then ‘transfers’ to the game itself, where the courses and characters become available in all modes; this includes fresh Challenges for the new courses, for example. It's unclear with the season pass whether additional courses and characters are actually 'locked' in that download to be released later in May and June, or whether another download in the 400 block range will follow each new set.

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Have you picked Mario Golf: World Tour yet? If so, will you be purchasing any of the additional packs available for it? Let us know in the comments section below.