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 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 PlayStation Portable 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.
Being an old MMO launched in 2004, most of the servers closed down already in The New '10s. The Brazilian server was the first one to close, early in 2007 because the game company who brought the rights to run it in the country was struggling with the costs of running it. In 2016 the major servers were closed, starting with the original Korean one in August. In the same month the SEA (or Pangya South East Asia) servers closed. In December 16th, 2016, Pangya's global version closed its doors. In 2017, the Japanese server which had a lot of exclusive content (including a new course) ended too. Starting 2018, the Thailand server is the only official server alive. But as with any popular MMO, die-hard fans have brought the game back with unofficial English-language private servers, the most notable one being Debug Pangya
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Pangya provides examples of:
- 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.
- Attractive Bent-Gender: Nell. Subverted in the American server since he is a “real girl” here.
- 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?
- Max fall into this category. He has a lot of power and control but has the worst spin and curve stats and both are crucial for taking shortcuts and for special shots.
- 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.
- BFS: The Blessed Mithril Swords (or whatever they're calling them now) club set.
- Bribing Your Way to Victory: While the game requires more of player skill to win the game, Purchasing equipment with real money will give a player a huge advantage.
- 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!
- The Cameo: The gallery mode for Super Swing Golf has a picture of Mio and Mayu Amakura.
- Catchphrase: 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 club set, her Catchphrase 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. This 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.
- The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: On the Wii version, it's kind of hard to get much anywhere in story mode when the third opponent you face keeps making improbable chip-in eagles to beat you.
- 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.
- Cool Sword: One club set consists entirely of swords. As for how the hell they make good golf clubs...don't worry about it.
- Crippling Overspecialization:
- Max has a lot of power and good control stats but has low spin and curve. While having a lot of power is nice, especially in long courses like Deep Inferno, you suffer a penalty in control and accuracy stats if you power stat is higher than 20.
- Uncle Bob has a lot of spin, which is very useful for chip-in opportunities. On the other hand, he has the lowest control stat. Meaning he is the hardest character to hit do perfect shots. And missing a Pangya in this game could result in a disaster.
- Cecilia has a lot of curve and her other stats are average. While this is good for Silvia Cannon, this stat is the most useless one by a huge margin, considering curve shots are only useful in a very few holes.
- Critical Failure: The non-Duostar versions of Lucky Pangya and Control Pills have a 30% chance of failure when used.
- Damn You, Muscle Memory!: Wind Hill, a harder version of Sepia Wind, practically thrives on this trope. Aside from winds that are not consistent throughout each hole and newly-added trees, the ball physics are tweaked on this course, which means the usual strategies for Sepia Wind, especially in regards to putting, will most likely screw you over on this course.
- 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.
- Difficult, but Awesome: Many shortcuts require shots that use special shots or precisely-aimed shots coupled with a Pangya and have harsh penalties for missing the shot. An example is hole 15 of Blue Lagoon and Blue Water; you can take a long way around but most likely get a par, take a shortcut onto an inner island to easily secure an eagle, or take a daring shot (most likely requiring a Tomahawk) over the water directly to the green, nailing an albatross or even a hole-in-one if you succeed and suffering an O.B. if you fail.
- Do Well, But Not Perfect: Approach Mode requires you to get your ball as close to the hole as possible without going in. If it does, you come in last place.
- Dressed to Plunder: The season 4 pirate cosplay outfits for every character.
- Dub Name Change:
- In the Brazilian server:
- Nuri to Nico.
- Hana to Ana.
- Kooh to Kátia.
- Uncle Bob to Fred.
- In the Brazilian server:
- 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: Or boy, according to Nell's 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, especially the PSP's.
- Fanservice: Everywhere, and to suit just about anyone's taste.
- Firing One-Handed: Max and Lucia's Super Pangya animation.
- 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 Fangirl 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.
- 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.
- Inconsistent Spelling: 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)
- Jiggle Physics: Arin, Lucia, Cecilia, and Cadie.
- Katanas Are Just Better: The driver for the Cursed Obsidian Blades club set 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.
- Level in Reverse: Blue Moon is a reversed version of Blue Lagoon in the night with more obstacles.
- 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 club set which is positively diabetes-inducing.
- Mascot: Papel and Dolfini.
- Master of None: Nuri and Hana, the starter characters. Both have average stats and even with good equipment, they are overshadowed by other characters.
- Menswear Ghetto: Sadly, the girls get most of the fashion choices. 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. - 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 higher levels, is the most important aspect of play.
- Palmtree Panic: The Lost Seaway course.
- 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.
- Rule of Cool: What can be said about a golf game featuring swords as clubs and clubs with rocket jets as well as courses that take place in icy biomes and on naval fleets?
- Samus Is a Girl: Nell is a gender-flipped version of this trope. He is actually a boy who dresses as a girl. The American server changed his gender to avoid problems.
- 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 arches, and enormous ring-shaped portals.
- School Uniforms are the New Black: There are uniform-based outfits for all of the girls.
- Shortcuts Make Long Delays: Many holes have shortcuts that can shave off one or two strokes, but require very careful shots and often a sufficiently long drive. Missing Pangya by so much as one pixel on these shortcuts will often result in an O.B. and ensure that you get a par at best as punishment.
- 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.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: Azer has absolutely no redeeming qualities in the PSP version, and spends every appearance annoying someone.
- Tsurime Eyes: Kaz and Kooh.
- Unsettling Gender-Reveal: Everyone thought Nell was a girl until his real gender was revealed.
- 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.
