Mario Tennis looks back to its glory with this fun - if a little fuzzy and fiddly - take on tennis.
For all the genteel imagery it evokes - crisp summer lawns, fresh
strawberries and Cliff Richard singalongs - tennis can be a remarkably
angry game. Kudos, then, to Mario Tennis Aces for getting you straight
to the pure vitriol that spills forth when a fiercely contested point
doesn't quite go your way, your racket breaking as an almost
impossible-to-block shot tears through it, granting an instant win to
your opponent. You cannot be serious.
Mario Tennis has never been overly serious, of course, but Aces
might be its sternest - and deepest - offering yet. When played at full
pelt, this is hardcore, an electric flurry of shots informed by
systems that have been lifted straight from fighting games. After the
flimsy Ultra Smash that was such a disappointment when it limped onto
the Wii U back in 2015, this feels like something of an about-face, as
well as an apology. Quite an effective one it is, too.
And so you have a full tournament mode, a succession of matches
across different difficulty tiers where you compete for a variety of
cups. So too is there an adventure mode, harking back to the
single-player RPG that made GBA entry Power Tour so cherished, and a
fine diversion it is too. Here you're taking Mario on a tour of an
island, tracking down five Power Stones in what's a nice excuse to face
off against five different bosses, those battles interspersed by several
challenges that allow you to level up your abilities. After the slim offerings of Ultra Smash there's a
variety of courts on offer here, unlocked through Adventure mode, and
they're splendid, folding in favourites like Mario 3's airship that come
complete with their own twists to help make them stand out.
It's frequently imaginative stuff, even if prone to some repetition
over its brief lifespan - the challenges offer slight tweaks on the
same foundations, while boss battles often recycle attack patterns.
Still, when it clicks it can be absolutely glorious, as you rattle shots
against a cursed mirror in a haunted mansion trying to defeat the
spirits within, or take down Petey Piranha in a heated exchange during
one of the early boss battles. The levelling system is quietly smart,
too, doling out a generous amount of XP even if you fail a challenge.
It's a neat way to smooth the difficulty curve, making you more powerful
the more that you play, and a good thing too, as Mario Tennis Aces can
provide quite the challenge.
It provides a rigid workout of the new systems that Camelot has
introduced to the fundamentals, too, so it's as good a place as any to
learn the ropes - and there really is a fair amount to learn. The basics
are all present and correct - you've topspin, slices, flat shots as
well as lobs and drop shots at your disposal - but it's beyond that
where Mario Tennis Aces comes alive. Or comes apart, if you find
yourself at the wrong end of some of its new mechanics. The character roster, unlocked entirely from the off, is
decent if not overly generous - and if you want to play as Birdo (who
doesn't?) you'll have to wait until the relevant DLC drop in September.
An indisputably great addition is that of the power meter, a gauge
that fills upon successfully charged return shots and one that injects
some of the same strategy of the fighting genre into the already fraught
game of tennis. That energy can be called upon to pull off zone shots,
allowing you to aim with pinpoint accuracy using the Switch's gyro
controls, or banked until the gauge is full whereupon you can pull off a
special shot, one that's so devastating that it can break a racket
instantly if the opposing player is unsuccessful in their attempts to
return it. To counter that, the opposing player has a couple of tricks
they can call upon, using some of that same energy to slow down time and
enable them to get to the ball in order to return it, or to perform a
trick shot that has their character dashing spectacularly across the
court. It's never a truly lost cause, no matter how desperate the
situation might seem.
At its best, it's a game of risk and reward, a toing and froing
between players as they manage their energy bars as well as the basics
of a decent rally, though there's the nagging feeling that not
everything is quite in balance. The timing to effectively block an
inbound special shot seems a little punitive, the punishment for
mistiming - an instant loss, if you're playing with the default ruleset -
more than a little excessive. All of which means playing Mario Tennis
Aces can often be an exercise in frustration, whether with others or
alone, and this is a family-friendly game that I'd never dare play with
my family for fear of turning the air blue. In Mario Tennis Aces, you're
never far away from shouting out in a fit of umpire-baiting rage: 'bullshit'. There's a Swing mode that allows for some motion
control-enabled antics, but it's a little imprecise. If you're waiting
for a proper Wii Sports alternative on the Switch, you'll have to wait a
little longer.
One player's bullshit is another's delight, though, and Mario
Tennis Aces' powered-up take on the sport does at the very least make
for some very feisty multiplayer, even if it's not without a few of its
own flaws. Local multiplayer works well enough, though I'm still not
entirely sold on the necessity of splitscreen when playing on a single
Switch when using one screen has served so many other tennis games in
the past well enough, while online play at present seems strangely
limited without any real flourishes beyond the basic ability to face off
against others. It's one of several strange omissions and oversights -
the lack of a restart option during challenges, for example, meaning you
have to skip your way through cutscenes before starting them over
again, or the way the forced perspective can sometimes hide your player
at the most inopportune moments - that all add up to give the impression
this isn't quite top-tier Nintendo.
But after the dismal Ultra Smash and the lacklustre compilation
that was Superstars, Mario Tennis Aces is a return to form for Camelot,
even if it's not quite the equal of this series at its very best. It's a
good game, if never quite a great one, and one that's still capable of
some real magic. This is Mario Tennis serving up a much more
full-blooded spin on the sport than we've seen in quite a while, even if
its new depths have been pursued to a fault.
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