Mario Tennis Aces (2018)

I picked this one up during the "Mario" eShop sale a few weeks ago. If you are familiar with the "Mario" sports series, you know what you are going to get with this one: easy to access sports games with over the top silly cartoon action. This is no exception, and the graphics in this game are beautiful.

There is an adventure mode, which is a combination of matches against other characters from the Mario universe, as well as challenges. The matches are fine and fun, but the challenges can be quite frustrating and make the game a slog at times.

Online is the most popular mode and it's more fun than single player.

This game feels unfinished but I give it 4 stars anyway because I find it so satisfying mechanically. It just feels good to engage in the back and forth tennis gameplay and special use. It has a rock-paper-scissor sort of quality coupled with the volley timing that provides both reflexive and psychological gameplay. I have heard it described as feeling akin to a fighting game, and I definitely can see where that perspective is coming from.

The biggest problem I see is how minimalist the menus and customization options are for custom play. Additionally, the story mode's difficulty spikes all over the place - some challenges and bosses are dead easy, while others I did upwards of twenty to thirty times before vanquishing them. Something about the game overall just feels like it could have used a bit more polish.

The Mario sports series of games is one where anyone can jump in and play. They're simplified, arcadey versions of their base sports and offer a fun and familiar atmosphere to play them in. If you don't know tennis, or golf, or soccer, or racing, the Mario sports games are the perfect entry point for you. Mario Tennis Aces is the latest in this long line of sports games and provided you have someone else to play with, preferbly on your couch, it is a safe and fun space for those that have never played played a minute of tennis before. If you don't have a friend to play with you though, things are less inviting.

Starting up Mario Tennis Aces will throw you directly in to the game's single player Adventure mode. Adventure mode is stage based story mode whose early areas operate as a very strong tutorial for the host of different mechanics that players have at their disposal.

The story is pretty standard Mario fare. Wario and Waluigi steal an ancient tennis racket that holds the spirit of an evil tennis god, Lucien. Luigi ends up getting cursed by the racket and Mario and Toad set out to rescue Luigi, having to track down five power stones throughout the game world. Progression is made by advancing on a Mario World type map where levels are either standard tennis matches, challenge levels, or boss fights. I say standard matches but nothing in Mario Tennis Aces is ever really standard as Mario and his enemies have a handful of tricks up their sleeves to spice things up. Everything from trick shots to on court obstacles, like piranha plants or a ship mast in the middle of the court, make each match different and often a bit luck based. While matches are easy to understand, outscore your opponent and win the match, challenge levels and boss fights offer something a little different up.

Challenge levels may require Mario to clear out a set number of enemies on stage by hitting balls at them, or they may require rallying with an opponent for a set number of hits, or even solving puzzles by hitting balls in a certain way at targets, and there are a couple other variations as well to keep things interesting. Clearing these levels often grants Mario a new tennis racket or access to a new area of the map. Then as if these levels weren't enough to convince you that you were playing a video game, there are bosses that need to be defeated. You won't just play matches against these bosses though, no they need to be defeated by hitting shots at them and draining their life bar with special zone shots or power shots. The boss fights are easily the most fun aspect of the Adventure mode and require you to really utilize all of the skills you've learned to take them out.

All of this may sound like a lot of fun and on the surface it is, the first time you play a level. It becomes much less fun as you repeat levels because you've gotten stuck, either because the game doesn't offer much direction for certain levels and figuring them out can be a bit of trial and error or, you just aren't powerful enough yet and need to grind Mario's skill level up to better compete. Failing a level is disheartening but failing one over and over is just ouright tedious. After each failure there is unskippable dialog and a kick back to the world map where you'll have to reselect the level, skip (or endure) the level intro dialog, wait for the level to load, and then finally get back in to try your luck again. The lack of an instant retry seems like a huge oversight and can be downright painful when you are trying to clear a train of Shyguys for the fifth or sixth time.

Still for all its problems, Adventure mode does provide a good tutorial for learining the special moves that Mario Tennis Aces has on offer. And you are going to need all of them if you plan on taking your act to the online multiplayer because it is not a friendly place for beginners and I blame that entirely on Nintendo. Matchmaking in Mario Tennis Aces works fine, if what you want is to just be matched up with someone to play. If you want to be matched against someone of similar skill, you won't get that here. I'm not going to lie, I haven't played a ton of online games, but almost all of them without fail have been against players that have put significantly more time in than I have. And by significantly, I mean their ranking points are in the thousands and I'm under 100. I even had a match against someone nearing 10k points and they were so good, I didn't even score a single point. That isn't fun. It is exactly the opposite of fun and it makes me not want to play much more online. It is absolutely possible that online Mario Tennis Aces just isn't for me but I've never had a sports game discourage me from wanting to keep trying at it as quickly as this one has.

Fortunately I can play friends or take my game offline and play the AI or on the couch with someone here. And this is where the game shines brightest. The core tennis gameplay of Mario Tennis Aces is solid and fun, being able to play against the AI or a friend is a blast. Few things are as fun as hitting a special power shot for a winner on a friend on your couch. Of course getting beat by one, or worse yet having your racket break by one, is less fun but turnabout is fair play. But similar to every other aspect of Mario Tennis Aces, even this has its drawbacks. Matches can only be set up to be either tiebreakers or a quick one set match. There is no option, or at least none that I've found, that allows for a match to be set to five sets with six games to a set. So, it's quick burst play or bust.

And then there is Swing Mode, which sees the Joycons being used as motion controlers. Tennis in Wii Sports was a blast, Swing Mode is not. It sucks. It feels clunky, which I'm assuiming is the exact opposite of what they intended here. If you are going to include a motion control mode for your tennis game, it best be at least as good as it was 12 yeas ago.

I can't help but feel that Mario Tennis Aces is a bundle of missed potential. The core of the game is great and there are a ton of really cool ideas at play here but they are bogged down by tedium and laziness. Because of this, it's hard for me to recommend to anyone unless you are planning on playing a ton with friends on your couch or are willing to bang your head against the wall of the online play until you get competitive.

Co-published on Critically Sane and Musings of a Grouch.