Mario Tennis Aces (2018)

These are my thoughts for the Adventure mode.

I honestly thought it was pretty disappointing. It felt like a series of tennis mini games rather than a cohesive tennis experience like the tennis RPGs that the handheld entries offered. And even when I actually come across a mission where I got to play a proper match of Tennis, I wasn't a big fan of the core tennis gameplay. The trick shots, star shots, slowing down time, and power shots all felt too gimmicky for my tastes.

I’ve been playing this on an off for about a month. Not sure if I’m ready to write a review for it yet, but I use it to primarily play in Swing Mode with the joycon since it gets me off my butt. This mode is actually kinda hard and inconsistent. I also exclusively play with Boo which probably makes it more difficult, but he’s the cutest character and I don’t want to play with anyone else.

I’ve been playing the computer on Expert (which is the second lowest difficulty setting) but it’s HARD. Mostly because my shots have been going all over the place. Is it user error? Perhaps. After many games of not winning I finally beat the computer. It was probably dumb luck but it feels good.

Having almost no experience with the Mario Tennis series, [I tried out the demo for Aces today][1]. I never really understood why this cartoony tennis simulator was so beloved. After playing it, I definitely get some of the appeal now; the game requires extremely fast timing and constant focus on the ball, as opposed to other tennis sims I've played where you simply have to keep a rhythm going. However, I still can't justify paying $60 for this; there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of content, and several design choices made gameplay feel awkward, such as the delay before executing a trick shot or the pre-serve taunting that prevents the player from moving if activated too late.

[1]: