Players can test their backhand in this unique role-playing tennis adventure. Train hard at the Royal Tennis Academy to be a champion. Gain experience and improve your skills through lessons and tournaments, and rise to the top of the ranks. Play as Mario, Peach, Waluigi, or Donkey Kong in a slew of wild modes. Advance through the story and unlock even more characters, all with their own power moves. Beat Mario at his own game, then link up with a friend or three for even more frantic fun.
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One of the most underrated games I've played. JRPG elements in a tennis GBA game. Good pacing and lots of fun all around
It's tennis, and Mario is there!
Mario Tennis: Power Tour is a tennis game for the Game Boy Advance where you can take control of the characters of Mario's world to see who's the best at smacking balls with a racket. However, this isn't the only draw of this game. This game features a full campaign for players to enjoy. The campaign is very simple in structure: you're the new kid at the tennis academy. You play singles or doubles matches to ascend through the ranks until you are eligible for the big tournament. This is where I spent my time playing this game, and as such, it will be the focus of this review. I also played it in doubles matches, so I will be speaking about matches from the way those are set up.
As you play matches in the campaign, you gain experience points that level you and your partner up. Levelling up allows you to increase your stats, such as "Power" and "Speed". However, there will be instances where increasing one stat will decrease others. From there, you must decide if you want to have a jack-of-all-trades who never masters a skill, or you can opt for a more min/max style, focusing on beefing up specific stats to become a powerhouse in a specific set of fields. This is a neat concept, as this gets you thinking more about how you approach playing the game.
However, the more I played this game, the more I found that stats don't really matter too much. After completing some trainings and doing some research on what button combinations allow for what moves to use, I quickly found easy ways to shut down every enemy team, even during the final matches of the campaign.
If I wasn't sliding over to the edge of the court to get an easy ace serve (which is dangerously consistent against the computer), I was employing a simple, yet concerningly effective strategy that the computer almost never had an answer to (at least in doubles). Here's what you do: If the ball is coming towards you, do a lobbing shot (A, then B) towards the opponent closest to the net. The ball will almost always soar over their head, and you will then watch them and their partner struggle to try to get to the ball. This works so consistently that it makes me wonder if this is here just so less-experienced players could see the end of the campaign easily, or if they really just didn't playtest this enough. Either way, it became a very effective strategy I had no problems employing, even if it was a little sad to watch the game fall apart in my hands because of it.
Thankfully, your partner is nowhere near as bad as the opponents at tennis. In fact, they're pretty competent! They're good at keeping up volleys and are very capable of scoring points on their own. Now, that doesn't mean you should fully rely on them, as they will occasionally miss shots, but they definitely do pull their weight, especially when it comes to how well they use Power Shots.
By completing specific trainings in the training area of the academy, which take the form of small minigames, you'll unlock Power Shots. These come in two flavors: offensive and defensive. Offensive power shots are what you could assume they are: powerful shots that sent the ball flying across the court, stunning any opponent who tries to hit them back. Defensive power shots allow you to safely get to a ball that's out of reach, keeping the volley going to prevent the opponent from scoring. As you get deeper into the game, you'll be relying on these shots very regularly, especially as opponents begin using them on you!
Speaking of opponents and other people, there's no shortage of NPC's in this game, all offering tips and flavor text to make the world feel alive. Some of them have some outlandish things to say, though. At one point, for example, you meet a doctor character who asks you if you need a checkup. If you say no, he says, "You shouldn't take any drugs before a match. People might think you're doping." That line knocked me out, as I was not expecting that from a Nintendo game! There are also some interesting dialogue exchanges that happen after you beat the main tournament, but as simple as this game is, I really don't feel comfortable spoiling what happens. Either look up what happens yourself or play the game to find out!
The campaign itself is super short, with it taking me around 5-6 hours, which included doing some optional content. As you play it you'll unlock more characters to use in free matches, which can be neat but unless you have a friend to play against you'll probably get your fill from the main campaign.
Overall, I didn't hate this game, but it didn't really "wow" me, either. It's okay, not bad by any means. I would honestly recommend it for anyone who wants a decent tennis experience with some twists on the go. Just don't go into this expecting some revolutionary RPG that makes you wish more sports games were brave enough to do this instead of being weird casinos with athletes in them, though you might do that anyway since the state of modern sports games is very odd as of writing this.
Um, check this game out if you want to, I guess?
Mario Tennis: Power Tour is a tennis game for the Game Boy Advance where you can take control of the characters of Mario's world to see who's the best at smacking balls with a racket. However, this isn't the only draw of this game. This game features a full campaign for players to enjoy. The campaign is very simple in structure: you're the new kid at the tennis academy. You play singles or doubles matches to ascend through the ranks until you are eligible for the big tournament. This is where I spent my time playing this game, and as such, it will be the focus of this review. I also played it in doubles matches, so I will be speaking about matches from the way those are set up.
As you play matches in the campaign, you gain experience points that level you and your partner up. Levelling up allows you to increase your stats, such as "Power" and "Speed". However, there will be instances where increasing one stat will decrease others. From there, you must decide if you want to have a jack-of-all-trades who never masters a skill, or you can opt for a more min/max style, focusing on beefing up specific stats to become a powerhouse in a specific set of fields. This is a neat concept, as this gets you thinking more about how you approach playing the game.
However, the more I played this game, the more I found that stats don't really matter too much. After completing some trainings and doing some research on what button combinations allow for what moves to use, I quickly found easy ways to shut down every enemy team, even during the final matches of the campaign.
If I wasn't sliding over to the edge of the court to get an easy ace serve (which is dangerously consistent against the computer), I was employing a simple, yet concerningly effective strategy that the computer almost never had an answer to (at least in doubles). Here's what you do: If the ball is coming towards you, do a lobbing shot (A, then B) towards the opponent closest to the net. The ball will almost always soar over their head, and you will then watch them and their partner struggle to try to get to the ball. This works so consistently that it makes me wonder if this is here just so less-experienced players could see the end of the campaign easily, or if they really just didn't playtest this enough. Either way, it became a very effective strategy I had no problems employing, even if it was a little sad to watch the game fall apart in my hands because of it.
Thankfully, your partner is nowhere near as bad as the opponents at tennis. In fact, they're pretty competent! They're good at keeping up volleys and are very capable of scoring points on their own. Now, that doesn't mean you should fully rely on them, as they will occasionally miss shots, but they definitely do pull their weight, especially when it comes to how well they use Power Shots.
By completing specific trainings in the training area of the academy, which take the form of small minigames, you'll unlock Power Shots. These come in two flavors: offensive and defensive. Offensive power shots are what you could assume they are: powerful shots that sent the ball flying across the court, stunning any opponent who tries to hit them back. Defensive power shots allow you to safely get to a ball that's out of reach, keeping the volley going to prevent the opponent from scoring. As you get deeper into the game, you'll be relying on these shots very regularly, especially as opponents begin using them on you!
Speaking of opponents and other people, there's no shortage of NPC's in this game, all offering tips and flavor text to make the world feel alive. Some of them have some outlandish things to say, though. At one point, for example, you meet a doctor character who asks you if you need a checkup. If you say no, he says, "You shouldn't take any drugs before a match. People might think you're doping." That line knocked me out, as I was not expecting that from a Nintendo game! There are also some interesting dialogue exchanges that happen after you beat the main tournament, but as simple as this game is, I really don't feel comfortable spoiling what happens. Either look up what happens yourself or play the game to find out!
The campaign itself is super short, with it taking me around 5-6 hours, which included doing some optional content. As you play it you'll unlock more characters to use in free matches, which can be neat but unless you have a friend to play against you'll probably get your fill from the main campaign.
Overall, I didn't hate this game, but it didn't really "wow" me, either. It's okay, not bad by any means. I would honestly recommend it for anyone who wants a decent tennis experience with some twists on the go. Just don't go into this expecting some revolutionary RPG that makes you wish more sports games were brave enough to do this instead of being weird casinos with athletes in them, though you might do that anyway since the state of modern sports games is very odd as of writing this.
Um, check this game out if you want to, I guess?
Lo he jugado múltiples veces y me encanta tanto cómo el juego se esfuerza por "tener historia y progreso", cuando vi a Mario por primera vez en el postcrédito me encantó, los minijuegos sin duda son buenísimos como lo son los poderes.
I don't understand why Mario is the MC in this game. He never shows up except for a few minutes (where you play against him). He's not the focus of this game at all and you don't use him, as a character, in the story
Cool tennis game but that's basically it. You have some power ups you can use to beat opponents easier.
Cool tennis game but that's basically it. You have some power ups you can use to beat opponents easier.
GBA JRPG tennis game with Mario characters also in it. What an unusual game, and yet it’s good.
i played it on an emulator because i do not own a gba, but this is the best tennis game ive ever played and its shocking that they never just went the full rpg route for mainline games because its sooo good