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Mario Tennis Aces Review


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473618887_MarioTennisAcesboxart.png.78a17302eb01954b5b13052d7240a851.pngIt wouldn't be a Nintendo system with a Mario sports title, now would it? Mario Tennis Aces leads the sports spin-offs on the Switch with all of our Mushroom Kingdom favorites taking to the court for a friendly match or two. Aces comes with the standard bells and whistles of local and online multiplayer, as well as a variety of new features to liven up the game and a return to single-player story mode. This game has a lot to prove after the rather disappointingly bare-boned Ultra Smash on the Wii U, but thankfully Nintendo and Camelot managed to avoid a double fault of Mario tennis games.
 
Aces brings an adventure mode back to a Mario sports game, something we haven't seen for quite a few games now. The story involves an ancient powerful tennis racket taking over Luigi's body, so Mario has to collect the five infinity stones power stones before the possessed Luigi gets them and regains the full power of the legendary racket. It's not a super original story and even by Mario game standards feels pretty flat, but adventure mode does offer a nice single-player option that is perfect for training. In addition to normal matches adventure mode has several optional challenges that are essentially tutorials for practicing aim and the new zone mechanics in Aces. Plus there are boss battles which, while a little tedious at times with some of their hazards, offer plenty of practice for blocking powerful zone shots. Even if the story is super short, these challenges offer a nice bit of practice before you dive into a tournament or an online match.
 
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Obviously Aces is, at its core, a classic tennis game, with a decent variety of characters (each with their own styles) and courts (each with their own hazards). The big additions to Aces revolve around the new energy meter, which charges as you play. When a star appears on the court you can spend some of your energy to activate a powerful zone shot to aim at a specific spot on the court. These extra-fast shots are particularly difficult to return, but the defending player can use their own energy to activate zone speed to slow down time, making it easier to reach the ball. It might take a few matches to really get a handle on how to use these abilities effectively but they're a wonderfully balanced way of adding challenge without overwhelming one player since, even if your opponent uses a lot of zone shots, you can always rely on your own zone speed to keep up. And it's nice to have these new abilities that aren't wildly out of character for tennis—essentially they just power up your offensive and defensive abilities.
 
With a fully charged meter you can also execute an even more powerful special shot, the main advantage of which is breaking your opponent's racket. Rackets have a limited durability in Aces; if a player fails to block a zone shot the racket takes partial damage while a special shot will fully break the racket—if all of a player's rackets break it's an instant loss. Although it's neat to have another way to win and another aspect to consider as you play, the concept of breaking rackets feels a little out of place, especially when practiced players can learn to block damage from these powerful shots anyway. In a way it just feels like it's punishing new players rather than adding a deep or rewarding twist to the gameplay.
 
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Another new feature that is tricky to master—and may be a little discouraging for new players—is trick shots, which allow you to quickly dash toward the ball to return it. The catch here is that you really have to be precise with your timing to use trick shots effectively, often to the point of reading your opponent before the ball is even over the net, so it can be a risky maneuver. However, the reward for using trick shots is significant. Not only can it help you reach out-of-the-way shots, you'll gain energy for well-timed trick shots, making them feel like a more unbalanced feature than zone shots or speed—it's just not fun at all to play against someone that constantly uses trick shots.
 
As a side mode Aces also includes a motion-controlled option called Swing mode. Anyone that played Wii Sports Tennis should remember the basic mechanics here, and although swinging the Joy-Con around like a racket is a fun novelty, Swing mode might be best used as a party mode with friends that don't play as much rather than a mode with much real depth.
 

Naturally the multiplayer options are a big part of Aces, and you can play locally or online to face off with tennis players near and far. In addition to simple quick matches against random opponents, Aces offers a tournament mode that lets you compete for points and the glory of earning high marks each month. The concept is great, and perhaps this is more of a problem with the size or variety of the online community but you'll most likely find some wildly inconsistent match-ups as you play, swinging back and forth between opponents that you easily crush and others that you can't seem to score a single point on. On the bright side I never waited long for an opponent, but the balancing of skill levels left me rather disinterested in taking tournaments seriously.

 

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The visuals and audio have all of the colorful, familiar Mario and friends design you'd expect out of a Mario sports game. There's little that will surprise you if you've played virtually any other Mario sports title but even so, Aces looks great on the Switch, both on the TV and handheld. And even if the music rarely has a chance to shine through during intense rallies, there are some fun compositions here as well.
 
Mario Tennis Aces adds some fun new features to the familiar tennis rally, as well as some more advanced techniques that are a bit obnoxious unless you put in the time to fully master their effects, which is only made more difficult by the inconsistent matchmaking while playing online. Still, Aces offers all the standard tennis gameplay for fans to enjoy, and if you do put in the effort to learn all of the more advanced aspects of the game there's a decent amount of depth to enjoy here.
 
Rating: 7 out of 10 Rackets
Edited by Eliwood8
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Double fault, nice one.

 

Tho, I've seen the varying opinion of braking rackets, (this is the whole durability of weapons in BotW all over again) this game has a sub genre in it with this breaking blocking special or return zone shots and that is the fighting genre.

 

Yes, like any fighting game or certain genre, there's a learning curve. This is no different. I think it is to forget that this arcade sport game but it also has elements of fighting aspects.

 

So, I'm not asking to forgive that but to recognize it as part of this game, that's all. 

 

Other than that great review.

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I have yet to get Aces due to its approach for unlocking characters. From what I've seen of the story mode, there are a handful of characters that should've been added to the game's roster as the player makes progress towards collecting all of the power stones. Instead Nintendo has locked them and spread them out behind either online tournaments or monthly updates. It's not an approach that I'm eager to support for a Mario sports game, so I'll probably wait until next May or June to get Aces hopefully with its complete roster.

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