Review for Mario Tennis Aces. Game for Nintendo Switch, the video game was released on 22/06/2018
Like most of the Nintendo IPs, Mario Tennis also boasts a very long history, which begins as far back as 1995. The very first Mario Tennis was a sort of experiment developed for the unfortunate Virtual Boy, a little known chapter for obvious reasons. Five years later Nintendo tried again on Nintendo 5, with the first “official” chapter of the saga and which was much more appreciated, not to mention that it was Waluigi's debut game. From then on every Nintendo console had its own Mario tennis edition (except the DS), but the whole videogame world agrees on which was the most successful chapter. Mario Tennis: Power Tour, released in 2005 for the Game Boy Advance, which was the first and only in the series to boast a hilarious story mode, in which it was required to face the most unthinkable and terrible boss challenges.
Power Tour was so appreciated that it even put any subsequent iteration of the saga in a bad light, and not a generation has gone by where fans haven't clamored for a return to the ancient glories. Apparently Nintendo decided to listen to these screaming voices and submitted Mario Tennis Aces to Nintendo Switch, finally entering the coveted story mode for the second time.
Between evil rackets and abstruse bosses
Nintendo games have never been known for having particularly inspired or complicated stories, yet they always rank first in the Olympus of absurdity. Mario Tennis Aces is no exception: during the ancient tennis tournaments of the Mushroom Kingdom there was a sentient and evil racket that was sealed due to its dark powers. Wario and Waluigi have freed it believing it to be a treasure and now it has taken possession of poor Luigi: it will be up to Mario, as usual, to travel the world to look for the gems needed to seal it again.
Initially, the adventure mode is almost like a tutorial for players, presenting simple situations and explaining step by step how to play and what hits are assigned to each individual button. This mode acts as a mentor in the best possible way, proposing at the beginning not only simple encounters against the CPU but also puzzle games that force you to use all types of shots to hit certain specific areas of the field with the ball. The whole is extremely varied both as sets and as situations and challenges, to reach the apex in the beautiful clashes against the Bosses, in which it is required to discover the most suitable method to destroy their barriers and then inflict heavy special blows capable of to take away their energy.
Although the story mode is well thought out and extremely fun, Nintendo and Camelot should have put a lot more on it by listening to the requests of the fans and making it the heart of the game. Unfortunately we are facing a partly wasted opportunity, due to an adventure that ends 100% easily in just 4 hours.
Special racket smashing hits!
Each iteration of Mario Tennis has changed the cards on the table, re-studying the gameplay mechanics almost from scratch. Mario Tennis Aces takes the best sides of each old chapter and brings them together, managing to propose the best Mario tennis game released so far.
Each front button corresponds to a type of shot, from plates, to lobs, to spins and so on, which can then be customized by the various directions dictated by the left analog. As in the last chapters, pressing a button will mean starting to charge the shot, which will then be more or less powerful depending on the time we will be able to gain in this posture before the ball reaches our vicinity. The novelty, in Aces, lies in the presence of a special bar that will make us able to perform super moves and defenses. Making swaps, especially if loaded, will gradually fill this bar, which will receive a significant boost in the event of a successful acrobatic strike, i.e. a jump that will make the character travel the entire width of the field in a few moments to try to recover balls apparently impregnable.
Once you have loaded at least one third of the bar, sometimes stars will appear on the pitch when you have to hit an opponent's ball. By positioning ourselves on one of them and pressing the special move button we will consume a portion of the bar to make a very powerful shot where we want (with the time that stops and a viewfinder as a shooter), which will have to be countered in a perfect way worth a infliction of damage to the opponent's racket. Yes, because the rackets can be destroyed, and once our supply is finished we will automatically lose the game.
If we are able to load the bar fully we can do the super move of our character, capable of destroying the opponent's racket with a single hit. Again, to avoid damage, it will be necessary to hit the ball at the perfect moment of impact, which is possible with practice or with the use of super defense. By pressing the special attack button during the defensive phase, in fact, and by consuming part of the special bar, we will slow down the time so that we can counter impossible balls with minimum effort and with maximum precision. It goes without saying that this type of mechanics allows for a fantastic battle of strategy and mental battle, as well as in the single skill in the basic game.
Online? Good but not great
We spent most of our time playing online games before writing this review, so that we could better evaluate the possibilities offered by the servers and multiplayer mode. At the command of our faithful Categnaccio we realized that the servers, apart from a couple of sobs, have always been granite and have allowed us to play every game without lag whatsoever, allowing battles at the last exchange without a bad connection causing you to lose points . This is certainly an extremely positive aspect of the production, which will allow the online to stay alive for a very long time (and which gives us very good hope for the Super Smash Bros Ultimate servers, of course).
The online offers a rather large offer, however at the same time limited. Let's explain: it is possible to face single or double fights, even with a couple of friends who play as a team from the same console, and there are also five-match tournaments, at the end of which, however, there is no type of reward. The basic problem is that any type of online match cannot be played with the normal tennis rules for scoring, but will always and only be managed by tie-breaks. In practice, there are no Games, but the first one who reaches 7 points wins, which is very limiting.
Mario Tennis Aces is the latest effort from Camelot, which perfectly manages to reproduce the style of Nintendo games: simple and immediate for beginners, strategic and full of possibilities for the more experienced. A layered difficulty, like an onion, which allows the games of the big N and this one in particular to be played by anyone and to be both casual and competitive. A triumph of gameplay, ruined by a lack of content that partially undermines its entirety.
► Mario Tennis Aces is a Sports-type game published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Switch, the video game was released on 22/06/2018
