It used to be more of an event when a new Nintendo sports game was released. However, thanks to the success of the original Nintendo Switch console, Mario Golf, Strikers, and Tennis have had a really good showing, and many will have felt that there was no rush for a new one. Nintendo has decided Tennis needed another go, though, and Mario Tennis Fever is here to offer a new gimmick, and a new chance to climb the rankings.
Having played a good amount of Mario Tennis Aces, what we have here is a more balanced affair. Mario Tennis Fever offers more to do as well. Lessons have been learned and the online modes are more friendly, overall, which is a boon for anyone who likes to take their tennis online. That said, there is still room for improvement, and more on that later.
Firstly, though, this is a damn fine tennis experience. The Fever rackets offer something more unique than Aces. Here, the rackets are more super powers. Tornadoes can be ejected from your shot as you play, mud slung onto the floor, and more: but what these Fever rackets (and indeed, Fever shots) mean in real terms is that you’re rewarded for longer rallies, building up your Fever shot meter. They feel rewarding, and layering fire onto the ground means your opponent will have to avoid that part of the court, as once on fire they are harder to move towards a shot return. I’m sure you can imagine how things like mud, ice, and so on work, too.
The standard shots are on three of the face buttons, with “X” offering the Fever shot attack. What this means is that lob and drop shots are relegated to combo presses, which might throw folks who’ve played a lot of tennis games and are expecting the “top” of the face buttons to offer a lob. Double taps provide power shots, and you charge your shot the earlier you prepare for it. It’s all pretty “simple to understand, difficult to master”, which many of the best sports games are.
Which character you choose matters, though, affecting everything from shot power, to speed, to service, and so on. Boo offers a wicked swerving service game, forcing the likes of Mario to have to run wide to even return it. But should Mario get in control of a rally his power and speed mean Boo will have a tough time getting to those far corner shots. It’s well balanced, and there are plenty of characters to experiment with, with some unlocking as you go.
You’ll get new rackets, characters, and courts by simply playing the modes and experiencing what Mario Tennis Fever has to offer. Within half an hour you’ll have something new to play with, and this continues at a decent pace, especially if you’re jumping into the tower modes or single player adventure.
Tower mode is actually one of my favourite things to play in Mario Tennis Fever. As you’d imagine, you start out playing simple 1v1 matches, but quickly progress to a doubles match where you’ve got Wario and WaLuigi on a team playing multiball, trying to score points. It’s mayhem, and it’s actually quite challenging.. You’ll have three lives, meaning you can fail a few times, but the towers offer unique and fun tennis matches, and forces you to experiment with the characters and mechanics on offer.
Turning off the Fever rackets and just playing some ranked 1v1, the competition feels fierce yet fair. Rankings are reset on a monthly basis, but matchmaking seems decent, though the player base doesn’t seem all that large. I guess time will tell on that front. You can create rooms for friends, play singles or doubles; though unless I’m mistaken, I can’t find a way to play ranked doubles matches with friends, which seems an odd oversight and a sure fire way to narrow the scope of your competitive modes. It all seems good, latency wise, though, so that’s another notch in the positives column.
The adventure mode, though, I’m not sure I can endorse as easily. Creating a single player mode in a sports game can’t be easy, but I’m not sure the level of hand-holding here is necessary even for a Nintendo title. Story wise, you’ve set off to find a golden fruit to help Princess Daisy, but you’ve been attacked by fuzzies who have turned everyone into babies. This means you’re playing as Baby Mario (and getting sledged endlessly by Baby WaLuigi and Baby Wario) and, despite retaining the ability to play tennis, you need to level up and rank up to get back to your former power. There’s more to the story, but if you’re going to play it I’d certainly not want to spoil it.
All of this takes place in the Mushroom Tennis Academy, an overworld which sees you running around taking part in minigames which are at best weird, and at worst pretty tedious, to gain levels and improve your stats. It’s difficult to get too immersed in the single player as it’s neither long, nor particularly taxing. There’s a lot of busywork running between training rooms, and they are overly simplistic to begin with, offering little to no challenge. I would recommend if you’re grabbing Mario Tennis Fever, to skip the initial tutorial and jump into adventure mode as it repeats many of the lessons you’ll get when you first boot it up.
But this is just a better game than the other recent tennis titles and, frankly, feels more complete. The Fever rackets offer genuine strategy, and also offer a lower barrier of entry. Most of the modes offer a chance for a second player to jump in and join the fun, and the online modes are almost all smashing time. While the story mode is more of a glorified tutorial, it’s not as though it’s bad, and offers more than a simple “play tennis matches” campaign.
Mario Tennis Fever offers a fantastic tennis experience with plenty of ways to play. It does feel slightly dialled into the ever more increasingly online world we live in, but it looks seriously good while doing it. Whether in docked mode or on the big screen, this is a gorgeous experience. Oh, but I’d perhaps hop into the menus and turn off the commentary from the Wonder Flower, just to save your sanity. It’s not revolutionary, but it’s a seriously good time, and for most people, that’ll be enough.
