Mario Tennis Advance E3 2005 Preshow Impressions

Three and a half seconds. That's approximately the amount of footage shown of Mario Tennis Advance during Nintendo's DS/GBA showcase movie. Still, because we loved Mario Power Tennis for the GameCube so much, we just have to share our thoughts on this tantalizing slice of handheld fun that was showcased in the demo. If you're interested in seeing the footage for yourself, click on the movie and fast-forward to about the 14-second mark.

The three takeaways from the extremely short clip are: four, fast, and forceful. "Four" because the clip clearly demonstrated a mixed doubles match consisting of Mario and Wario versus Princess Peach and Donkey Kong. No word yet on whether this means you'll be able to compete against three other live players via link cable, but wouldn't that be nice? By "fast" we mean the game ran at a quick clip, even with multiple characters onscreen. Finally, when we say "forceful," we're talking about how the kinds of power-ups and special shots that made previous Mario Tennis games so much fun seem to be intact on the GBA version. One segment showed Peach using some sort of pink hearts power, while another showed a cannon on the court behind Donkey Kong. Let's see Mario return that serve.

We only saw grass courts in the demo, so we'll have to wait and see whether or not the kinds of crazy surfaces that made Mario Power Tennis so much fun will translate to the GBA. We'll be keeping an eye on this game over the coming months, and we'll keep you up to date as well.