A fun and addicting game that stays true to its consoles roots.
The graphics are good. It’s 2-D unlike other games in the series.
The game play is fun and addictive. The controls are simple. The A button is for your basic shot and the B button is to put slice on the ball. When you hold the two shoulder buttons you could use your power shot. I will explain what Power Shots are further into the review.
There are two modes that you can play in this game. This is the mode that allows you to play a quick match of tennis. You get to choose what kind of court that you want to use. Depending on what kind of court you are using the ball will bounce differently. There are many characters that you can choose from. The bad thing about it is that most of them are characters that you have never heard of. There is a good selection on Nintendo characters. You get to choose from Mario, Peach, Luigi, Waluigi, Donkey Kong, and Bowser. You can either play singles or doubles. I didn’t like doubles that much. Your partner isn’t very smart. Most of the time your partner usually misses a ball that is really easy to hit this can get very frustrating. You also get to choose the difficulty level that you want to play on. I couldn’t find the right mode. It was either way too easy or very hard. The harder the mode the longer the game will last. Luckily there is a quick save feature. This becomes very useful if you don’t have a lot of time to play.
The other mode that you get to play is story mode. This game is made by Camelot the same company that brought you the Golden Sun series. Those games had a lot of text. This game is no different. When you first play story mode you have to wait about 20 minutes before you actually get to play tennis. You can’t skip it either.
The story in story mode is what you would expect out of a sports game. You are playing tennis and trying to move up ranks to go play in a tournament. You get to choose whether you want to play as a boy or a girl. Sadly you can’t customize the way your character looks.
This game is kind of like an RPG. The thing I liked the most about this game is that you can level up your character. Leveling up your character is one of the most useful things in the game. Your level affects how fast and hard you shoot the ball. You could also level up your secondary skills which is stuff like curve, slice, and Topspin. The leveling system was one of the reasons I got addicted to the game.
There are some fun mini games that you can play to help you level up. Some of them are very addicting and others can be hard and not that fun. I guarantee you that if you play one of the better mini games you will be hooked and won’t want to stop playing it.
Power Shots are still here. First introduced in Mario Power Tennis with only one problem there wasn’t a lot of variety of what video they show before you use your shot. This problem is in this game and sometimes makes the game kind of repetitive. Power Shots are special shots that you can use when your power meter is full. You fill it up by hitting the ball back and forth which doesn’t take very long. Power Shots are useful especially if you are playing on a hard difficulty level.
This game can also be very useful if you know nothing about tennis and want to learn how to play. It has rules and a guide book that shows you all of the terms that are used in tennis.
Overall this is a fantastic game for the Game Boy Advance. It’s different and fun.