Fun to play but controls kill
The first thing I noticed about this game was that, in all reality, there was quite a few options of play even though the menu looks incredibly bare. Superstars mode is where you will be spending most of your time, where you do mini-games, matches, and tournaments to progress through SEGA's worlds and unlock characters, courts, and people. Below this is matches. Very self explanatory, either pick singles or doubles, your character, your opponents character, court, and your off to a quick match. Tournament comes after this, and these are slightly more interesting. You start at the bottom of a ladder and work yourself up to the championship, and if you are able to get at least a AA rating on every match (AAA being the highest rating) you are awarded with a special match. This match is actually one of the most fun and frantic you will experience. And lastly we come to games. These are the collection of mini-games you have unlocked by playing in Superstar mode. While some may seem like just a rehashed version of a previous (which some are) many of them are fun and may addict you to just give it another go at a quick high score.
(Using a Phillips 42 inch TV with HDMI support taken full advantage of) There really is not much to say about the graphics except for they are nothing incredibly special. The opening cinematic looks pretty nice in "1080p" but the games are sometimes even a little fuzzy. The character models look pretty nice though, remastered from all there SEGA platform days and back with a lot of fun, colorful animations. I especially like the take on Gilius and Gum. The court design is very inconsistent in the sense that some of them are fun to look at and to play (Curian Mansion) whereas others are just incredibly boring (beach settings). Sometimes right before a match though, their is a visual glitch that the screen gets engulfed by the pixelated look you get right before RROD. The sound is also nothing stellar, but is kinda cool in certain aspects. The voice actors for the characters do a good job with their work. Sonics voice sounds near identical to his voice in the old cartoon. The music that you are able to unlock is absolutely incredible. Ranging from old japanese versions of songs, remasters of some songs, and even a metal cover or two. The only problem I can think of with the sound is if you activate your characters special ability during your opponents serve, your opponents grunt gets amplified about 3x its normal sound level.
So what is the problem with this game you might ask seeing as I have not really bashed any area of the game yet only gave it a mediocre 5.5. Well the technical side of the game is what kills it, both controls and A.I. The controls on the surface don't look to bad with the whole scheme being actually rather simple (in a good way). Now if only these controls worked properly, we would be good. This effects matches too, but where you feel the most frustration lies in the mini-games. When you are trying to aim for a specific square, it can almost be a chore not to scream at the tv while you continue your attempts while your timer runs straight down to zero. Sometimes you won't even swing your racket. If it was only ever so often it wouldn't be as big of a problem, but it will happen near almost every game requiring accuracy. Also, it makes lobs almost irrelevant in matches. Of the many I have tried in the near 40 hours of play, I can remember one working, and the only reason it worked is because of the next topic of problem. The A.I. seems to have to intelligence of PS1 and very early PS2 games. It's just plain dumb. And you think to yourself "O that's okay, I suppose I don't have to work to win." First of all, where is the fun in that? Second of all, it's not even remotely true because any possibility of that gets drowned out by the fact that you still can't control worth a crap. The A.I. will spend minutes hitting the ball straight back to you if you let it. What if I just don't let it? Well when your playing doubles matches, guess what happens? Exactly, your computer partner and the opponents just volley it back and forth to each other, the exact same spot every time. The only thing that was promising about the A.I. was the automatic switch feature and even that blew it because sometimes your partner will randomly "switch" with you, exposing a whole half of your court. To get out of this pessimistic mood, I am only going to name one more technical problem that commonly occurs, and that is when an overhead is hit to both you or from you, it does not allow you to even make an attempt to hit it back over. You must simply just wave goodbye to it. Go ahead and say I'm not doing it right, I know it's true because when a player starts there overhead animation, it adds the point to the scoreboard before it even touches there racket.
Time you will want to spend playing this varies. It depends on what you are looking for out of the game. If you are hoping for a game that is just a quick pick up and play for fun look no further. If you want a game with depth, a plethora of different spins to put on the ball, and have to think out your shots before you make them, I would not recommend this game for those purposes. The Superstars mode will keep you preoccupied for a nice amount of time if you cant outlast your frustration. The achievements are well done as they make you finish superstars mode and play some in match and tournament modes. They even have an achievement for the hardcore lover of this game (get a AAA rank in every superstar mode mission). I am unable to speculate on the online portion of this game other than saying it is dead and you will find no matches.
Sega Superstars Tennis has some elements to it that could have made this a good game. The graphics aren't horrible, the sound not bad, the pick-up-and-play feel, these are all things that worked for this game. Unfortunately because of all of its technical issues, I cannot recommend this to anyone other than people who want a quick, inexpensive tennis fix while they await there next games release or a child who won't mind the fact that they will lose points because there character refuses to swing a racket. Because this far above average tennis game has so many issues, I'm only giving it a .5 above average. Sega Superstars Tennis, 5.5 out of 10.