A good game, although soon becomes tiring
User Rating: 7 | Mario Tennis GC (Wii de Asobu) WII
Mario Power Tennis is a port of the Gamecube game which was one of the only Nintendo releases I didn't play in that era. The game has 3 modes; Exhibition, Tournament, and Special Games. Exhibition is a single match and you have the option of singles or doubles matches and choose players from the roster of 14 (plus 4 unlockable characters). The skill levels can be set per player; Novice Intermediate, Expert and Pro. You can play on normal courts (grass, clay, hard) or gimmick courts (DK Jungle, Delfino Plaza, Luigi's Mansion etc), and play either standard matches, Ring Shot, or Item battle. Then you can choose whether to enable power shots, and choose amount of Games and Sets. All these options mean you can customise the game to your ability and preferences. The gimmick courts usually have some focus on hindering the player or changing ball movement which makes the matches a bit different. In Tournament mode you play a series of knock-out matches to win the 3 tournaments in which you can choose the game type and court style. Each character has progress saved independently so unlocking star cup with Peach won't allow you to play with Mario. In Special Games, there are a variety of gimmicky mini-games like you would find in Mario Party, but they usually have a focus on a particular technique. For example, in one game you have to hit coloured paint balls at a drawing to colour it in. It mainly relies on the lob shot and gives you good practice in your technique and positioning in order to hit the correct area. The major change from the Gamecube version is that the controls now use the Wii remote's movement to hit the ball. Different movements determine whether it has topspin, backspin, normal, or lob shot. The controls work fairly well, although lobs often register as topspin shots unless you do a dramatic upward movement, and the game becomes quite fatiguing after a while. In terms of the power shots, there are 2 types; offensive and defensive. Offensive shots usually win the point but are returnable, although hard to do so and you incur the penalty of your character being dizzy or pushed back for a second, then your opponent's follow up is often impossible to return. Defensive power shots guarantee the ball to be knocked over the net, and can actually end up being quite offensive. I think the power shots charge up too fast so end up being too frequent which results in breaking up the action too much. It also gets a bit silly when playing doubles matches since you get your power shots about the same time, so what tends to happen is one player does an offensive power shot, then the next does a defensive one to counter it until all 4 have used it. One thing that is brilliantly done in the game is the variety to the characters. Each character is given a type such as All-Around, Power, Technique, Tricky, or Defensive and the difference between them is clear to see. Technique players like Peach are great for adding top-spin and back-spin, Tricky players like Boo are even more dramatic and can hit large arching shots, but having a bigger chance of hitting the ball out. There are noticeable differences with players in the same category too, with players having different animations and distance they can swing and lunge. Characters like Donkey Kong are very slow and cumbersome. Despite having a large reach, he doesn't have a great lunge, so you must position carefully before swinging, on the plus side, he hits with great power. Overall, I thought Mario Power Tennis was a good game although a lot of the game I didn't care for too much. The Special Games didn't seem very fun, the Gimmicky Courts didn't appeal, and the Power Shots seem to detract from the action. The standard tennis was pretty good in short bursts, and the variety of characters added a lot to the game-play, so even if you master one character, the challenge is there to master another.
