An all-around fun game to play that leads to an enjoyable tennis experience.
User Rating: 8.4 | Mario Power Tennis GC
For those who have ever played a Mario sports theme game before, namely Mario Tennis for the ol' Nintendo64. Then you pretty much know what your getting into with MarioPower Tennis; a fun game that can be enjoyed by anyone. It is one of those games that can be fun in single, and multiplayer modes. The graphics are smooth, clean, and crisp. Even though its a Mario game, and they are cartoony, they are very well done overall. The graphics is Mario Power Tennis really give you a pleasureful experience to look at. There may even be times playing this game when you look at it and say 'wow'. The music is very tennis-ish. The sound is present from the time the game loads, right into gameplay. However during gameplay the music becomes more of a background theme as the player's unique grunts and groans become the main sounds. As far as these sounds the players do, some more than other become annoying. One such example is Waluigi, who makes odd, high pitched noises when he hits, or reaches for the ball. Each court has its own corresponding background music. The DK court has the theme from the old SNES Donkey Kong games, and so on. The gameplay here is superb. Its a solid game of tennis and the easy to learn controls are a big plus. Your basic buttons are the A & B buttons, which give you 2 standard shots. The A button is your topspin shot, while B is your slice. You can also perform combinations, such as A ->A, which leads to a harder shot, or B ->A, which performs a drop shot. There are several modes of play, naturally there is a regular game of tennis, or you can play Ring Shot where you hit the ball back-and-forth through rings and collect the most points. Or there is Item Battle, where during play you acquire various items from the Mario Kart games to mess up your opponent. Also, you can play on gimmick courts which lead to a wacky game of tennis. Such as the Isle Delfino court from Super Mario Sunshine, where goop will be splattered on your court to slow you down. All of these modes can be done in singles, or doubles matches. There is also a tournament mode where you scale up the ranks to win trophies. The difficulty is pretty easy at first, but as you progress through the tournament it begins to even out. Finally there are the special games. Where you play unique mini-games such as Artist on the Court. Where you will have a white portrait of a character, and you must hit the correct colors onto the right spot. So you need to hit a red ball onto mario's hat to make the hat red. Personally, I only see 1 major con with this game. And that is the fact that you cannot do a 2-player tournament. I thought it would be pretty neat to team up with a friend and go for the trophies in each tournament. Sadly, this is not the case as the Tournament Mode is a 1-player only deal. Overall its Mario Power Tennis is a great game. Its fun to play on single and multiplayer, and its a rewarding experience. I do recommend this game to anyone looking for a great Mario sports game, or to anyone looking for a fun tennis game in general.
