Mario Tennis Aces - our review

Mario is back with the racket in hand.

Our dearest Mario, after abandoning the profession of plumber, he devoted himself to other activities, among other things he returned to tread the fields in grass, cement e clay.

A bit of history.

Let's say that the cheerful mustache has long had a passion for tennis, the first game dates back to 1995 and went out for Virtual Boy, the unfortunate stereoscopic console made by Nintendo.

After the first rudimentary experiment, Nintendo he waited 5 years for Mario to return to holding a racket. in 2000 the "Big N" has thus launched on Nintendo 64 "Mario Tennis", game that introduced the tall one for the first time Waluigi.

In this article we will only talk about the chapters released on home consoles.

In this episode we see for the first time the arrival of the minigames and "special matches". Just think of the introduction of the "Shooting in the rings" and the "Bowser Match", the latter allowed to play in a tilting field with the upgrades of Mario Kart 64.

Camelot Software Planning, historical developer of the series, brought Mario and company also on the cube console from Nintendo in 2004. This edition of the game sees an exponential increase in modes and minigames, ranging from painting the walls to the liberation of Only Keepers.

11 years after the last title, Mario returns to hold a racket, the game in question is Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash came out Wii U. The title despite having added some news, is "massacred" by critics due to the absence of many stadiums and the lack of playable modes.

The bitter disappointment of the previous title pushed Nintendo e Camelot to try again and this time the challenge was certainly not easy, the Nintendo Switch behind its colorful appearance, it hides many pitfalls, let's see how they got away with it.

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Mario Tennis Aces was announced during Nintendo Direct on January 11, 2018, with a short trailer, which in addition to showing the usual Mario, Luigi, Wario e Waluigi launched the first Story mode su Home Console after that view on Game Boy Advance.

You also see some boss-fight, in the present case it is Pippin Piranha, now ubiquitous in the games ofex-plumber.

Demo

Nintendo announced on May 15 that Mario Tennis Aces would have a demo, playable from June 1 to 4. The version allowed us to unleash our skills against players from all over the world.

History

The game opens with Mario e Peach intent on playing a double, when suddenly Wario e Waluigi they try to donate to Mario a special racket, taken from the ruins of an ancient kingdom.

Knowing the two jokers, the mustache refuses the offer, less clever his brother Luigi who runs to take the racket, thus freeing a fearsome evil force that wants to conquer the world (but go? Really?).

After a while of warming up you will find that to stop Lucigna (the wicked racket) you will have to collect seven stones of power (who knows why it reminds me of something) ...

Easy? But even no ...

The various gameplay videos show a game that appears to be simple and the boys of Camelot they had just that intention.

As soon as you take the Joy-Con in your hand, you will find that a world is hiding beyond the various Ace, Smash, forehand and reverse.

In fact, the creators of Mario Tennis Aces have thought of an approach for everyone, but a game for a few. What does this mean? That the famous seven shirts will not be enough to become masters of the racket.

The shots

The game expertly combines the hits of the tennis tradition with those possible only in the Mushroom Kingdom.

Let's start with what everyone knows, even if you haven't tried the demo, the shots are divided as follows (each shot has a trail of color):

• Lob: Up + X, yellow trail;
• Muffled: Down + X, white trail;
• Top spin: key A, red trail;
• Flat shot: Y key, purple trail;
• Slice or Spin: B key, blue trail

These are the basic commands, the game also introduced:

• Intense Shot (only possible if you have at least a third of the energy bar available): go to a Star area, press R o ZR, you will see time slow down and a viewfinder, do not waste this shot;
• Special Shot (possible only if you have a full energy bar): Press and hold L o ZL and as soon as the ball enters your court, the character you control will use his special shot. As the Intense Shot you can slow down time and target a specific area of ​​the pitch. Make good use of it.
• Technical Shot: It will surely leave you speechless, by moving the right stick in the direction the opponent threw the ball, your character will perform stunts worthy of Gael Monfils (click the link, you will see amazing things) and will send the ball back to the sender.

There are also i Loaded Shots, to carry them out just hold down A, B or Y for a long time and launch the ball at supersonic speeds.

KO? We're not fighting ...

True, but in the Mushroom Kingdom everything is possible, Mario Tennis Aces in fact will give you a certain number of rackets, once you have broken them all, the victory will go to the opponent by KO.

How does a racket break? 

The racquet takes damage when you respond out of time to Heavy or Special Shots, at the end of their life bar, they will break and the point will go to the opponent.

And the Eagle's eye?

Il Tennis is a sport at the forefront of technology and adopts theHawk eye for a long time now, what tennis game would it be if there were no such technology? Here is a trailer of Mario Tennis Aces with Rafa Nadal showing you the presence of this feature.

Characters

The game comes with a good roster of characters available, each of them specializing in a field and are divided as follows:

• Versatile:;
• Quick;
• Technicians;
• Defensive;
• Powerful;
• crafty;

You will discover by playing the advantages these features will provide you.

modality

Beyond the aforementioned Story mode, you can try your hand at joyful friendly matches (it's worse than Mario Kart, in some cases you will be physically eliminated), with the Local Multiplayer or in intense challenges with Online Tournaments, to engage human users, you will have to train like Goku.

A separate chapter is dedicated to Swing mode, which will allow you to play happily without using the keys, the main problem of this mode is the functioning of the motion control, in fact it is too often inaccurate and in the long run it becomes frustrating.

duration

Mario Tennis Aces Story Mode will keep you entertained for about 5 hours if you are an experienced tennis player, in fact, the difficulty of the game will also engage you in the challenges that will seem simpler to you, then it can go up to more than 10 hours if you don't know where to put your hands.