Let me say this right away: Mario Tennis Open is Mario Power Tennis in handheld form. But in a lot of ways, that's not too bad. Mario Power Tennis was in my opinion a genuinely good Mario sports game, and all the good stuff has carried over - the controls and gameplay are pretty much exactly the same (which is to say incredibly solid), and the graphical and musical presentation is asLet me say this right away: Mario Tennis Open is Mario Power Tennis in handheld form. But in a lot of ways, that's not too bad. Mario Power Tennis was in my opinion a genuinely good Mario sports game, and all the good stuff has carried over - the controls and gameplay are pretty much exactly the same (which is to say incredibly solid), and the graphical and musical presentation is as charming and engaging as ever. The annoying, time-stopping power shots are gone, replaced by a "chance shot" system, which occasionally places markers on the court which you can stand in to give your shots a bit of extra power. It's actually a lot more fun than it sounds, and adds some strategy and surprises to a sport that is otherwise fairly mundane in video game form.
That said, Mario Tennis Open doesn't escape the bitter truth: It's still just tennis. There is no storyline like in the GameBoy Advance iteration, and unlike the Mario Strikers games (which I adored for their twisted take on football) there is nothing that sets this game aside as truly unique or even particularly interesting. Mario Power Tennis suffered the same problem on GameCube, but I'd say it's actually *worse* in this game, thanks to there being made little effort to make the experience varied. You've got your standard tournament mode and exhibition matches, both available in singles and doubles mode, as well as some minigames. There are eight courts, but their only differences are how much the ball bounces and how fast it goes, which isn't really that noticeable in-game. The only one that stands out is one that changes surface properties whenever a chance shot bounces on it, but again this has no particular effect on gameplay. The character selection is incredibly boring - it's just your standard selection of Mario characters, and a fairly meager selection at that, with just four unlockable characters, none of whom are interesting. They have to be unlocked through minigames; all you get from playing tournaments are some clothing items for your Mii, which gives a lousy sense of progression.
As a result, the game grows stale very fast. You can only play so much of the exact same match on the exact same courts against the exact same small selection of characters using the exact same chance shots (yes, even they become boring eventually) before you want nothing more to do with the game. It doesn't help that the final four cups (out of eight) can only be accessed by characters with which you've beat the first four, which arbitrarily forced me to keep playing Boo forever. It didn't even take me two days to feel like I'd done everything worthwhile in the game. It should be mentioned, though, that the minigames are pretty good, though they probably won't take up a lot of your time.
To add insult to injury, the difficulty curve is not at all balanced. I don't consider myself a fantastic player, yet I beat all eight singles cups without losing a single set, and only reaching a tiebreaker once (which is what happens when you and your opponent reach a score of 2-2 games in a set). Doubles tournaments, on the other hand, end up being balanced against you because your partner is a complete imbecile most of the time.
Oh, and there's local multiplayer and online, I guess I should mention that. I'm unable to test the former, however I did test the latter. I had a fairly unenjoyable and extremely laggy experience, though I guess I can't speak for everyone.
In the end, Mario Tennis Open is a decent game, but absolutely nothing more. While its mechanics are great, this iteration detracts more from the core gameplay than it adds, and as a result it won't last you long enough to be worth the full retail price. It saddens me that a game with such potential has met such a pointless fate.… Expand
Mario Tennis OpenYour Score0 out of 10User Score
