Mario Tennis Aces game Review: Aim High
Mario Tennis Aces: A good tennis game, but not only!Our first grips with Mario Tennis Aces over the past few weeks have been promising and made us look forward to the new episode signed by the Camelot teams. After a Mario Tennis Ultra Smash which will remain as a disappointing episode for the series, the fetish hero of Nintendo offers his first gallop of tennis test on Switch. The wait is inevitably important with regard to the last opus below expectations, on the one hand, and a miserly videogame landscape in good tennis simulations in this year 2018. Is the solution found on the side of the arcade?
For its arrival on the latest generation of Nintendo consoles, Mario Tennis has made the wise choice to make some changes. The first is none other than the return of an adventure mode, shunned for a long time and offered here in a very different form from that of its predecessors. As for the second, it is a general overhaul of the gameplay, here much more technical than that of its predecessors.
A TECHNICAL AND BALANCED GAMEPLAY
Suffice to say right away, fans of tennis without frills will not necessarily find what interests them most in Mario Tennis Aces. The title indeed adopts a more neat gameplay and rich in special moves and timings to the frame, requiring a lot of hours of training before arriving at a sufficient level of mastery. And if it is still possible to launch a game in "classic" mode devoid of all powers and elements outside real tennis, the interest of the software is elsewhere.Snowshoe management now appears to be an important element, as they are liable to break. Rest assured, wear does not take effect until you try to catch an instinctual strike, a blow can be triggered after accumulating points so as to fill the energy gauge. The latter naturally swells after each strike, knowing that a fully charged strike will likely fill it faster. On the other hand, a fully filled gauge can trigger a great instinctual strike, which can destroy the opponent's racket in one fell swoop if he tries to catch it without achieving the proper timing.
DE-FENSE, DE-FENSE
In order to counter all this, it is however possible to use different defensive strokes: the instinct race thus consumes the endurance gauge, but makes it possible to slow down time. An undeniable asset for a successful interception, the only way to counter an instinctive strike without suffering damage from wear on his racket. Finally, if you need to catch a ball too far from your character, technical strikes are more than appropriate, because they allow you to make dives on the sides or back. For the rest, the grip remains close to that of previous opus, with powerful blows, lifts and slices on one side, cushioning and smash on the other, knowing that the optimal placement in order to succeed the latter is always indicated by a star (here called the “Luck Zone”).The set is sufficiently complete to offer us lively meetings filled with points disputed at a high level, as well as a feeling of interesting progression during the first hours of play. Note that the amateurs of accessible experiences will lose a little in exchange, the arcade character of the whole is now felt only in the choice not to opt for a realistic simulation. Another concern, the timing system is both very demanding for interceptions - which is quite appreciable for online matches, but much less solo - and too permissive on technical strikes, thus unnecessarily lengthening exchanges. Nothing dramatic on the whole, but we still hope that a small patch will correct these few flaws to bring an impeccable rebalancing to the whole.
MARIO, ALREADY HERO
To support a pleasant grip, the Camelot teams also provide us with a bit more solid content on paper. Fifteen characters in various styles are available and can be used in different game modes ranging from free play (local or online) to tournaments (against AI or online against other players) through tutorials or adventure mode. We will welcome here the variety of choices in the clashes, whether it be playing locally with one Joycon each and a judicious vertical splitscreen, or going to rub as a team to other players online. Our only regret ultimately lies in the limited customization of the conditions of the game in number of games and points, as well as the presence of only 3 tournaments, a number that we would have hoped for more.The adventure mode offers the most consistent solo part of Mario Tennis Aces. At the controls of Mario, you will have to find several gems that can free your friends from an evil grip. It incorporates several classic elements from the Mario series, with a series of mini-games to be made by moving around the different points of a map. More surprisingly, most of the levels do not take place on a tennis court and more often than not offer precision mini-games or boss fights with racket in hand. A hint of progression with experience interferes, it nevertheless takes a very simple form: succeeding in mini-games and training the mode offers you experience points, and each level crossed automatically inflates one your statistics. It is also possible to retrieve new rackets, which can also improve your skills.
The formula is therefore here very different from that of previous episodes (on Gameboy Color and Advance) having attempted such a mode. The latter offered new characters, a backstory turned around a tennis academy and a real customization of our character. The result remains nice for the Mario Tennis Aces adventure, but a little light in content and above all unbalanced, the difficulty (generally quite high) proving to be particularly fluctuating according to the mini-games. Depending on your level of patience or your ease of handling the whole, it will take you 3 to 6 hours to see the end of the adventure.
The notes
+ Positive points
Technical and already balanced gameplay
Rather inspired novelties
The number of characters available
Presence of split screen and online duplicates
Adventure mode is based on a very good idea ...
-Negative points
… But is short and with a poorly dosed difficulty
Some fixes to wait on certain timings
Finally light in terms of content
Driven by inventive and in-depth gameplay that turns out to be fairly well balanced, Mario Tennis Aces would only need a few fixes to be absolutely flawless on this point. We will still regret that the adventure mode is so short and unbalanced in terms of difficulty, because it offers next to that a mixture of tennis mechanics and mini-games / boss rather successful. A light touch on its solo part, the title can however count on its technical and complete game mechanics to make us want to prolong the pleasure in online tournaments.
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