I can confidently say that the Nintendo Switch had one of the best first-party lineups in ages. Even the sports games from Nintendo are some of the best we’ve seen, and games like Mario Golf: Super Rush and Mario Strikers: Battle League even feel like the best entry point for these types of games, despite never straying far from the original recipe that made these games popular in the first place. The shift to Switch 2 inspires confidence that we’ll see a shake-up of the existing formula.
Mario Tennis Fever’s Advantage Set
The latest sports game from Nintendo, Mario Tennis Fever, is out this month, and it’s surprisingly a lot of fun if you’re not familiar with any of the Mario sports titles. I’ve played a ton of these games in recent years, but my introduction to them only goes back a generation. Even though I’ve seen these games on shelves at Blockbuster and at my friend’s house, a 7-year-old kid would rather play Smash Bros. than Mario Tennis.
Nintendo inevitably won me over as I got older, and with an open mind, I quickly ate crow. I recognize now that most sports games with Mario on the cover are a ton of fun, approachable, and hard to put down in a group setting. For every new iteration and new mechanics, fans gain some of the best arcade-inspired sports titles. After all, if Mario looks like he’s having a blast playing tennis, why can’t I?
Mario Tennis Aces is where I fell off, though, after falling deeply in love with Mario Power Tennis on GameCube. It was fun, but it lacked the depth and variety I craved in a sports game. It looked and played great, but it was inconsistent overall, and I remember just how empty the experience felt for the first few years, making it hard to enjoy.
To my surprise, Mario Tennis Fever does a bang-up job of making tennis feel so much more approachable. If there’s one thing Nintendo does well, it’s adapting sports like golf and tennis for a wide audience. For one, it feels much more complete with tons of modes and adventures to keep you busy. The basics haven’t changed much — you work to score seven points, and every serve and volley feels responsive.
Mario Tennis Fever includes Tournament mode, Trail Towers, Ring Shot, Forest Court Match, Pinball Match, Racket Factory Match, and Wonder Court Match, among others. Adventure mode is also my personal star of the show as it has the best introduction to the series, by far. Out of all the modes that beckoned to me, I began with Adventure mode, and I’m glad I did. Not only does Adventure mode do a great job at teaching you the mechanics of Mario Tennis Aces, but it also has a fun and light-hearted story.
Venture into Adventure
Venturing into a cave, Peach, Mario, and Luigi are begrudgingly joined by Wario and Waluigi. In a twist, while the core group seeks adventure, Wario and Waluigi seek treasures and head into the depths of the cave, ultimately triggering a hidden curse turning Mario, Luigi, Wario, and Waluigi into babies. In the game, being babies means the Mario brothers are too weak to play tennis, so they enroll in a tennis academy to get stronger.
The academy is lively and filled, run by dozens of Toads spanning the halls, the courts, and the administrative offices. Here, you’ll learn the fundamentals of tennis and the unique rules and abilities that Mario Tennis Fever adds to the mix. You play as baby Mario as he gains strength and speed once again.
In a series of challenges that ramp up as you level Mario, the journey to restoring him to his old self is filled with tons of exciting moments, including chaotic serves, volleys, and fever shots. Progress is shown through various stats, such as topspin, slice, shot speed, run speed, and agility, which you continually increase stat levels by successfully completing the academy.
Adventure mode features a great mix of training levels and minigames. With Toad teaching you the basics, you then have to apply what you’ve learned to unlock a new level of training. Each time you finish a number of challenges and hit a new level, you’re given a series of stickers based on rank from F through A, and featuring the main cast as stickers in your sticker book.
The minigames range from capturing fallen items in a box to level strength, or a doubles minigame where Mario and Luigi have to rise and drop between levels to volley balls back.
Climbing The Trial Towers
Trial Towers are essentially gauntlets you complete with a bunch of requisites to beat. In one challenge, you’ll face Mario with a fire racket and must avoid his fire; another might drop banana peels after every swing, and another might add ice to the mix. You have three hearts to win the tower, and you lose them if you decide to retry or suspend the match. Every match to the top of the tower has you scoring five points to win.
If you’re expecting the trials to go easy on you, guess again, because you’re going to work for every win. I half expected a jaunt from the first trial, but I was continually challenged by every opponent I faced.
The last few Mario Tennis games have left a lot to be desired, and with little content available from launch, my hopes for Fever were in line with my expectations. Facing a particularily exhilarating match against Goomab, where we volleyed back and forth for ages without the ball even touching the ground, put me at ease. I was worried I’d breeze through the game, but I was surprised by how reactive opponents were when they showed up. And some new faces took my lunch a few times by mopping the floor wth me early on.
Mario Tennis Fever also adds Goomba, Nabbit, and Baby Waluigi to the roster. In total, there are 38 characters, the most in the series’ history, and you can mix and match them with the Fever Rackets. There aren’t any surprises to the roster, but my one disappointment is not having Cow included in some capacity.
Fever Rackets Make Tennis Better
Speaking of Fever Rackets, the newest mechanic in Mario Tennis Fever, they recontextualize how you play tennis. Take the Tornado Racket, for instance, a racket that you unlock, where it unleashes small tornadoes on the court that lead to the ball curving in a different direction if it comes into contact. Or the Shadow Racket, another unlockable racket where a shadow clone appears to confuse opponents and keep them guessing on your next move.
Every racket is unlocked by playing through Adventure mode, Trial Towers, online, and so on. And as I mentioned before, mixing and matching your chosen character with the right racket leads to some really exciting exchanges. Do you want to be chaos incarnate and use a Mini Mushroom racket and watch your opponent shrink and struggle to serve back the ball, or use the Fire Bar racket to fill the opposite side of the court with obstacles?
Whatever you decide is in the service of every character’s health bar. Additionally, you can play traditional tennis with slides and leaps to rally. You can swap between defensive actions and moves on the court to keep things interesting. Or you can focus on using the equipped Fever power to whittle away your opponent’s health and see them taken out of the action for 10 seconds on the sidelines. Ultimately, the decision is yours, but you have a variety of ways to achieve victory.
Swing Mode is a nice alternative to standard tennis, and it’s as easy as picking up your Joy-Cons and following the motions. It’s a separate mode from the rest of the game and has fewer options, but it’s a nice distraction if you’re in need of some movement at home that works well enough with the Joy-Con 2 controllers. It’s not something I found myself checking in on for more than 15-20 minutes, though, before moving back to the other areas of Mario Tennis Fever.
Camelot has developed many games for Nintendo over the years. Mario Tennis Fever feels like one of its best sports titles in ages, thanks to the strategy each Fever Racket adds to an already great baseline title. Using Fever Shots with your partner in a doubles match shakes things up in the best possible way. The more you play with a partner, the easier it is to build that synergy needed to win, and it pays off when relying on a partner who has your back on the courts.
If it isn’t already clear, Mario Tennis Fever is so much fun to play. The courts you play on are unlocked just like everything else is — by playing and enjoying the game. I’ll touch on a few courts which stand out, like the Wonder Court Match, inspired by Super Mario Bros. Wonder. Playing on this court sometimes sees an assortment of warp pipes appear, with Wonder Seeds appearing, tempting you to collect them on the court.
Verdict
Mario Tennis Fever is easily Nintendo’s best Mario-themed tennis game in ages. Filled with tons of racket types and characters to unlock, the fun you experience while playing online or against the CPU never falters or feels stale. I’ve had such a great time diving into the pretty solid Adventure mode and Trial Towers, and learning to use the right responses against opponents helps peel back the strategic layers the game adds through various racket types, improving the already fast pace Tennis normally brings.
[The publisher provided a copy of the game for review purposes.]
Reviewed on: Switch 2
