tommy_lop's Full Review: Mario Tennis for Nintendo 64
When Mario's not rescuing the princess from Bowser or another evil person: He's playing golf, beating the heck out of the other Nintendo mascot, and throwing party’s. But his favorite game is Tennis. After umpring several tennis games, he is back playing tennis for the 2nd time (yes the 2nd time anybody remember the Mario Tennis game for the awful Virtual boy system.).
Graphics:
The graphics are on par with Mario Golf. While they’re not masterpieces and the characters to have a little bit of an edge to them, but there not bad and do suit the game.
Sound.
The music in the game fits the high pace mood of the game; and the tune they play when it's game point will definitely get the pressure up. They also have the usual Mario voice clips. Mario and friends have the same voices has they always do, with Yoshi getting his Yoshi's story voice back. The characters cheer, whine, moan, and cry when they loose.
Gameplay.
There are 3 things I look for in a tennis game. It must be fast, it must be fun, and above all it can't be some over hype version of pong. This is where Mario Tennis succeeds and so many ways.
There are 16 characters and there are about 4 classes. There's Power, speed, technique, and tricky. Also each character have different physical attributes; that effect the game to. For example wider and taller characters will be able to defend the net better, while smaller and faster characters will be able to defend the backcourt.
There are different types of shoots to. There is the lob shot, drop shop, power slam, and the charge shot has far the special, and then there the usual spin and slice shot. Each shot goes a different height, speed, and length. This means you will have to use some strategy to the game instead of just hitting the ball back and forth. For example a good way to beat toad is to hit him a drop shot that barley makes it past the net; he will have to run up to the net and hit it. Take this opportunity to attack the net with a lob shot or power slam to the opposite side of the court, and prepare to hear Marie say 15-love.
Besides playing a typical game of tennis you also have ring challenge, Piranha challenge, and a Bowser castle court.
Ring challenges just like Mario golf you have to hit the ball thorough the rings and beat your opponent. The game can get hard has the rings required get higher.
Piranha challenge.
This is basically a practice game the whole idea is to hit the ball that the piranha shoots at you past your opponent. This can help you get use to your character, and the different shots. There is a special court you can unlock thorough if you get all 50 balls that are shot at you in this mode.
Bowser court.
To make the game has wacky has possible they put this in there. It's a tribute to Mario kart. In the game you can hit your ball into item cubes giving you different items. The items go from mushrooms to boos your speed, to shells you can use has missiles at other players.
Unlockables.
This is a Nintendo game so of course there is going to be some unlockable secrets. These include two characters (DK Jr, and shy guy.), several courts with a certain character theme (there is a Mario bros. and a DK court), and 3 cups to unlock in tournament mode. These should keep any tennis fan busy for a while.
Characters:
Unlike Mario golf where half the characters really didn’t fit in with the Italian plumber, our mascot friends. This time there is only one new guy and that is Wauigi, but he looks so much like a Mario character that he fits right in. All the other characters are: Mario, Luigi, Peach, Baby Mario, DK, (yes he is a Mario character he was one before the rest of them in the original DK arcade game), Yoshi, Paratroopa, DK Jr., Wario, Wauigi, Daisy (Took Toadstools place in super Mario land), Toad, Brido, Bowser, Boo, and Shy Guy. Like I said before each of these characters have different status, and size which will make you change your strategy whenever you change characters.
All in all Mario Tennis is a must rent, if not buy game for Mario and tennis fans.
Created by the same perfectionists who gave us Mario Golf, Mario Tennis 64 mixes the cartoon universe of Mushroom Kingdom with the unlikely sport of t...More at eBay
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