I had never actually played Mario Tennis Aces before now, but because of my short experiences with the other two Mario sports games on Switch and just the way that Nintendo currently makes their multiplayer party games like this nowadays, I wasn't really looking forward to it. As my rating would suggest however, Mario Tennis Aces was actually a really pleasant surprise of a game to me.

Starting with the gameplay, I'd say it's the best that Mario Tennis has ever been. There's a lot of variety in the kinds of basic shots you can do and each shot feels like it has a specific use as compared to another. Then there's the focus bar which builds naturally throughout the match and is used for several things being zone speed, zone shots, and special shot. Zone speed allows you to slow down time and move to where the ball is, it actively and pretty quickly depletes your focus bar as you use it though, so you have to be deliberate when you use it. Zone shots are able to be used when your bar is around a third of the way full and allow you to zoom in and use the gyro on the Switch to controller to aim directly where you want the ball to go, this is good for taking advantage of the spots on the court your opponent isn't covering and getting a point. Specials shots are nearly the same as zone shots, but you can activate them any time before you hit the ball and your gauge has to be completely full to do so, they do make the ball move much faster and are for the opponent to block however so there is reason to use them. Another unique mechanic in this game is the tennis racket durability system. Instead of being completely at your opponent's mercy when they use a zone or special shot you have the ability to block these by hitting the ball at the right time. The timing on this block is really strict and if you swing to hit the ball too early your rackets durability will go down, missing the timing like this three times will result in your racket breaking and the opponent getting an easy score because of it, this means that you always want to be intentional with how you're blocking shots like these otherwise it'll be detrimental to your chances of winning. In fact, the games and abundance of options makes it really stand out in the sea of Mario sports games, the depth when all of these skills are combined in a match is surprising and leads to matches that never feel like they play out the same way. The character roster in this game is also huge, you have your mainstays like Mario, Luigi and Peach but then you have the out there picks that I can't help but love like Spike, Fire Piranha Plant (no idea why it had to be the fire variety specifically but it's more random that way and therefore funny) and my beloved, Chain Chomp. If I had to say a weakest point of the gameplay though it'd probably be the tennis courts themselves. A lot of these are just basic tennis courts with no gimmicks but the ones that do have gimmicks don't really feel all that standout, this isn't a big complaint though as the gameplay is deep and fun enough to make up for the lack of outside factors effecting it.

I'd say the biggest thing that brings this game down though is its content or lack thereof. Like the other Mario tennis games there is a tournament mode here but unlike the other tournament modes (and to my great relief) that isn't the main single player mode here, that role is filled by the adventure mode. Adventure mode sees Mario hunting down five power stones across the island that this game takes place on in order to stop an evil sentient tennis racket that has possessed Luigi, Wario, and Waluigi, and I mean if that isn't peak storytelling, I don't know what is. This takes place across a top down large interconnected world map with challenges and different areas along the way. What was refreshing about this was that not everything was just a simple tennis match, there were tutorials, minigames, and unique boss fights along the way that were actually pretty fun and taught you the mechanics of the game in a way that felt natural. For the most part this mode was great, but my main complaint is that it was over just as it was getting started, to put it in perspective I started this today and finished it within 3 hours. Another minor gripe is that you have to play as Mario the whole time (except for a one doubles match where you play as Peach and Daisy), I would've appreciated a system that allowed you to recruit characters and change into them as you go but unfortunately that just wasn't the case, I'm sorry Chain Chomp, you'll get your spot in the sunlight one day. Apart from this there's all the other modes you'd expect in a game like this, free play, ring shit, and of course tournament mode but that's about it. A reason for this game being light on content is that this was the beginning of the wi-fi era of these games, meaning that the Nintendo would focus on pushing you to play online to get your money's worth here rather than actually filling the game with super meaningful content like in Mario sports games past, it's a bad excuse but there's nothing to be done about it.

Overall, I'd say I had a surprisingly good time with Mario Tennis Aces. The core gameplay is really deep and fun to master and the adventure mode, though short, was pretty good. It might be light on single player content and the online might be dead empty now, but I still had a decent amount of fun with the game for what it is.

Played this game competitively for around 4 years and I can say with confidence that this game is good but nothing special.
Its 3 main complaints are that it was crazy unbalanced on launch with Bowser Jr, Waluigi and Peach being completely busted, the 2nd being it had a lackluster story mode and the 3rd being it was a 'finish it later game'. There are elements of truth to all those statements and I understand these complaints but there is also some dishonesty to these statements aswell. Firstly, the blatant balance issues on launch were improved upon within a few months and balance changes were shipped out for another year (for a relatively niche multiplayer game btw) leaving the game in a relatively balanced state that we see today (there are still some complaints of course but that is the natural course any competitive game takes when enough time has passed). As for the 2nd complaint, I would mostly agree, its single player is pretty lazy but I never really saw it as the main appeal of the game which is in its core gameplay. As for complaint 3 there were definitely alot of features that should have been in the game day 1 but as for adding new characters each month, I don't see how that is a 'finish it later' decision as the roster was already stacked on day 1 and it takes time to introduce new characters with their own unique gimmicks.
As for my own gripes with the game: the matchmaking is outdated and doesn't work with such a small playerbase, Option Select was never patched, some characters are absolutely useless like Kamek and Rosa, the music is infectiously annoying and alot of customisation options are locked behind boring multiplayer modes which noone plays.
7/10 is honestly pretty generous given all of that but I value the core tennis gameplay that much

The core tennis gameplay is the best it's ever been here, it does get a little confusing to follow sometimes but that's just me not bothering to put more time into learning it.

This game suffers from a lack of content past the story mode and core base game, the nature of these kind of games just leads to them getting stale after a while.

The story mode has it's moments and it's cool having boss fights and a world map. Some of the challenges even asks a bit more of the player with some puzzles which was sometimes pretty cool, other times frustrating. As a Golden Sun fan this stuff just has me imagining how a current gen revival of that series would look
It does however have an abysmal difficulty curve with some of the opponents and challenges having downright broken AI.