I've never been any good at Tennis games. I don't understand all the different types of shots and when they should be used.
Mario Tennis does nothing to help with this. Not only does it not have any kind of tutorial, but the only instructions don't even cover all the different shot types, let alone the mechanics (I guess this stuff was in the manual back in the day).
I looked it all up online, but unfortunately found some info to be wrong (you do not hold down a button to charge, it happens automatically as soon as you press any button) which caused a lot of frustration. Once I managed to figure it out I did start to enjoy the game more, but I still made a lot of mistakes that I just didn't understand. Sometimes I'd hit the ball and get an "out" or it'd be too weak and hit the net, and I honestly have no idea what kind of flowchart between what the opponent does and what I'm supposed to do is supposed to be to stop all this from happening. Sometimes I'd hit the ball back with a regular "normal" (top spin) shot and it'd go to the opponents side with the marking of a lob shot, and I have no idea how or why that happens. It's all very confusing for me.
The game does run well though. It doesn't have any kind of story mode, but it does have a lot of objectives for you. The most obvious and the one with the credits involved is beating the tournaments, both singles and doubles. The credits happen after the third cup, but it's possible to unlock more.
Even the basic exhibition matches have something for completionists in it, since there's a data tracker that fills in every single time you play character A vs character B, meaning to fully fill out this section you'd need to win as every character against every other character (on the hardest difficulty for 100% since the difficultly beaten at is also recorded). So it's better than some games of this genre at the time which would basically just assume you're playing for fun (casuals am I right) and not care about your wins or your progress.
I was honestly surprised by the character roster. This isn't the basic MK64 or Mario Party rosters. You have some pretty interesting choices, especially for the time. Boo, Paratroopa (but no Koopa), Birdo and Baby Mario (and JUST Baby Mario) are all fun choices. This is also the game that introduced Waluigi, so you have to love it for that.
There's some bonus stuff that can be unlocked via the transfer pack and the GBC Mario Tennis game, but obviously this can't be done on Switch. It looks like you just unlock the human OCs from that game, and some courts. Still a bummer to lose out on content though.
The game is fun, but I think it's a bit too reliant on already knowing a lot about tennis to play properly, and having to read external material just to realise there's more than 2 types of shots in the game.
Mario Tennis does nothing to help with this. Not only does it not have any kind of tutorial, but the only instructions don't even cover all the different shot types, let alone the mechanics (I guess this stuff was in the manual back in the day).
I looked it all up online, but unfortunately found some info to be wrong (you do not hold down a button to charge, it happens automatically as soon as you press any button) which caused a lot of frustration. Once I managed to figure it out I did start to enjoy the game more, but I still made a lot of mistakes that I just didn't understand. Sometimes I'd hit the ball and get an "out" or it'd be too weak and hit the net, and I honestly have no idea what kind of flowchart between what the opponent does and what I'm supposed to do is supposed to be to stop all this from happening. Sometimes I'd hit the ball back with a regular "normal" (top spin) shot and it'd go to the opponents side with the marking of a lob shot, and I have no idea how or why that happens. It's all very confusing for me.
The game does run well though. It doesn't have any kind of story mode, but it does have a lot of objectives for you. The most obvious and the one with the credits involved is beating the tournaments, both singles and doubles. The credits happen after the third cup, but it's possible to unlock more.
Even the basic exhibition matches have something for completionists in it, since there's a data tracker that fills in every single time you play character A vs character B, meaning to fully fill out this section you'd need to win as every character against every other character (on the hardest difficulty for 100% since the difficultly beaten at is also recorded). So it's better than some games of this genre at the time which would basically just assume you're playing for fun (casuals am I right) and not care about your wins or your progress.
I was honestly surprised by the character roster. This isn't the basic MK64 or Mario Party rosters. You have some pretty interesting choices, especially for the time. Boo, Paratroopa (but no Koopa), Birdo and Baby Mario (and JUST Baby Mario) are all fun choices. This is also the game that introduced Waluigi, so you have to love it for that.
There's some bonus stuff that can be unlocked via the transfer pack and the GBC Mario Tennis game, but obviously this can't be done on Switch. It looks like you just unlock the human OCs from that game, and some courts. Still a bummer to lose out on content though.
The game is fun, but I think it's a bit too reliant on already knowing a lot about tennis to play properly, and having to read external material just to realise there's more than 2 types of shots in the game.