Mario Tennis Fever, a party animal suffering from loneliness – Switch 2 Review

Mario Tennis is one of Nintendo's plumber's most prolific spin-off series, yet it's been since Power Tennis for GameCube and GBA (now more than twenty years ago) that Camelot hasn't churned out a truly noteworthy installment. Will this Mario Tennis Fever, coming out in a few days on Switch 2, be the one?

The element that characterizes this new adventure on the Mushroom Kingdom's tennis courts is the introduction of "frenzy rackets," which replace the characters' special attacks. There are dozens of them, and each, once the appropriate bar is charged, allows you to unleash a powered-up shot that places traps in the opponent's half of the court or provides temporary bonuses to the player.

Fireballs, shadow clones, banana peels, icy surfaces, balls that turn into Bullet Bills, and rackets into frying pans—variety is certainly not lacking, and the chaos that ensues is indescribable, especially in doubles matches. The beauty is that many of the properties only take effect when the ball bounces, so the opponent can respond in time to try and steal them, generating heated rallies made even more nerve-wracking by the unprecedented health bar that inexorably diminishes, with an immediate K.O. in singles and a brief retirement in doubles.

It's an effective mechanic, but I didn't appreciate some aspects of its implementation. Activating a "frenzy shot" requires positioning yourself perfectly in front of the incoming ball, so our character will run quickly to get into position and attack. The problem is that if the ball is very distant, or worse, not perfectly aligned and faster than him, we will see him sprint in vain and miss easy shots, which is annoying in decisive moments. I'm sure a compromise could have been found, perhaps along the lines of the old Super Shots. It's understandable not to be able to use them lightly, but losing points due to clumsy collisions is not fun at all.

Frenzy rackets play an important role in matches, but they are not always the center of attention (and can be deactivated). In such moments, one relies on the fundamentals of the sport, and from this point of view, Mario Tennis Fever offers one of its best interpretations. The arcade game formula is as intuitive and easy to grasp as ever, but it offers a lot of options for more experienced players. The three basic shots—topspin, slice, and flat shots—come in standard and powered-up versions (depending on whether you press the assigned button once or twice), for a total of eight possible responses along with the classic lobs and drop shots.

The roster is also immense, with a whopping 38 characters, each with a custom-tailored set of stats and peculiar abilities to build one's playstyle around. Plumbers, princesses, babies, and the usual suspects make up a good part of the catalog, but there are also welcome returns and new entries that will please those looking for less orthodox approaches. And there's still room for some additions.

Let's move on to the Story mode. The opening moments of this new adventure are a rollercoaster of emotions, and not exactly good ones. It all begins with a backstory narrated through static images, and I already feared a half-hearted effort. But then a long and colorful cutscene starts, kicking off the events, with Mario and Luigi trying to save the day, while Wario and Waluigi cause a ruckus and invoke ancient curses. The hype builds even more as we are taken to the tennis academy and introduced to the RPG component, anticipating an experience similar to the old handheld installments... and it's just a tutorial. A long and verbose tutorial.

For what seems like an eternity (which, by the way, takes up almost half the campaign), good old Toad explains what the various shots are for, throwing us into improbable mini-games to help Baby Mario regain his strength and defeat the villains with rackets. The player has no input on his growth; the baby's level and stats will increase arbitrarily, and we will be guided through the entire procedure. We can actually repeat the trials to unlock more "difficult" versions and further power up Baby Mario, but there's no real need (and to be honest, I only realized it after the credits).

The challenges on the island are actually quite nice, but the whole thing ends in less than three hours without particular headaches. No secrets. Zero replayability. It's okay to guide newcomers to the genre, but there's already an interactive tutorial, complete with notions and rules not even mentioned during the story. Given the context, a detail that would have enhanced the package, in my opinion, is a more ironic direction for the dialogues, similar to Mario & Luigi or Paper Mario, instead of the hodgepodge of sterile, uninspired office phrases.

Then we have the inevitable tournaments, six in total, three in singles and three in doubles. It's a shame there are no "star characters" (the powered-up version of regular ones), and that the special courts are few and hidden in a corner of the menu. There was enough material to quadruple the amount of content, encourage the use of more tennis players, and unleash Ace-level CPUs, relegated to quick matches. The Challenge Tower is already more interesting, with three paths of ten random trials taken from a pool of 100 (which can be tackled individually if desired), but it ends too quickly.

Those who primarily aim to have fun in multiplayer are spoiled for choice, locally with up to four players, on the same console, wirelessly, or via GameShare, or online, competitively or in private rooms. There's even a Swing mode to play with the Joy-Con motion sensors like in Wii Tennis, and numerous options to customize the experience. In single-player, however, you get bored quickly. It took me less than ten hours to unlock everything, the difficulty is lacking, and incentives are scarce. Does Nintendo have a series of post-launch updates in store to save the day? With Aces, it more or less worked, but the initial impression suffers...

From a technical standpoint, characters and courts are quite detailed, and special effects abound. In general, the presentation is very pleasing to the eye, with fluid animations and well-crafted textures, especially clothes, shells, and scales. However, the quality of the models is inconsistent, as in the case of Donkey Kong, whose fur has a strange "lacquered" effect similar to the hair of human characters. Curiously, Diddy Kong doesn't seem to have this problem. Performance is solid, loading times are short, and the story scenarios are underwhelming.

The music reflects the competitive spirit of the series and is pleasant to listen to. In the clangor of matches, it often fades into the background, especially with frenzy rackets around, but that was to be expected. What I wish would shut up is that damned talking flower. Its comments in Super Mario Bros. Wonder weren't annoying; they were occasional and specific to that moment. Here, it never closes its beak. You can turn it off, but for some reason, not in tournaments (I excuse it in the campaign, where it acts as our "chaperone"). It's enough to drive you crazy.

I'd like to conclude with a personal note. To announce the winners of games and matches, it was decided to reuse the commentator from Power Tennis (at least in the Italian version, I don't know about elsewhere). The same one from two decades ago. I'm happy about his return, however, no new dialogue lines were recorded, so to compensate for the absence of names not present on GameCube, it was preferred to cut all references to the cast, both at court changes and during serves, and it shows (or at least I notice it, having been there at the time). Wasn't there a more elegant solution? If only there were another voice ready for use. Wait...