"A suprisingly decent little old-school 20-yr. old Tennis Game from Nintendo."

Ah yes Tennis one of the oldest Nintendo games ever made and one of the initial ''generic'' sports games made for the NES such as ''Golf'', ''Baseball'' and the like. However despite the fact that it was intentionally rather generic which is understandable. But unfortunately its gameplay is VERY average at-best which really hinders this game down quite plenty. However its never truly BAD in the gameplay department so its certainly not a terrible playing experience.

Its overall just simply about you playing against your opponent in a good old fashioned game of Tennis. (Though SMB's Mario does have a appearance here as the referee in this game which is kinda nice if you ask me.) But still the gameplay is quite nicely competent which makes it as a decent alternative if you don't have much of anything else to do. But it'll probably be a better experience for those who are more into Tennis games since it'll probably be more appealing to them. While its not too easy but its also not too hard which is nice so it offers a decent amount of challenge here. The music is also nicely decent little NES techno-ditties for the music in the game.

One other somewhat surprising thing about this game is that this is actually better than its port on the GBA's E-reader. The E-reader version of this game was surprisingly mediocre and rather just simply disappointing. Its gameplay was surprisingly weaker so the replay value went lower as well. Granted this kind of stuff is usually more for a different review but still its a very nice & pleasant surprise on how this was surprisingly better than its E-reader version.

So its just simply a nice little decent sports game for the NES not much more not much less. Its not terribly hard to find nor is it all that expensive at all so chances are it'll most likely be more for a small help in your NES collection if you have one. Those with higher standards will most likely be awfully disappointed but if you just see it as the light-weight little tennis game that it is. Chances are this alright little old-school title will at least do its purpose JUST fine.

+ Basic but really competent gameplay & graphics
+ A nice decent amount of challenge
+ Decent music
+ Its has a nice little appearance from Mario from the ''Super Mario Bros.'' games.
+ Its surprisingly better than its awfully disappointing version on the E-reader.
- Its still a VERY generic Tennis game despite the fact that its about 20 years old.
- Its a prime example of games that never really did anything truly wrong but never really did anything right.
- Its really more for more dedicated Tennis fans then anyone else.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 07/24/03, Updated 02/16/04