Mario Tennis: Power Tour

"Just Like The Original...Not That Thats A Bad Thing."

Mario Tennis: Power Tour continues the series of Mario Tennis games that have been seen on the GBC, N64 and GC, and is strongly resembled to the GBC game in terms of Gameplay, with the addition of power shots that were first added to the GC version of the series. Anyone who has played the GBC version will feel as though they have already played this game before, for the most part, yet as the original was such a great game this is far from being any real flaw, and allows you to take a somewhat upgraded version of the game around with a DS or Gameboy Micro. Suffice to say, if you have enjoyed any of the previous Mario Tennis games, or have any interest in the sport at all, you will enjoy this game.

GAMEPLAY - 9

Despite the somewhat misleading title, the game is mainly focused around you taking control of a young up and coming tennis player, and helping them rise through the ranks of The Academy, which seems to be a kind of school for gifted young tennis players. You are able to choose either the boy Clay or the girl Ace to play as (the names can be changed), whether they are a "lefty" or a "righty", as well as an initial two and eventual three difficulty modes. If you played the GBC version enough, you should have no problem in winning, although the cheap drop shot tactic that was very useful in the original has lost its effect.

The bulk of the game revolves around you defeating opponents and raising through the ranks in order to make The Island Open, a kind of tournament in which the best players from four tennis schools compete. You can play in either singles or doubles mode and, thankfully, your partners AI seems quite a lot better than in the GBC version. In both play modes you need you rise to the top in the junior courts, the senior courts and finally Varsity before going to the Island Open. If this tournament is won, another tournament more true to the games title is unlocked. For some reason each set is a first to two games affair now, instead of first to six. While this does make easy opponents quick and easy to defeat, it does take away from the epic feel of some of the harder opponents.

Additional to the main story is the training court, where you can learn how to improve on certain aspects of your game (such as serving) and gain experience for doing so. As well as this is a great number of mini games, all of which help improve your skills. The two main ones, Wall Practice and Tennis Machine help with your accuracy and reward you with very sizable amounts of experience for meeting set objectives. As well as this is the all-new PS training area, in which simple mini-games (of varying enjoyment) are played in order to improve PS stats which will eventually reward you with this games main new feature from the original - power shots. While I personally found these mainly annoying in the GC version, they are used to good effect here as you "equip" both an offensive and defensive power shot to the A and B buttons. The more you play these games and upgrade your PS stats, the better your power shots will be, although you will not be able to use them in rallies until they have "powered up" after a few normal strokes.

After each match you will be assigned a certain number of experience points that you can distribute between your character and your partner. You can distribute how you like, although ignoring your partners stats will only cause you strife later on. For each level that is gained, a point can be put into either Power, Control, Side Spin or Speed. If any of these is ignored for awhile, its stat will slowly decrease, so it is generally a good idea to keep all of them equal. As well as this there are additional stats: Serve, Stroke, Volley, Top spin and Slice, which also are best kept equal to each other. In this way there is a great variety of ways in which you can customise both your characters, which is a very nice feature.

All characters that are played against can then be taken on in exhibition mode which, disappointingly, manages to somehow have less Mario characters than the GBC version...work that one out. This mode does seem to have less than the original both in terms of characters and courts, but is still a very fun experience. You can choose to have power shots either on or off, either 1, 3 or 5 sets and either 2 or 6 games in a set, so you can finally have your mammoth 6 game 5 set match against Mario, which is why Im sure you would ever buy this game in the first place.

All mini-games can be played again from the main screen, but lack the fun of the GBC minigames. They arent all that bad, just not particularly noteworthy. This game also comes complete with multiplayer mode, which I am sure would be awesome based on previous games, and the great gameplay of this version, and if you know someone else who is thinking of getting this game then Im sure that would be a blast.

All in all there is no real difficulty here, but this is more than made up for in the amount of fun the games have, which is all that should matter anyway.

SOUND - 8

Nice, looped tunes play in each match and while wandering outside of them. Nothing distracting, just nice background tunes which probably repeat just a little too often.

CONTROLS - 8.5

The game keeps the basic controls of the original, adding in the use of the R button for power shots. As control is actually a stat in this game, the ball will not really go where you want it to early on, but is fine once you have your stats up nice and high. While there are a number of special shots such as lobs, drop shots, backhand strokes and forehand strokes, you can easily enough play most rallies just pressing the A button, which makes it a very easy game to play right from the start

GRAPHICS - 9

The game is on a whole quite nice looking, particularly the power shots, which are very impressive. The environments are all very well designed, and is nothing less than you would expect on the GBA. For a game like this, if the graphics were too good it would get in the way of the game itself, but luckily this never happens.

LASTIBILITY - 9.5

Until quite recently I still played the GBC version, and as this game is shockingly similar, I see no reason why this one wont be the same. The actual story mode can be finished in around 10 hours, but the harder difficulty unlocked after this means you need to play through again to fully finish the game, and the gameplay itself is so solid that a quick exhibition match will always be lots of fun.

OVERALL - 8.5

If you are any fan of the previous Mario Tennis games, or enjoy tennis at all, then there is no reason why you should not get this game. Even if you do not like tennis it does not matter. Hell, I dont really like tennis, just like I dont like golf, but once again Nintendo and Camelot have managed to make a game based on a sport that not everyone likes very fun and enjoyable to play. If you are looking for something new from the GBC version you wont find it here, but otherwise this is a great game that you should seriously consider adding to your collection.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 12/26/05