 |
 |
| Mario Power Tennis Reviewed by Pirate Yoshi Over-view: After a long chain of racing titles, parties, and even a golf outing (not to mention the dozens of platformers he's become known for), Mario was due to try his gloved hand at something new. His target was tennis, and his style was Nintendo-esque. With gimic courts that shook and tilted, shots that could curve and soar, and characters that were icons to video gamers in general, Mario Tennis proved to be one of Mario's greatest adventures ever, even though Goomba-stomping and Koopa-pummeling were not even part of the game! Now, years later, Nintendo has returned Mario's quest on the courts to the Nintendo GameCube! Was this long-shot an ace or a fault? It's time to get off the net and take a side! SERVICE! Graphics: 9.5/10 Mario Power Tennis may not boast Soul Calibur-quality graphics, but it shines through as another great example of just what the GCN is capable of. Similar to each of the Mario Parties and Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour, every character is very detailed, and the courts are beautiful. What really stands out, however, are the plentiful, awesome-looking cut scenes, which must have required a lot of hard work, because they came out fantastic! THIS game alone proves why Nintendo needs to come up with a computer-animated Super Mario Bros. movie. Fine work by a fine bunch of people! Sound: 5.8/10 Speaking in terms of sound, I was let down by Mario Power Tennis. As always, the voice acting was superb (specifically Wario and Waluigi, but WHEN will Birdo's original voice return???), and the sound effects are decent--nothing to brag about, but decent--but WHERE WAS THE MUSIC? And why wasn't it better? Listening to the credits song--the song you definately expect to be great--actually bummed me out more, because the song was so poorly composed and VERY anti-exciting. I felt like the music was a definite stab in the back to the name of Mario, because one of the strong points of every Mario game is its unusually bouncy, addictive tunes. Mario Power Tennis has virtually none to speak of. Controls: 9/10 Again, this catagory does not come without its complaints. While everything was relatively in order, and the game even comes with multiple control options for experts, beginners, and mediocre-players, there were a few flaws. First, the lob/slice hitting system can be difficult to work to your advantage sometimes, with random charging when not needed, and the occaisional complete miss due to poor gauge in distance. Secondly, spiking the ball over the net can be very ineffective and hard to pull off, due to the requirement of exact timing of the A an B button presses. Finally, movement feels a little delay, a little stuffy, and--in some circumstances--too bulky to control tight enough to keep up with the game. I've magnified these problems to a lot larger of a scale than anyone will probably ever notice, though, so don't lose sleep over them. Challenge: 6/10 Simply simple. The game is very straightforward, and the difficulty is admittedly weak. Some later games may feel like nailbiters and clinchers, but it should also be remembered that it seems like the player dominates every game, rather than the computer opponent. While the final matches may prove to have some pretty wild (and long!) volleys, there's not much to winning, and if you somehow do lose a match, retrying is as simple as starting the match again from the beginning. If you have not saved before the match, you *may* need to start over again from the last time you saved; I don't know for sure because I never lost a match in this game. I don't say this to brag or talk up my skills, and I firmly believe that I'm not uber-awesome at this game. However, it does reflect the kind of challenge presented. How many games can you open up, put in your system, and play straight through without ever suffering a loss? Simple, very few. Mario Power Tennis happens to be one of them. Gameplay: 6.5/10 Rather lackluster performance here. Mario Power Tennis, in general, proved to be a revamped copy of Mario Tennis for N64. Bigger graphics, new courts, new modes, but--in general--simply Mario Tennis for a second time. A particularly weak chip in the game's reputation was its lack of all original characters, also. In fact, I'm still trying to compare which of the two actually had more playable characters! It's very sad that a game made back on the N64 should not have improved much at all over the original, if at all. While the new Power Hits (one defensive and one offensive) are very clever and fun to watch, they can seem more frustrating at times than helpful, mainly because it seems that the computer ALWAYS has a better use of them than a player ever will. So much more could have been done with this game that it really breaks up an otherwise solid performance. Replay: 7/10 Not incredibly often is the replay score for a game better than its Gameplay score. Mario Power Tennis is one occaision on which it is. Surprisingly, it's more worth your while to buy Power Tennis for repeat games at parties than it is to play through on your first try. After winning every tournament, you won't have much left to do other than replay different mini-games, which come in a wide variety and make up a rather massive collection. The mini-games, in fact, may be the redeeming factor to the entire game! While none are exceptionally fun, most are adequate for absorbing some time, testing your skills, and generally tossing some fun twists your way. Multiplayer mode could have used some touching up, however, specifically the horrendous Item Battle. **Story: 1/1 I'd be a little concerned about giving the full bonus point here for story, considering there really isn't a whole lot of backstory to it, and the theme--playing Tennis--is very dry and not at all amusing. The intro video, however, is so spectacular (and neatly conveys the on-going conflict between not only the Wario and Mario Bros, but also works in Bowser's own role) that it'd be a crime not to give it credit. And, to top it off, the credits have outtake videos! Most are, admittedly, pretty lame, but there's a few decent ones, particularly for the second role of outtakes for clearing the harder tournaments. **Multiplayer: .3/1 This catagory should have been an easy point, but due to the horrible Item Battle mode, I've docked it. In the past, Item Battle--the use of special items against your enemies over the net--has been a blast, but this year? No good. The problem comes down to the pure chaos that ensues as soon as the ball is vollied: first, items rain down from the opposite side of the net. Something hits your character and he freezes. A flurry of objects cover the court and the ball easily becomes lost. You hear sound effects going off like crazy, and start jamming buttons in an attempt to kill anyone that can possibly be killed. Your item disappears, but nothing happens. The ball goes out of bounds somehow in a messy cloud of random things, and the point is awarded to someone, anyone, whom you could never even notice during the ambush of terrifying weaponry being unleashed. In one word: commotion. There's just too much darn commotion to play even a semi-solid game of tennis, let alone HITTING THE BALL OVER THE NET. The Item Battle isn't even worth playing, because it's too hard to distinguish items from the ball from the court from the players, and this is without playing on a gimmick court! The other Multiplayer modes aren't any more interesting, and even though a Doubles co-op option for Tournament mode would have been sweet, it wasn't included in the game. Sorry, but this game was a mess, and the multiplayer mode does not help it much at all. Graphics: 9.5/10 Sound: 5.8/10 Controls: 9/10 Challenge: 6/10 Gameplay: 6.5/10 Replay: 7/10 **Story: 1/1 **Multiplayer: .3/1 Total Score: 7.5 Score Explanation: Roughly accurate, give or point a little bit. I predicted between an 8 or a 7, so this is hardly different from where I believed Mario Power Tennis would place. A fine rent, a fair buy, and it makes for a decent party title, but I'm sure you can do better for fifty dollars, and outside of the technical victories, there's a lot missing from this title that could have made it an easy triumph over the original. |