I Love Tennis And Video Games—Mario Tennis Fever Is My Dream Match

Even without the series’s famous special attacks, Mario Tennis Fever has an excellent arcade-style tennis foundation. Pulling off basic shots, such as lobs and slices, is as simple as pressing a button. However, with the right finesse, you can angle shots to control the court and keep opponents running. On the defensive side, characters intuitively slide when reaching for defensive hits. When I played tennis in high school, I was always much better at volleying up close at the net, and that applies here, too. Matches move at a rapid pace, accompanied by thunderous sound effects. I found playing the game without the gimmicks activated is entertaining in its own right, either with buttons or with motion controls à la Nintendo Switch Sports.

For me, the value of turning a sport into a video game is introducing ideas that are impossible in real life. Mario Tennis Fever tosses realism out the window with its big hook: Fever Rackets. Each of these rackets is a unique weapon that grants the wielder a special ability. Some are aggressive, like launching fireballs across the net, while others offer a stat boost, such as a burst of speed. You activate these effects by building up your meter during a match and unleashing a decisive Fever Shot.

(Credit: Nintendo/PCMag)

If that sounds like a fighting game to you, that’s because Mario Tennis Fever continues the tradition of its predecessor, Mario Tennis Aces, a sports title with fighting spirit. Windjammers players know what I’m talking about. Fever reworks and carries over some of Aces’ more complex mechanics, such as manually aiming your big shots and depleting your opponent’s health. Like a fighting game, there are special attacks, a flow between offensive and defensive play, and a heavy emphasis on proper positioning. You may use a racket instead of fists, but there’s little difference between a knockout fighting game match and these fearsome tennis duels.

However, Aces systems were both more universal and more technical. In that game, you constantly juggled between different twitchy actions that drew from the same meter. It was thrilling to discover this depth, but by the end of the game’s lifespan, die-hards had developed optimal playstyles. Therefore, high-level matches became repetitive exercises to see who could best execute, an endurance test not unlike real tennis

Mario Tennis Fever, in comparison, is a bit less demanding but allows for far more variety. You can only spend your meter on Fever shots, but the game’s 30 creates many fascinating combinations. I had to rethink my strategies every time I encountered a new racket that fundamentally changed the gameplay. When your opponent returns balls as high-speed Bullet Bill projectiles, it’s like you’re engaged in a boss fight that requires perfect parry timing. When I spawned a falling Thwomp, it hovered above my opponent like a trap waiting to spring.

Mario Tennis Fever

(Credit: Nintendo/PCMag)

Even with these wild effects, Fever Rackets are surprisingly balanced. Although they can definitely turn the tide of the match, I never felt like I won or lost solely because of a single power-up. You still must work for each point. Speedy players who return a Fever Shot before it bounces reverse its effect back at the attacker. After five grueling sets, I secured a glorious championship point by baiting Bowser into his own lava hazard, which I reversed, using a precisely aimed Fever Shot. You can bring two different Fever Rackets into a match and swap them between serves, which opens up even more strategic options. While Aces had fantastic tricks, Fever Rackets are an expressive and imaginative holistic system, an awesome evolution. It makes you want to train your basic skills and experiment with these possibilities.

Fortunately, the rest of Mario Tennis Fever gives you plenty of ways to keep exploring its mechanical potential.