Mario Tennis Fever doesn't change the formula much, but rallies are so good it barely matters

Your pull down of enthusiasm for Mario lawn tennis febricity potential depends on how many of the previous entries of the long-running sports serial you've played in the past.

Nintendo's plumber mascot has been throwing down aces at the court in this spinoff by Japanese third-party studio Camelot since 2000. Fever, out this week for the Switch 2, is the ninth entry. (Mario has been a tennis fan almost as long as he's been a plumber; he made a cameo as the official in 1984's Tennis for Game Boy.)

The foundation of the game remains incredibly strong: tense and exciting tennis matches, with a dizzying array of options and fantastical flourishes. Longtime players will be disappointed by its underwhelming single-player Adventure mode.

Still, it's a much-needed addition to the Switch 2's exclusive games lineup, which has seen mixed results in its first year on sale.

The basics of Mario Tennis Fever are approachable to just about anyone who can wrap their head around the actual game's scoring system. Players choose one or two characters from the extended Mario universe for singles or doubles play. 

Running around the court and smacking a tennis ball remains as enjoyable as ever. Controls are tight and responsive, provided you know your character's strengths and weaknesses. Smacking the ball with a racket sounds as impactful as a major hit at a Grand Slam, but accelerated with rocket fuel. Vivid colours paint the arenas in the reds and greens typical of a Mario game, but the clay or grassy court floors have a realistic, toothsome feel to them.

Every character falls into a handful of basic styles — speedy, powerful, technical and the like.

Mario is an all-rounder, friendly to new players. Heavyweights like Donkey Kong and Bowser predictably have powerful overhead smashes but are slower to dash and lunge toward a twisting return.

Things get stranger with some characters, however, which require deft adjustments from the player. Rosalina, the mystical character from Super Mario Galaxy (to be played by Brie Larson in the upcoming movie), floats slowly above the court, unencumbered by surface types. The diminutive Koopa Troopa slides and careens around on its turtle shell, more like a hockey puck on ice.

Fever rackets are the star attraction this time: After choosing your character, you also choose a racket that can occasionally trigger special fever shots when returning the ball.

Most take the form of stage hazards for your opponent, setting part of their side of the court on fire, or scattering slippery banana peels on the ground. Others will make you run faster or even create a clone to serve as an extra computer-controlled player for a short time.

Fever shots are so powerful that matches often become a race to throw as many of them as possible. Cleverly, though, their effects don't actually trigger until the ball bounces on the court — meaning your opponent can turn your own power against you.

A rally can devolve into joyful chaos, with players frantically returning the ball back and forth to avoid falling to the fever shot's effects.

A handful of Mix It Up modes further twist the experience: a gigantic pinball table where bumpers knock both players and tennis balls in all directions, and a Wonder mode takes the reality-bending effects from Super Mario Bros. Wonder, replacing tennis balls with dozens of floating hippos crowding the airspace, for example.

For pure living room chaos, you can try out Swing mode, using the Joy-Con controllers as mildly imprecise virtual rackets — like you might have done in Wii Sports nearly 20 years ago. (Yes, 20. I don't like it either.)

A single-player Adventure story mode starts off with potential, with tutorials designed to teach the basics to newcomers and throwing in some Mario Party-like mini-games — trying to catch tennis balls while being shuttled along a wide conveyor belt, for example. Unfortunately, it only lasts a few hours and most of the games lose their novelty after two or three plays.

The story is nonsensical: It begins with Princess Daisy bedridden with a mystery sickness, and Mario and Luigi transformed into babies by monsters. They then have to relearn their tennis skills, because it might help them repel the monsters' magical attacks? I don't know. Youngsters might find some laughs here, but it otherwise feels like a distraction.

Mario Tennis Fever is proof that the formula is as solid as it was on the Nintendo 64 decades ago — best played on a couch with friends, instead of online (though that option is available). It stands out even more today when there are few high-profile tennis video games on the console market.

Yet the untapped potential of the Adventure mode and the disappointingly small number of Mix It Up modes can make the high cost of entry — $100 Cdn, in line with the Switch 2's higher cost per game compared to its predecessor — a difficult serving, even for fans.

Journalist

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