Mario Tennis Open (3DS) [Review]

Mario's been in a lot of sports games, from baseball to soccer, even basketball (with Final Fantasy characters!).  Out of all the sports though, the one he seems to come back to the most is tennis (with golf in a close second).  From Mario's Tennis on the poor old Virtual Boy to New Play Control! Mario Power Tennis on the Wii there's been a lot of friggin' tennis titles featuring the Italian plumber.  Why not add one more to the pile with Mario Tennis Open for 3DS?



With so many previous tennis outings under his belt, Nintendo has of course added (and subtracted) a few things to freshen up the experience.  Gone are Mario Power Tennis' super moves, which honestly is a blessing.  Although the animations that ensued were cute and entertaining (and gave the characters, well, more character) watching them over and over again was no fun, and dulled the intensity of long vicious volleys between players.  In their stead are "chance shots", colored panels that appear on the ground of different colors, emblazoned with different Mario-related symbols.  When these appear, you gotta run over to them and then hit the right buttons that match their corresponding shot to let loose a volley that is almost unstoppable.  At first it takes a bit to learn what colors match what buttons (or combination of buttons) but once you get it it's pretty simple and fun.  Other new features include playable Miis with unlockable, customizable clothes and a stable of decent enough mini-games.  There's multiplayer too, local and online, which works great, but has all the features one would expect from an online mode in a Nintendo game-- another words, it's completely bare-bones.  The ability to take your customized Mii online and see how they fair against other players is cool, but seems like it unbalances the game a bit, with some clothes combinations having definite advantages over others.

The graphics are pretty good, with the bright cartoony quality one would expect from a Mario game.  The designs for the Mii clothes are also really cool, each making reference to some Mario item or enemy.  Hell, I'd wear some of the designs in real life (sign me up for a par of Bullet Bill shoes!).  The stereoscopic 3D effect is, of course, in the game and it works, but is nothing to write home about.  Basically the graphics are good and more than passable, but don't present anything surprising that you wouldn't already expect.

There's a whole stable of playable characters (at least over 12) with some unlockable by completing various challenges and a veritable rainbow of Yoshis you can obtain by scanning QR codes Nintendo has strategically spread around the internets.  While it is cool that so many awesome Mario characters show up, their appearance is kind of pointless-- you are going to want to play as your Mii.  I never once had the desire to play as anyone else, except in cases where I could unlock more stuff for my Mii.  When the entirety of the game's meta game revolves around unlocking clothing and customizing your Mii, why would you want to be anybody else?

Speaking of the customization meta-game, once you unlock the opportunity to purchase different items, you then must earn enough coins to buy them from the store.  This sounds perfectly harmless, except the only way you can earn coins is by farming them from the various mini-games.  If you like the mini-games (I particularly liked Super Mario Tennis, where you rebound the ball back and forth on a screen playing the original Super Mario Bros., collecting coins and squashing the enemies within) this isn't so much of a problem, but if none of the mini-games tickle your fancy (and they are all pretty simplistic) or if you've already obtained the characters you can unlock, this can fast become a tiring chore.  If they added a coin prize to exhibition or tournament matches it would completely fix the issue, but for some reason they did not, so I hope you enjoy grinding for coins!

The main mode of play, Tournament mode, is fun enough for awhile, but eventually starts to feel like a chore too.  Volley the ball, hit a chance panel, score, rinse, repeat.  The game doesn't start to get challenging until the last few tournaments, and the matches go from being a few sets to a mind-numbingly long (and fairly difficult) five set final match.  The game is fun in small doses, but long time plays become pretty tiring.

In the end, Mario Tennis Open  is good enough to warrant purchasing if you're in to Mario or Mario sports titles, but it's nothing surprising.  Nintendo didn't go above and beyond the call of duty with this one like say, Kid Icarus: Uprising or Super Mario 3D Land did, but it's certainly passable.  It's not a bad game by any means, just not as good as it should be.

PXT Final Verdict: 7.5/10