Mario Tennis Open: 5/10

In recent years, there has been a heavy backlash against Nintendo that has resulted in dripping profits and much more criticism from game magazines and gamers alike. This would explain the weak 3DS sales, comatose Wii sales, Zelda not doing so well financially and critically, and rising skepticism about the Nintendo WiiU. And while I do address and agree with these criticisms about Nintendo’s lack of effort and actual care towards the Western Hemisphere gamers—I had been giving them mildly the benefit of the doubt.


Not this time.


Mario Tennis Open stinks. Seriously, it stinks. The sequel to arguably the greatest arcade tennis game of all time (N64’s Mario Tennis) is disappointment heaven with a lack of features, lack of effort, and minimal reason why this game should even be purchased. Instead of trying to move forward, Nintendo and Camelot took three steps back and what we have is the weakest Mario sports game since Mario Superstar Baseball.


Unlike previous Mario Tennis entries there are no cutscenes or even evidence of a plot. Unlike previous Mario Tennis games on the handhelds there is no RPG adventure that allows you to build experience points and become a better tennis player----and it would have made infinitely more sense now that Nintendo has allowed us to create avatars.


It gets worse.


Gone are all the gimmicky courts. Gone are the large lineups of playable characters. Gone is the challenge in later stages. Gone is the customization of previous entries. And to repeat because it’s still frustrating to realize---there is no RPG mode to this game---it’s literally just a couple tournaments, a few mini-games and nothing else. The tennis action is indeed fun sometimes, but with no depth you aren’t going far before feeling the disappointment caving in. The graphics aren’t much of an improvement, the 3-D and gyroscope does not enhance the experience by any means, and unless you have plenty of friends this game will get boring very, very, very quickly.


I have grown up with Mario. Mario is still my favorite game character because he has given us some of the greatest video games ever in a variety of genres. But this time, he really, really dropped the ball. Shame on Camelot for half-assing this box of sadness. And extra shame to Nintendo for allowing this to come out.