I was very into Top Spin 4, as well as the PSP version of Everybody’s Tennis. I wanted another tennis game badly… enter Mario Tennis Aces!

The story mode was quite fun with some pretty tough stages - the reflection room, and the 400 shot rally with that damn mast in the middle comes to mind. The annoying thing was that if you lose a challenge, you would get booted back to the map, and have to sit through the story dialogue again. Thankfully, they’ve since patched it so that you have the option to retry right away.

My character of choice is Daisy. I like that she has a realistic physique (relatively speaking), and plays like a normal tennis player would. Non of those weird looking groundstrokes for me thanks. I also make her into a lefty because when I’m hitting an inside-out forehand, it feels Rafa-like :)

Playing online was fun for the most part. Unfortunately I was never able to win a tournament. There were many players using either Bowser Jr. or Waluigi, who were pretty broken that first month or two (they’ve since been nerfed). As the playerbase decreased, it eventually became quite difficult to find matches. I really wished that there was a ranked mode, rather than tournaments only. The fact that not as many people play simple mode also disappointed me, as I much prefer it to standard mode, with its trick shots and other shenanigans. That’s not tennis damn it!

That’s not to say standard mode isn’t fun though. Trick shots are very cool when you pull them off, and it feels particularly satisfying when you block a powerful shot perfectly. It’s good fun as long as you don’t take it too seriously.

There’s been a few new characters and new story mode content added since release, which is cool on Nintendo and Camelot’s part.