I'm gonna be completely honest here.
Sports games?
Yeah...
I don't really get the point of them...
Regardless of how I feel about them though. You can't deny that they've become a huge staple in the gaming industry.
With each new year comes a new madden or NBA game, and people love them.
But what makes them so popular?
I mean, they're just simulating something that you can do very easily if you were to just...
Ya know...?
Take a step outside?
This isn't true for all sports games though. I mean the Mario sports games are pretty neat
Well most of them anyways
Waluigi: I hate this game!
You and me both, Waluigi...
You see what makes Mario sports games different than your typical sports games is well, you can do shit like this
Yeah, you don't see much of that on a real tennis court...
I just feel like these games are a lot more enjoyable to pull out in a party setting with how frantic
the matches can get. I mean just compare this
to this
See what I mean?
So while a game like Mario Tennis can make for an amazing party game
What happens when you compress that same game to fit on a tiny little Gameboy screen?
Well, you apparently turn it into an RPG
You see it's a little more difficult to whip out a gameboy version of Mario Tennis at a party
While you could have everyone bring their own Gameboy link cable and copy of the game
Nobody's got time for that. We're all here just to have a good time
Yo
So instead Nintendo and Camelot decided to focus most of their efforts on single-player content for these portable entries
They did this by adding a full-blown RPG story mode to these games
It wasn't just one game either
No, they did this for Mario Golf and Mario Tennis on both the Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance
I don't know about you, but I've actually never tried any of these RPG style Mario sports games,
but I definitely heard a lot about them. It seems like with every new Mario sports game that gets released
There's always at least one person saying how much they'd wish they'd just bring back these types of games. Are they really that good?
Well, there's only one way to find out. Let's check out one of these games. But which one though?
hmm
Sure, why not
Booting up the game for the first time we're greeted by a pretty intense intro that
Doesn't seem to have any Mario characters in it, just whoever these guys are
This is Mario Tennis, right?
Where is Mario the oh, there he is
Alright. I was starting to get worried I put in the wrong game there for a second
That would have been embarrassing
Anyways we're then taken to the character select screen where we're given the choice of not Mario characters
But two original characters named Clay and Ace
they're both as
Generic as you can get for an RPG protagonist
so there really isn't much else to say about either of them besides the fact that Ace is
apparently a tomboy and Clay is a
Rascal...? Alright...
Well I ended up going with Clay because honestly, who cares?
Also, I recommend not renaming your character in this game
Unless you like making your ears bleed
(Annoying SFX plays while character walks over letters)
Yeah
Don't say I didn't warn ya
After all of that though were finally thrown into the game. We're were greeted by ace who's attempting to wake us up.
I sure hope he's not dead...?
I mean you and me both. Otherwise this game's gonna be a lot more tragic than I thought it'd be
♪ Sad music ♪
So we find out through Ace that we're apparently a new arrival at the Royal Tennis Academy
Here at the Royal Tennis Academy
Students are split into three classes junior senior and varsity with each of the classes having four ranks
Any student that makes it to the top of the varsity class has the chance to compete with students from all around the world and the island tour to see who truly is the best
tennis player in the world
As you can probably guess our goal in this game is to rise up in the ranks with the hopes of someday making it to the island tour
So yeah
nothing too groundbreaking in terms of story for this game
The interesting bit of all of this though. Is that after every match
You'll be awarded with experience points, which you can use to level up your character
You can choose to level up any of your characters attributes from how fast they are to even how well they serve the ball
This all gives you a lot of customization options for molding your character to your specific play style
You can even go to a training area to level up your character even more in the training area
You'll be playing a variety of minigames from hitting targets on a wall to more unique games like jumping over
Barrels while on a moving conveyor belt how does doing all this make you better at tennis?
hell if I know
What I do know though is that these training bits are actually a lot of fun and are honestly my favorite part of the game
because
well
Unlike the rest of the game. They provide some much-needed variety to the gameplay
You'd think this game would have a lot to offer with there being a story mode with RPG mechanics
Included but after a few hours, you'll start to realize how little there actually is here
You see I feel like every RPG has to have two key components to keep a player engaged
These two things are an interesting world for you to explore and a memorable cast of characters to go along with that world
and well this
Well, it doesn't really have either of those
The world they do give you to explore is just a generic
Campus setting that pretty much just acts as a bridge to get you to each new tennis match
Even the few points of interest they do include in the world aren't even that know worthy. They had every opportunity
Here to create a fun and unique RPG set in the Mario universe
But instead took a pretty generic approach to a game like this
Even the original characters that Camelot did include in this game are completely cookie cutter and forgettable
Remember all those characters we saw in the intro we watched earlier
Yeah, they're all completely unlockable and playable. In fact, they're the only
unlockable characters in this game
That's right in this Mario Tennis game
You don't unlock Mario characters, but instead classics like skipper
Yes, my favorite Mario character
fucking
skipper, I
Don't know this this game is just weird
You constantly forget you're even playing a mario tennis game due to the lack of you know
Mario I'm not even kidding when I say that 90% of this game is
completely void of any type of Mario references
It's honestly kind of jarring whenever a reference does pop up like just look at this roster
There's only six Mario characters available then like 40 Camelot originals to choose from
Why why didn't they just call this?
Camelot tennis or something. Was this another?
starfox adventures situation did this start out as a completely original tennis game, but that Nintendo is all like
listen we
Kinda need a mario tennis game on the Game Boy Advance. So we're just gonna
Yeah
There we go
It isn't until
after you finish the island tour that Mario finally decides to show up and at that point, you're just kind of like oh
Yeah, I'm playing Mario Tennis, aren't I?
The Mario content in this game just feels so tacked on that
I can't help but wonder what was even the point of calling this Mario Tennis
Marketing. Did Nintendo just not what Mario to be the star of the game. Who knows?
All I know is this game is it's just weird
With all that said though, I
Didn't hate this game regardless of all the complaints
I had it's still a pretty solid tennis game
Most of the mechanics of the GameCube game are pretty accurately emulated on this handheld version
While yes, this is the inferior version
I feel like it's unfair to this game to come into it expecting the same polish and depth as the console version
For the time I could see this being a pretty fun game to pick up for a quick tennis match when you're on a long
Trip or something?
But that's the thing. This game can be pretty fun in short play sessions
but during longer play sessions the game can get
Pretty stale and I feel like that's why the story mode in this game doesn't work as well as you think it would
you see an RPG requires you to invest multiple hours into playing and leveling up your character an
RPG needs a lasting appeal to be a worthwhile use of your time and this game just
Doesn't have that lasting appeal
So do I think they should make more Mario sports RPGs like this one actually. Yeah
Yes, I do while I feel like this specific game isn't worth your time
I still do see a lot of potential in a game like this the leveling up system
having a world to explore giving the players a goal to work towards all of this could make for a very
Engaging tennis game if they were to just flesh out these mechanics a bit more
Mario Tennis aces definitely seems like a step in the right direction with the game
Finally bringing back a story mode to the series. So who knows?
Maybe we'll see clay nice return someday to give us a true successor to these very ambitious Game Boy games
But how do you feel about Mario sports games including RPG elements? Do you think it's a good idea?
Should they keep making games like this?
Let me know in the comments and be sure to leave a like on this video if you enjoyed it
It really helps me out and lets me know that you're enjoying this stuff
But yeah
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Videos and if you're looking for something else to watch why not check out my last video on the donkey kong country cartoon
that one was a
Pretty fun to make but yeah, I hope you enjoyed the video and I will see you guys next time. Thanks for watching
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