Just arrived from Play Asia today. Only managed an hours play up to now but here are my thoughts so far...
It starts with the Nintendo and Camelots logo and a comedy FMV intro in a very similar vein to the their other Mario sports gameof this generation, Mario Golf Toadstool Tour. Once passed the title screen, which reminds me hugely in both artwork and style to the one in Mario Kart DD, the fun begins.
The main choices here are Exhibition, Tournament, 'Mini Games', Continue Game, Statistics and Options. All text in the game including the options is in Japanese. However 99% of it is basic kana and so shouldn't cause any problem to those with a little knowledge of the language.
I first played a few games in the basic Exhibition mode with Mario against Luigi. The first thing to say is that the game 'feels' right. Thats not to say its realistic...just 'right'. As in a typical tennis game get to the ball quickly and hold down the button for a while before hitting it and you'll peform a more powerful shot. I might be wrong here as i've not quite woeked out the game system properly yet, but it seems that if you do enough power shots in succession you can then perform the characters special shot. Mario pulls out a huge Donkey Kong style hammer and blasts an unstoppable shot straight through the opposition for instance. You can also do a defensive special shot too. Again i've not quite worked out the ins and outs of performing them. Mario does a spin jump across the screen to get to an out of reach ball while Luigi pulls out the hoover from Luigi Mansion and sucks the ball back to arms reach. While fun for a while i can see that pause of the games action and having to watch the animation of these moves could start to annoy me after a while. I guess that theres an option to turn these moves off somewhere and play a more basic tennis game. If you beat and replay the same character then the game takes part at a different time of day. I thought at first that it seemed harder upon successive rematches but then the 3rd match was just as easy as the 1st...maybe i was just getting better?
I played through the initial Mushroom Tournament easily enough and unlocked a couple of extras. None of which i've had time to explore as yet.
I've had a quick go on a couple of the mini games. The painting Mario's face one that you may have seen seems very hard on first go. Basically by standing on different parts of the painting on the floor the colour of the paint balls being thrown at you change. You've then got to hit them at the right part of the painting. Once the correct colour is on the correct area that area then becomes the correct colour permanently. The difficulty comes from hitting the high areas. I must be doing something wrong but it seems extremely difficult to get the balls high enough to colour Mario's cap. Again more practice is needed. The other game i've played is based at Ricco Harbour from Mario Sunshine. You're playing tennis against that area's Octopus boss however the court is split into smaller sections. When the ball hits an area then it becomes 'marked'. If you hit the same area with your next return then its game over. Miss it however and you score a point and the marked area changes to the last one hit instead. 20 points are required for a Bronze Medal and 50 for Silver. Unfortunately by the time i'd reached 23 the ball had gotten too fast for me and i cocked it up.
I've never actually played the N64 version of this game so i don't know how this one compares unfortunately, but i am enjoying it lots so far. How the gimmicky side of the game stands upto long term play remains to be seen, but so far, at the very least it appears to be a very solid 4 player tennis game if nothing else.
It starts with the Nintendo and Camelots logo and a comedy FMV intro in a very similar vein to the their other Mario sports gameof this generation, Mario Golf Toadstool Tour. Once passed the title screen, which reminds me hugely in both artwork and style to the one in Mario Kart DD, the fun begins.
The main choices here are Exhibition, Tournament, 'Mini Games', Continue Game, Statistics and Options. All text in the game including the options is in Japanese. However 99% of it is basic kana and so shouldn't cause any problem to those with a little knowledge of the language.
I first played a few games in the basic Exhibition mode with Mario against Luigi. The first thing to say is that the game 'feels' right. Thats not to say its realistic...just 'right'. As in a typical tennis game get to the ball quickly and hold down the button for a while before hitting it and you'll peform a more powerful shot. I might be wrong here as i've not quite woeked out the game system properly yet, but it seems that if you do enough power shots in succession you can then perform the characters special shot. Mario pulls out a huge Donkey Kong style hammer and blasts an unstoppable shot straight through the opposition for instance. You can also do a defensive special shot too. Again i've not quite worked out the ins and outs of performing them. Mario does a spin jump across the screen to get to an out of reach ball while Luigi pulls out the hoover from Luigi Mansion and sucks the ball back to arms reach. While fun for a while i can see that pause of the games action and having to watch the animation of these moves could start to annoy me after a while. I guess that theres an option to turn these moves off somewhere and play a more basic tennis game. If you beat and replay the same character then the game takes part at a different time of day. I thought at first that it seemed harder upon successive rematches but then the 3rd match was just as easy as the 1st...maybe i was just getting better?
I played through the initial Mushroom Tournament easily enough and unlocked a couple of extras. None of which i've had time to explore as yet.
I've had a quick go on a couple of the mini games. The painting Mario's face one that you may have seen seems very hard on first go. Basically by standing on different parts of the painting on the floor the colour of the paint balls being thrown at you change. You've then got to hit them at the right part of the painting. Once the correct colour is on the correct area that area then becomes the correct colour permanently. The difficulty comes from hitting the high areas. I must be doing something wrong but it seems extremely difficult to get the balls high enough to colour Mario's cap. Again more practice is needed. The other game i've played is based at Ricco Harbour from Mario Sunshine. You're playing tennis against that area's Octopus boss however the court is split into smaller sections. When the ball hits an area then it becomes 'marked'. If you hit the same area with your next return then its game over. Miss it however and you score a point and the marked area changes to the last one hit instead. 20 points are required for a Bronze Medal and 50 for Silver. Unfortunately by the time i'd reached 23 the ball had gotten too fast for me and i cocked it up.
I've never actually played the N64 version of this game so i don't know how this one compares unfortunately, but i am enjoying it lots so far. How the gimmicky side of the game stands upto long term play remains to be seen, but so far, at the very least it appears to be a very solid 4 player tennis game if nothing else.
and then forgotten the reply :/)
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