Mario Sports games have existed since the 1990s and have continued to show up on Nintendo consoles ever since the Nintendo Entertainment System. It all started with NES Open Tournament Golf. Since then, Mario Sports games have continued to pop-up across most Nintendo console generations — we’ve even seen some handheld titles on the DS and Gameboy Advance.

The biggest of the Mario Sports franchises would have to be Mario Kart, since cart racing is considered a sport. There are also plenty of Mario Sports titles that are not as frequently released. We’ve mostly seen Tennis and Golf games, but we’ve seen Mario make his way to the soccer field, baseball diamond, and basketball court as well.

My most recently owned Mario Sports titles were Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash on the Wii U and Mario Golf: Super Rush for Nintendo Switch — both of which I spent very little hours playing. Last week, Nintendo released a brand new entry into the Mario Sports family, Mario Tennis Fever, and this game has really got a hold on me.

Mario Tennis Fever

The Adventure Begins

Since its release last Friday, I’ve been playing Mario Tennis Fever non-stop. I went straight for adventure mode, which I expected to be a glorified tutorial. I thought the whole thing would end quickly after my graduation from the Mushroom Tennis Academy and an S-ranking.

Mushroom Tennis Academy was filled with Drill-o-Matic lessons (or mini-games), each created to teach a specific skill. They were followed by short matches where you could try out your new skill. Each drill is an interesting take on a specific on-court technique, and many seemed to be unrelated to tennis until you got back on the court. I was never bored during these lessons.

Graduation was only the beginning. Next, we had to travel to the Valley of the Monsters, with a few stops along the way, to become adult Mario once again. Each land featured their own drills and matches set in different terrain (water, fire, ice, mud, and more).

After four and a half hours I completed Adventure mode. In some ways it reminded me of the “story mode” in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, World of Light, but with a true purpose for each drill. The one thing I would add to adventure mode would be a co-op option. If my wife would have completed adventure mode with me, she would have been a Mario Tennis Fever pro by now.

Mario & Friends

Mario Tennis Fever’s roster is stacked with friends and enemies from all of Mario’s eras — thirty-eight characters. There’s the usual big names — Luigi, Peach, Donkey Kong, and Bowser. We have some classic villains like Goomba, Chain Chomp, Boom Boom, and Piranha Plant. There’s also the cute baby versions of Mario, Luigi, and Peach. There are two additional babies — the ugly baby buddies, Wario and Waluigi. Even as babies those two look like grumpy, tiny old men.

You start off with a small roster, but the way to unlock more is by playing the game. There’s no super hard challenges when it comes to unlocking the full roster. The more matches I played the more characters I unlocked.

As I played through different game modes with different characters, I could really feel the difference between many of them. Each has their own Speed, Power, Control, and Spin stats, plus some special technique.

There’s also the added customization of choosing your Fever Racket. There are thirty different Fever Rackets to choose from, each with their own special ability. No racket is tied to a specific character, so there are many different combinations to create.

Certain Fever Shots can be countered on the court by returning the ball before it bounces on the ground. The racket’s ability won’t take effect until the ball bounces on either side. These can result in anything from fire, volcanos, tornados, ice, bananas, and more.

Other Fever Rackets give players an active boost. These take effect once the Fever Shot is hit. These rackets can make the player invincible, give them curvier shots, add a shadow twin, and even give the player a power boost.

Choosing your Fever Racket is sort of like playing a pre-match Rock, Paper, Scissors with your opponent. It’s not ideal to only stick to one racket. There were many times I chose the Star Racket to be able to counter anything with invincibility. It didn’t work out every time for me.

There are also multiple tennis courts. You have your grand stadiums featuring grass, hard, or clay courts. There’s also the strange courts, like the extra bouncy mushroom court, Waluigi’s Pinball Arcade, and the Piranha Plant Forest Court.

Tennis Masters

Overall, Tennis is a pretty simple sport — it has been around since the 1800s. It’s one-on-one or two-on-two, singles or doubles, and there are only a few types of shots to take. The developers at Camelot Software Planning have built a pretty amazing tennis sim for Mario and his friends. The game feels great and the addition of Fever Rackets, different courts, and silly challenges give this game that extra arcade-style wackiness that a Mario Sports title needs.

The thing about Mario Tennis Fever is that it is not just a great “Mario Tennis” game, it’s a great “Tennis” game. The physics feels just right. When playing a match without Fever Rackets or abilities, it’s just a fantastic tennis game.

I’ve played so many tennis games over the years. I still own my friend’s copy of Super Tennis for the SNES (Super Nintendo Entertainment System). Anytime a tennis game pops up on PS Plus, I will download it and try it out. Most of these games are only fun for a little while before they get repetitive. That’s why arcade tennis is the way to go.

Mario Tennis Fever gives the player options when it comes to ways to play. There’s even a checklist of medals to “beat the game.” I thought I was almost done beating the game earlier this week. I had one last Trial Tower to make it through, plus about forty more matches to play.

Upon completion of the third Trial Tower I found out I was wrong. That was just the beginning, I now have one hundred insane challenges with three stars to earn per challenge — that’s three hundred stars! The first objective is the simple one:

• First to 5 pts

After that it gets pretty complicated:

• Don’t lose a point
• Knockout your opponent
• Counter every Fever Shot
• Don’t leap
• Don’t fall down
• and many more…

This is going to take some time, but I am ready for it. I will get all three hundred stars. I didn’t like being tricked, but I do like that I still have different ways to enjoy this game — whether I’m playing matches or going for challenges.

GameShare

I have to shout out one feature on the Nintendo Switch 2 which I wasn’t able to try until this week with Mario Tennis Fever — GameShare.

The brilliant thing about this feature with this particular game is that Mario Tennis Fever is a Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive game. Still, you can GameShare with someone on an original Nintendo Switch system.

Nintendo knows that there were multiple Nintendo Switch systems per household in many instances, and that many of these households may have only upgraded to one Nintendo Switch 2 so far. This is a big pro-consumer move to let people share a next-gen game with friends on their current-gen console.

It’s also a nice incentive for someone with a Nintendo Switch to upgrade to the Nintendo Switch 2, so they can play this game and other exclusives whenever they want. It’s an unselfish move that will most likely end up helping Nintendo sell more Nintendo Switch 2 consoles in the end.

What Comes Next?

I can see Mario Tennis Fever sticking around for some time. I now wonder what is next for Camelot and for Mario Sports games in general? If all Mario Sports games can be this great, then it may be time to start working on the next one — in another sport. They can release different Mario Sports games every few years.

As we continue playing Mario Tennis Fever, they can announce the next golf, baseball, soccer, football, basketball, hockey, or some new entry featuring a sport we’ve never seen before — Mario Cricket? It’s a huge sport around the world. I would definitely love to see one or two more Mario Sports titles released during the Nintendo Switch 2 lifecycle.

Maybe something like Mario Sports meets NBA Street. Let’s see Mario and Luigi break some ankles. Maybe Donkey Kong shatters the glass on a slam dunk. What kind of shenanigans will Petey Piranha get into on the blacktop?

When I think of my future with Mario Tennis Fever I will continue working on those three hundred challenges. I am also looking forward to finally playing online and finding out how I rank among real players.

---

*Mario Tennis Fever is out now exclusively on the Nintendo Switch 2.
**myVGBC.com was provided with a review code from Nintendo.