Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash Reviews
The Mario Tennis you know and love, only substantially less of it than usual. Still fun, but such slim pickings leave a sour taste.
Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash is a barebones installment of a beloved franchise on Wii U that leaves gamers with very little to do outside of a few traditional game modes.
Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash is a bare-bones, lackluster addition to Mario's sporting adventures.
The core gameplay of Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash is enjoyable, but disappointing side modes, online restrictions and gimmicky power-ups make this return go a little wide of the mark.
There is a great straightforward tennis game here, but little else to hook you in and keep you coming back
After more than a decade of handheld titles and digital re-releases, Mario Tennis finally returns to consoles with Mega Mushrooms, online multiplayer, and a disappointing lack of content.
It's shocking how little content there is in Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash. As much as we'd love to explore the title further, the rabbit hole doesn't go any deeper.
Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash is an odd game to score or recommend. The basic gameplay is strong, has slick performance and handsome if basic visuals; as a multiplayer game it can be enormously enjoyable, too. With options to ignore newfound gimmicks in simple matches included, fans of the franchise that want a HD / 60fps entry to play with friends - or some random opponents online - can find entertainment. Those are positives, but we cannot emphasize enough how phoned-in and thin the content offering is, nor how throwaway Mega Battle is as a tentpole feature. Frankly this shouldn't be a retail game at $49.99 and regional equivalents, as it is at launch; it should be a budget retail game at best.
Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash is fun. I enjoyed my time with it - much more so than I did with Mario Tennis Open. It's a step up over the last iteration in some areas, yet still it manages to be a lackluster entry in a series that seems to be sadly suffering from continual decline.
The fact that it's a mechanically solid sporting experience can't save it from mediocrity or a lack of any real reason to come back, and that's really the worst sin a sports game can commit.
In the end, Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash is a solid tennis game that feels thin when it comes to content. But the gameplay is fun and the visuals are great eye candy. Playing with friends in a living room is a fun way to kill a few hours.
Mario Tennis' transition to the Wii U feels like one step forward and two steps back. The addition of Mega Mushrooms is clever enough, but the game doesn't commit to the idea of power-ups enough to sustain it. Meanwhile the no-frills package feels so anemic that I was burned out on the experience after only a few hours. If you want a great Mario Tennis game, stick with the better, cheaper, and more complete 3DS version.
Treat it as an HD remaster of the N64 game and this is actually one of the best Mario Tennis games since then, but the lack of features and extra content is a real turn-off.
Mega Battle is great fun, especially in local multiplayer, and has seen me both laughing and cursing aloud, but with no mini-games or notable campaign to speak of, and without the overblown power-ups I'm used to in Mario games, it's a game that I'll have all but forgotten by the time Wimbledon rolls around next year.
Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash feels like it was rushed into the holiday season to mask the absence of Star Fox. You're better off just playing any other previous game in the series, which is particularly easy to do since the first game is on the Wii U Virtual Console for just 10 bucks.
Nintendo's latest cartoon tennis game has great mechanics, but no career mode, character progression, or even any tournaments in which to play
While Camelot is typically known for rich and deep experiences in their Mario sports games, the bare bones Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash feels like a step backwards for this series.
[A]s a whole, Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash feels like a rushed Christmas pick-up after the incredible fan-service of Super Smash Bros and Mario Kart 8.
Like a rookie player with bags of potential, Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash has that raw ability, but it lacks the finesse to be a champion.
I had a lot of fun playing Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash, but it fizzled out way too soon. The game play is excellent, but the lack of modes and diversity really suck the fun out of it after a couple hours. Not being able to play with friends online is a drag, and the AI is simply not enough to keep me coming back. I wanted to love Ultra Smash, but it fought me at every turn to keep me from wanting to play more of it.