Not the best Mario sport out there
You have 3 main modes to choose from, the exhibition mode where you can play out a match with a CPU or friend, a championship mode where you will have to play a set number of people in order to get a trophy and unlock characters, minigames and courts and lastly a minigame mode where 1-4 players can take part in more than five tennis themed minigames,
You have a selection of characters to choose from including mario, luigi, yoshi etc. each boosting in unique skills such as speed and power. You have a selection of courts including you're standard courts and "gimmick" courts with each have something unique about them such as a tilting court and a court where boos will try and interrupt you as you play.
The control stick is used for movement, the A and B button are used for topspin and slices respectively and mixed together by pressing simultaneously or in order can perform lobs, drop shots and smashes.
Lastly the X abd Y button are used for power shots.
This is where this game becomes a hit or miss, power shots can be used to deliver a very hard to get shot or to return a shot out of reach and a character's power shot recharges after around 5 rallies. The pro about this is that it makes it different to ordinary tennis games, the con is that matches are become too long and in championship mode it can make playing the CPU a chore rather than for fun and in championship mode you have no option to switch it on or off.
In fact like most mario sport games or even most sport games in general, playing against a CPU is boring and tedious and this applies more in mario power tennis as most matches with the computer will involve pressing the A or B button followed bu using the control stick.
Things change in multiplayer mode however where you can play with up to 4 players and is alot more enjoyable than playing with a CPU. The minigames are also there when you get bored of matches. The bad thing though is that although they included a lot of options and modes (including ring shot where you have to hit the ball through rings in order to win and item matches where you play with items including the usual red shells and bananas) the game still lacks depth which is the bad point of this game and after playing this game for a month makes you think that Mario Power Tennis could have been a minigame altogether.
However after saying all this, Mario Power Tennis is still a good game if you have friends to play with, its just the lack of depth and the 1P mode which stop this game being any better than just a good game