Fun and Simple, just like the original
GAMEPLAY
I'm a huge fan of the N64 Mario Tennis, I played it for near 100 hours beating absolutely everything including every tournament with every character. Unfortunately, the gameplay hasn't changed much. You use the control stick to move your character and aim your shots. You have a choice of shots, including a basic slice, lobs, and power shots. Power shots are new, but they don't make the game better for a few reasons. Some characters have very stupid powershot animations, and as a teenager, I found a lot of stuff childish. Power shot animations take up a lot of time in a regular match. I've played the later released Mario Tennis: Power Tour, and that was a superior game to this one in every way despite being on a hand held because it mastered the powershot addition. Basically, when your character is charged up, you can hit X (Power) for the finishing powershot, which gives you a decent chance of scoring, or Y (Save) for a save shot that basically automatically hits the ball no matter where it is. There is nothing wrong with this, I enjoy that aspect. But, the animations that follow freeze the game, animation plays, annoying voices, and it makes me lose my aim because it flips the view sometimes. The game is still fun no matter how much you know about the gameplay, but the more you know about the complexity of the shot system, the better you'll do.
There are some mini games, but I found none of them truly engaging, but with friends you might enjoy them for maybe 1 round.
GRAPHICS
Top notch. While it may not have the style of Wind Waker, or the flare of Metroid Prime, it definitely does show off great animations and high polygon characters. Stages themselves look okay. Card Board cut out fans do stand out, but you'll be more focused on the court itself, which looks good. Power Shot effects are extremely good in some shots, and use a lot of 2D and 3D effects like lightning and the such.
There are plenty of cut scenes, and while childish, some are quite entertaining for one watch through. None made me laugh out loud, but the bloopers during the credits, while corny, were pretty good.
SOUND
Can't say the sound was memorable, because I can't seem to think of any of the music besides the catchy menu music. Basically, sound doesn't get in the way very much. There is no voice acting, but each character has a few voice clips... too few, they often repeat the same line several times during a single match, which will get annoying. You'll never be tempted to mute the game, but you won't be shocked by amazing sound either.
VALUE
Because I played the other games in the series to death, this one was short lived in my GC. If you have family or friends who will play with you, you'll probably get a good amount of time with the game. Its not the greatest single player game, but it has its moments. I think the single player should take about 5 hours if you played any of the older games. But with beating it with every character and every cup, you could get anywhere from 20 to 80 hours out of it. It just gets repetitive after so long... trust me.
TILT
I usually base my tilt on how much the games story immersed me into the game, or if the game has no story, how immersed I was into the game. To tell the truth, I was damn into this game while I was playing. I didn't want to lose one set, one game, one match. This game can be addictive, and if you set up a good exhibition match with the hardest difficulty AI you can have a several hour match in your hands. With stuff like that, there is bound to be some immersion despite the crappy story, which is only there for fun, so it doesn't detract at all.