Topic: Mario Tennis Aces

@EvilLucario To be fair, that's a risk even with the zone speed-block method, especially if you aim at the far corners of the court. Being the first to fire a special in a full energy standoff generally leaves you in an advantageous position... unless the opponent does nothing, leaving them with a still-full meter ready to score several times on/severely damage your depleted self. That's why specials work best to close out a match, where doing nothing will cost them that, or when the opponent has next to no energy to fight back (but even then zone shots are still cheaper for the purpose of scoring, so specials should mainly be use for racquet breaks until match point).

There's a good deal more long-term strategy with the importance of energy in mind. You have to think about more than winning the current point to get far.

@AlternateButtons A safer way to use trick shots is just as a fancier version of the lunge. Taking the small loss in energy can often be worth returning an out-of-reach shot without losing form or granting a star smash opportunity for your opponent.

@meleebrawler Yeah, but countering Special Shots with your own Special Shot is just flat-out pointless. Your shot won't have the usual punch, you're extremely vulnerable to a drop shot right after, and you burn through far too much energy, 75% compared to maybe 30%-50% with Zone Speed. Doesn't help that blocking is fairly easy. If the other person is aiming for the other side, aim there preemptively. If the guy is aiming for you or if you're in the middle, you're gonna reach the ball anyway.

Doing nothing to preserve energy can maybe work, but that also comes with its own set of cons and it seems far too situational. Good play can let you build up energy again.

@Snaplocket That's true, but the speed is also very slow to follow up on, which makes it pretty easy to deal with imo.

@ValhallaOutcast Yes, you have to win by 2. If the tie breaker goes to 6-6, the game treats it like a deuce and you need 2 winning shots to get 7 and win the match.

Oh, I stand corrected on that front then. My apologies.

@Snaplocket Thanks for the write up! I've barely seen any Yoshi's or Toads, so I had no idea how they played. Though I do question Waluigi being OP? I've never lost to one, it's the only character I can say that to.

@EvilLucario Every strategy in this game is situational to a point with everything having clear counters, weaknesses or strengths. When it comes to specials, I'll counter with zone speed if I'm near full on energy or it's a match-critical point, anything less than that and I'm only playing into their hands by letting them make me deplete my energy unnecessarily and keeping the momentum in their favour. Scoring anything less than game-winning points with specials are a waste due to the severe energy burn compared to zone shots. You're right in that special-on-special is ultimately pointless, and in the long run the only ones who will keep answering with that are people too scared of losing a racquet to risk blocking it normally.

I'm of the mind that you need to do everything you can to gain and maintain an energy lead to win consistently. And if that means sacrificing a point or two to strike back later, then so be it.

@Snaplocket I think that's a result of the game, lol.

@Haru17 Pretty much. It's a good game, but not one that's worth paying full price for IMO.

@KirbyTheVampire I played the demo for like an hour. It needed to feel more mechanically fun/satisfying to make me consider spending full price on tennis. I mean maybe the story mode will be good, but the track record of Mario Tennis and really most of the smaller scale party games Nintendo has published since the Wii U are against it.

Cool.

@Snaplocket For some people it definitely will be, and I'm happy for those people. More potential games to play is always a good thing. I've just never cared for most sports games all that much, even non-realistic ones like Aces, but it's still a lot of fun.

@Haru17 Yeah, I agree with that. Even with the added stuff, it is still ultimately tennis, and while I do like tennis, I would rather spend the money on a game like Horizon or Detroit: Become Human.

I still like the game, and I like more unrealistic sports games a lot more than sport sims, but ultimately it's not something I enjoyed enough to bother with. As for the story mode, I do expect it to be well-made, but ultimately you'll still be playing tennis the entire time. Unless a person enjoyed the core gameplay shown in this demo/beta enough, I see no reason to believe that the game will be worth buying even with a good story mode. This is Nintendo we're talking about here. There's not gonna be some deep narrative to compensate for the gameplay or anything. (Not that there necessarily needs to be in a tennis game)

@Yorumi That much is definitely true. You can only have so many variables with a tennis court. I think it'll end up being like ARMS for a lot of people. Tons of fun initially, and then they just get bored of doing the same thing over and over. (Not that everyone has abandoned ARMS or anything. It still has a sizeable fanbase. I've just noticed that a good number of people have abandoned it because they got bored)

@KirbyTheVampire That's a good point, I should go play ARMS. At least rocket-punching people felt satisfying when it wasn't infuriatingly difficult.

Oh, and Horizon is a fantastic action RPG by the way. Plus, way cheaper than Aces XD.

Speaking as someone on the other side of the spectrum who has always preferred Mario Tennis to Mario Golf, I like tennis more simply because it feels a lot more competitive than golf, and what you do against human opponents is more simulating than perfecting shots in golf, at least to me. Mario Golf is still a ton of fun and it is true the courses can vary extremely greatly with their own gimmicks, but if push comes to shove I'd take Mario Tennis due to the core gameplay appealing to me more.

That said, if you feel like you can't get a lot of mileage out of tennis, then it might not be worth it. But even if it'll only last me 20 hours of fun, I can still forsee myself having a ton of fun with just online multiplayer within those 20 hours, and that doesn't even include the adventure mode, which looks positively goofy with the Infinity Racket thing. 20 hours of fun for a tennis game doesn't seem too bad, and that's probably low-balling there. I imagine myself putting in like 100+ hours into this game throughout the Switch's lifespan (and I've already put in ~5 hours into the demo).

Idk, I see this game well-deserving $60 at this moment and it's not even out yet. I'm feeling extremely optimistic about this game after Open and Ultra Smash really made Mario Tennis seem like a cash-grab.

Mario Tennis Aces has been one of the most mechanically fun/satisfying games I've played in the Switch. The core game has been pretty darn polished since the 64. However, Power Tennis really only introduced meatheaded OHKO mechanics, and Ultra Smash stripped most stuff away leaving a pretty meagre specimen. This is probably the first game to build upon the core foundations in a meaningful way, with mechanics that introduce some genuine tactical nuance and variety.

I've no idea how the story mode will be, but it certainly looks like some effort has been put into it. The series has typically left the 'expansion of the main game' elements to the handheld version, so having the full fat tennis experience along with some sort of wider story/world/context looks like a very good thing.

Not everyone is going to like tennis games - no sport can lure everyone with its mechanics - but I'm really starting to feel that Nintendo* have brought their A-game to the Mario Tennis franchise with the Switch instalments, just as they did with their most recent Zelda and 3D Mario offerings.

*Okay, Camelot.

I think a lot of the people who don't like or understand the appeal of a game like this are those that similarly don't see the appeal in tennis as a sport. In terms of variety, it's less about the variance in court (different materials will lead to shifts in tactics, but not majorly so), and more about the type of play you choose to use and who you're playing against. The demo didn't give much of an opportunity to see how the computer uses different characters (the COM practice was incredibly easy), but playing against online players you can definitely experience the variety of strategies other players use even with the same characters. This is where your variety is, in adapting to different tactics.

Part of tennis is not only understand your capabilities on the court (for MTA, this would deal with character choice), but also the capabilities of your opponent (character choice and technical skill) and their strategies (preferred moves, aggressive v. defensive, favored court positions). You need to use this understanding if you hope to win against any reasonably skilled opponent. Yes it is possible in MTA to 'overpower' an unskilled opponent with zone shots, special shots, and overly agressive tactics, but any player worth their salt can deal with these tactics easily.

That said this game is not for everyone. If you don't enjoy trying to explore the strategies of others, or just don't like tennis, this game won't be for you! I guess I just wanted to say that this game has plenty of variety if you know what you're looking at and can actually enjoy it.

Also I wanted to share my nastiest moment from the demo. Pls share more nastiness.

https://twitter.com/JudiSwitch/status/1004410298986401793

@Judi This is all very well put. The variety of a game like MTA doesn't so much come from how much you can change the setting, but through the constant change of each player in response to the other. To use a fancy term, the variety in MTA is 'emergent', and builds from a relatively simple set of starting conditions. The game of Go has next to no variety of measured in terms of 'change of setting', but the myriad way on which it can develop has meant it's taken many, many years longer than chess for machines to crack.

Golf is very self contained. Each players basically works in their own bubble, and scores are compared at the end. There's little to no interaction with other players - it's basically you against the course, so a golf game lives or dies by the variety and interest of those courses.

Tennis could hardly have more interaction with the opponent. It's like a fighting or shooting game except you're ultimately trying to miss the opponent's hit-boxes instead of, well... hit them. The downside of this is that the variety and interest possible tends to be based on the relative and collective skill levels of you and your opponent. Which is why throwing everyone in the world into the same hat probably wasn't the best idea in terms of introducing new players to the game.

Anyway, yeah, different sports for different sorts. But to think that MTA lacks variety might just be because you're looking in the wrong place.

@Yorumi In terms of single-player, that's a different story, and that's more understandable. If adventure mode ends up being really fun, varied, and replayable, that'll be ideal. If it's just a fun romp once (most likely), then who knows, but I think it's fine for a game to just be a medium length, but fun. Sort of like Bayonetta, except the replay value is in the multiplayer and not the single-player for better ranks.

Ultimately it is a sports game though, so single-player on its own merits will already be a bit different, just like with fighting games.

@Yorumi This won't apply to everyone, but I don't think you'll need to really be super competitive at these types of games. After you've cleared all the single-player content, you can just load it up, play a bit of matches here and there, then close it after 3+ matches or something.

But I'm speaking as someone who's already sold on the game and getting it day one. So eh.

This seems like a very sensible position indeed. : )