If you've played the Mario Tennis games available on the 3DS and Wii U you'll be familiar with the basic controls. You move around with the left stick and use the ABXY buttons to do serves and shots. Zone Shots can be done by pressing R/ZR when standing over a spinning star on the ground, which indicates that you have enough energy to pull it off, while Zone Speed is activated by holding R/ZR down, allowing you slow down time and react with ease; both of these moves will deplete your energy slowly until you either finish doing them or it runs out completely. Meanwhile, L/ZL is used for Special Shots once your energy gauge is full and for cancelling Charge Shots. Trick Shots are done by either using the left stick + X button or simply flicking the right stick in the desired direction; these give the player an extra reach and allow the player to defend themselves in dire situations. If a Trick Shot is pulled off at just the right moment, the energy gauge will go up; if it's done too early or too late, time will slow down and your energy will go down instead.


The standard controls feel pretty great and the gyroscope is responsive when used to help aim Zone Shots and Special Shots, but it's easy to accidentally activate a Trick Shot when getting ready to do a lob or a drop shot if you're using the default settings. Thankfully enough, Nintendo has added a couple of controller settings via updates that can be changed during the character select screen. These settings will allow you to map Trick Shots only to the right stick and change which buttons are used for Zone Shots, Zone Speed, Special Shots, and Cancel Charge. As you may have noticed, these settings are only beneficial for players who use the Joy-Con Grip or the Pro Controller, seeing as you can't use the ZL, ZR, or right stick when playing with a single Joy-Con. Swing controls on the other hand, feel pretty bad and unresponsive if you're in a small space and aren't doing the swinging motions exactly as they're shown in-game. I found them to be pretty finicky when doing Co-op Challenges online that require swing controls.


The first time you play the game, you'll be put right in the beginning of its Adventure Mode. Mario and Co. are just finishing up a championship match and after Mario's team wins, Wario and Waluigi decide to give them a mysterious tennis racket they've found as the prize. Shortly after, it's revealed by Toad that this very same racket is in fact Lucien, a powerful artifact that is able to control people against their will. Unfortunately, once Luigi touches it, he becomes possessed by its power alongside Wario and Waluigi. Mario and Toad must then set off to find the five Power Stones before Lucien does and rescue his friends in the process. Once you're given control of the game, you'll be able to move Mario through a path on the map onto his next destination.


The first couple of stages serve as a tutorial for the game and introduce you to the new mechanics that are unique to Mario Tennis Aces. By completing the main stages, you'll be able to move forward and eventually meet the boss whose protecting that area's Power Stone. However, if you decide to take your time and complete any challenge stages that you find along the way you'll be rewarded with a racket or a hint that may help you overcome an obstacle. These new rackets not only have better stats than the standard one, they also count as extras whenever your main racket breaks during a stage. Unlike other sports games, any new equipment that you find will always be better than the one from the last area. Unfortunately, they're only usable inside Adventure Mode. Whenever you clear or fail a stage, Mario will gain experience and once you accumulate enough of it, he'll level up. If your tennis skills aren't up to snuff, it might be a good idea to grind for a bit before you attempt to challenge a stage again. I found myself doing this a couple of times, especially when I was unable to obtain a new racket from a particular area during my playthrough.


While some boss fights proved to be fun and challenging, I found the ones from the latter half of the game to be total pushovers. The same could be said for some of the challenge stages, though their difficulty has been changed slightly by this point. A series of QoL updates for the Adventure Mode were released which fixed some issues players had during its initial release, such as the lack of a retry option upon failing a stage. A new island with 5 challenge stages was added as well, which now serves as the post-game content of this mode. These stages use a ranking system, unlike the ones found throughout your adventure and can only be cleared by obtaining a passing grade or higher. Once you've cleared them all, you'll be rewarded with a replica of Lucien that can be used in any of the other game modes. Unlike Mario Tennis Open, which had customizable gear for Miis, this racket counts as an alternate costume for Mario and is locked to him. It's purely cosmetic and doesn't affect your stats at all. Getting the highest rank possible doesn't reward you with anything and only seems to be there to scratch that completionist itch some players may have. Even with the small post-game addition, Adventure Mode is relatively short and can be finished in its entirety in 7 hours or less if you know what you're doing.


Whether you've already finished Adventure Mode or need to take a break from it, you'll probably find yourself checking out the other modes the game has to offer. There's Tournament Mode, Co-op Challenge, Free Play, and Swing Mode. In Tournament Mode, you'll be playing against online players or against CPUs in an attempt to win the championship. This mode is divided into two sections: Online Tournament, where you can play online against other players, and COM Tournament, where you play against CPUs by yourself. The offline portion of this mode has 3 cups: Mushroom, Flower, and Star, each with their own set of rules that determine how long each round will be and how many rackets you'll have during the cup. Most of the matches were incredibly easy as the CPUs barely held their ground, letting my shots easily pass them by and not even utilizing any of the game's mechanics to defend themselves. The only time they made half an effort to fight back was during the Semifinals and Finals of the Star Cup, where they began to use Trick Shots and Zone Shots. I was disappointed to see that the overall difficulty was way below what Adventure Mode and Free Play offers and that there wasn't a reward for clearing all the cups. All you get is a small crown added to the portrait and name of the character you've already used to clear it.


Meanwhile, the online portion has three classes to offer: Standard, which Adventure Mode players should be familiar with by now, Simple, which only uses the basic mechanics of the game, and Doubles, where you can team up with a random player or with a friend. By winning online matches, you'll earn points that will level up your rank and will also go toward the current month's participation bonuses. These bonuses range from unlocking new characters a month early and costumes for specific characters. Online matches are great if you manage to get paired up with another player who also has a stable connection, but they may become increasingly difficult if the game only pairs you with unstable connections instead. The game does allow you to look for another match if you decide to back out before the 10 second timer is up, although this doesn't really help during low traffic hours. Some players back out of matches simply because of the character the opponent is using, which has happened to me while using Rosalina.


Co-op Challenge is an online mode that was added to the game during one of its updates. In this mode, you'll be teaming up with your friends and/or online players to clear the current challenge and earn costumes for the character the event is based off of. If there aren't enough players by the time the timer counts to 0, CPUs will take up the remaining player slots. Up to 4 players can join via couch co-op, though you'll still need to have an internet connection to upload your scores and earn your rewards. There have been 3 different events so far: Boo Hunt, Yoshi's Ring Shot, and Shy Guy Train Tussle. In Boo Hunt, players must swing their Joy-con controller to send back the incoming shots at Boos and Golden Mushrooms to earn enough coins to clear the current wave before the timer ends. Doing so will increase the Frenzy gauge seen on the top right of the screen, which will summon King Boo once its full. If players are able to defeat King Boo whenever he shows up, they will earn a lot of coins; this proves to be difficult during the last two waves, as he requires more hits to be defeated and will disappear after a short amount of time. Entering Frenzy Time will freeze the timer, which may give players the push they need if they've yet to meet the current wave's goal. In Yoshi's Ring Shot, players use Yoshis of different colors as they keep a rally going through the many rings that are scattered on the court. If a player sends a shot through rings of their own color, they'll earn more points than simply shooting through any ring they see fit. Near the end of the challenge, flower-shaped rings will appear; sending shots at these will build up the Frenzy gauge, which will cause rainbow-colored rings to appear once its full. These rings will give a lot of points, regardless of what player hits them. Lastly, there's Shy Guy Train Tussle, which has players retrieving coins from waves of Shy Guy bandits. There are a total of 8 waves, making it the longest Co-op challenge added so far, yet the pace of gameplay is faster and the rewards are bigger to make up for this. Players will send back shots towards the Shy Guys on-screen and crates to collect coins and power ups to reach each wave's goal. Frenzy Time is in this mode makes multiple towers of Shy Guys appear; each tower holds item crates and keys that the players must retrieve to open the chests behind them. Rounds 1-3 and 5-7 have color-coded chests that will only open after the indicated number of Shy Guys of that same color have been defeated, while rounds 4 and 8 have you up against the Shy Guy bandit's boss who'll occasionally throw Bob-Ombs that the player must send back to avoid losing their turn. If the players are unable to clear a round successfully the bandits will run away and the game will end.


Free Play allows you to play tennis matches with other players, whether its through a single console or multiple consoles locally or online with others. In Single-Console Play, up to 4 players can have a match on a single console, while Local Play requires either each nearby player have their own console and copy of the game or that two players share the same console to play against the opposing team. Meanwhile, Online Play allows you to set up or join a room with your friends and other online players; up to 2 players may team up on the same console. The rules can be changed before the match begins, such as the match type, COM difficulty, play style, stage selection, etc. Originally, the game didn't have a stage select screen where you could choose which court to play on, so the only way to select them was to change the rules before every match which became tedious since these settings aren't saved when you exit this mode.

Swing Mode is the last mode in the game, where each player holds a Joy-Con controller upright and plays with motion controls to simulate the sensation of swinging a racket. This mode offers simple matches and minigames for up to 4 players, though they're only available for Single-Console Play and Local Play. This mode offers 4 options: Regular Ball, Big Ball, Special Game, and Rally Challenge. Regular Ball and Big Ball are the two options available for players who want to have a match in Swing Mode. Unlike Free Play, these two options only allow simple match rules, which means you won't be using up any energy or special moves here. The characters will move toward the ball on their own, though they can still be controlled with the stick. On the bright side, they have a unique challenge rule available, which allows the player to challenge the referee's judgment whenever the ball lands close to or on the line of the out zone. Special Game is an option that was added shortly after Co-op challenges were added after an update, which allows you to play Boo Hunt offline in either Co-op or Competitive modes against players and CPUs. Then there's Rally Challenge, where single players or teams of 2 players hit a ball to keep a rally going for as long as they can. Whenever the rally reaches a certain score, the ball's appearance will change and will move faster when it's shot back to the opposing player.



With how much attention to detail they've put into this game, it would be fit to call it the best Mario Tennis game of all time, at least on the visual and gameplay side. Mario's world in the tennis series has never looked better, as you can see the blades of grass, clothing fibers, weather effects, and many other details that help bring life to the whole picture. Boasting a soundtrack that can be soothing, yet full of energy and urgency, it's sure to keep the player's motivation going during a match. It's music to my ears when you have that paired up with the sound effects used for rackets, as they really do carry the weight of their swing. The offline single player and multiplayer content, however, has been sorely lacking since day 1 and there's no sign of this changing anytime soon. All of the current offline game modes have no rewards to offer (save for Adventure Mode after it was updated post-release), not even the offline version of Boo Hunt. There aren't any offline versions of the other Co-op Challenges, though one can only hope that they're added to the game eventually. Mario Power Tennis had plenty of unique and diverse minigames to offer with unlockable content and scoreboards available, though due to Mario Tennis Aces not having any other offline unlockables available what little scoreboards and ranks there are feel meaningless. There's no incentive to get the highest rank available in any of the challenges, whereas the online modes of the game you're rewarded for striving to be the best as higher rankings yield more coins in Co-op Challenges and more points to raise your Tournament Mode ranking, along with a boost to the monthly participation bonus points rewarded after each match.

Mario Tennis Aces started with a roster of 16 playable characters and currently has a total of 26 playable characters, both a mix of returning and newcomer characters. Some of these already showed up in Adventure Mode as match opponents, challenge obstacles, and even as a boss. There are 2 more characters who were announced as early unlockables for April and May respectively, which would raise the total to 28 playable characters, yet there's still space for more with how the roster is currently placed. Of all of these, only 7 characters have bonus costumes available at this time. It's a bit of a hassle selecting a costume for characters who have more than 8 of them available, such as Boo, because there's no way to have them displayed all at once and you're only able to use the R button to scroll through them. New characters tend to be broken upon release, such as Blooper when it was released and now Pauline whose name is in full caps and has incredibly terrible stats, despite being a Speedy character. These characters usually receive a balance patch update once the next month rolls, though it's taken longer than that a couple of times, as these updates tend to focus on other elements of the game as well. Currently, there's no way to obtain any missed costumes as they're only obtainable through the game's online modes. The only costumes that were available to unlock a second time were Mario and Luigi's classic outfits, due to them originally being a reward for playing during the beta of the game. Unlike characters, these are rarely, if ever, announced in advance. In Mario Tennis Open, costumes were only available to Miis and would affect their stats; these were purchased in a shop by using the coins you've earned throughout the game. Oddly enough, Yoshi's alternate colors were considered different characters in that game due to having different stats. Meanwhile, all the costumes in Mario Tennis Aces are purely cosmetic. It would have been nice to be able to obtain new costumes by beating the offline tournament cups, as the Star Rank mechanic is not available in this game. In some previous games, a star would be rewarded to the player for each character they cleared the final World Open cup with. When the star is toggled on, characters would receive a boost to their stats and would also give access to harder tournaments where all the CPUs were star ranked characters. In Mario Tennis Aces, the equivalent to that difficulty would probably Ace, which is the highest difficulty available in Free Play and in certain sections of Swing Mode.

There are a total of 10 courts available, 4 of these being different versions of a single court. Hazards can be toggled on or off when playing offline or online with friends, though they're always off during tournament matches to make the playing field fair for all. Unlike characters and costumes, there haven't been any new courts added through the game's various updates. While I've thoroughly enjoyed playing on all the courts Mario Tennis Aces has to offer, I do wish some of the courts from the previous games would make a comeback. Whether they're returning courts, entirely new ones, or ones simply based on the boss locations from Adventure Mode, it would surely be a breath of fresh air.

Lastly, as pretty as the game looks, there are areas that feel rather empty in the Adventure Mode. There's one particular complaint that was well-known during the game's release, though I never quite paid attention to it until I read about it. Whenever a boss is defeated, the camera will zoom in or pan out, showing the chest that contains the area's Power Stone opening up by itself. Yet, there's no model for any of the Power Stones to be seen; Mario's opening an empty chest. The only moments when you get to see the Power Stones themselves are during a few moments of Adventure Mode's dialogue and even then, they're simply shown as a 2D image. Nobody's sure whether this was intentional or a mistake during the game's development, but it does break the immersion of the story if you can't really see what you're supposed to be retrieving in your quest. This issue was brought to my attention once again after playing through Co-op Challenges, since the ones that contain chests have fully animated 3D coins popping out of them upon being opened.


While the offline single player content is severely lacking and has a couple of issues that have yet to be fixed, the game itself was a great experience when it came to gameplay, visuals, audio, and multiplayer. Any issues that the game currently has with its expanding costume selection and various other settings could easily be fixed through an update at some point. With easy to learn controls and mechanics that take time to master, Mario Tennis Aces brings players closer as they try to learn from one another and attempt to become the best at the sport. Whether new content is added in the future to lengthen the game's future or not is up for Nintendo and Camelot to decide.