Mario (not) Tennis Aces (Switch) - This Is Football

I was enjoying the single player (although was extremely easy) and then got slaughtered online as the lag made it unplayable. Presume that will all be sorted out before release. I never have problems with Mario Kart or Splatoon 2.

I won a tournament \o/

This is really addictive. Really enjoy playing as waluigi, peach and I love the chain chomp

Reached 4 tournament finals now, won 2 of them. Had some brilliant matches this evening.

I find the flow of the game really hard to understand. Sometimes I get into a rhythm where every one of my hits is a power shot and every one of their returns makes a star, whereupon I can just keep smashing it over the net until they screw up. Then sometimes it happens against me, but I have no idea how I get into that state. Also I just played two matches where it seemed like they could return absolutely anything. I'm guessing it was the right stick move, but it seemed a lot more effective than when I use it.

Played a little of this (got to round 2 and round 3 of the two online tournaments I played) and it's good fun - the new elements seem genuinely well implemented and balanced, which has allayed my fears.

I got absolutely trashed in the two online matches I lost, but I learnt from both of them. I'm not in this for the online though, I just want a good full singleplayer game with some local play thrown in.

smurphy wrote:I find the flow of the game really hard to understand. Sometimes I get into a rhythm where every one of my hits is a power shot and every one of their returns makes a star, whereupon I can just keep smashing it over the net until they screw up. Then sometimes it happens against me, but I have no idea how I get into that state. Also I just played two matches where it seemed like they could return absolutely anything. I'm guessing it was the right stick move, but it seemed a lot more effective than when I use it.

I had this a fair bit. In some matches I just couldn't understand how they could fill up their power meter given how little time was happening between shots. I sure as hell didn't have time to charge up a shot. At points it seemed like there was little reason to try and play with tennis tactics (aiming for the lines etc.) because they could return everything so just kept filling up the meter with the right stick thing. I just gave up in one match and kept hitting it down the middle until I had the power up just to win a point. Also I wasn't sure why sometimes I was getting knocked back or spun around from shots but couldn't do this to the other player.

Hopefully the single player stuff helps in breaking down the various mechanics. Its clearly good.

The Watching Artist wrote:

smurphy wrote:I find the flow of the game really hard to understand. Sometimes I get into a rhythm where every one of my hits is a power shot and every one of their returns makes a star, whereupon I can just keep smashing it over the net until they screw up. Then sometimes it happens against me, but I have no idea how I get into that state. Also I just played two matches where it seemed like they could return absolutely anything. I'm guessing it was the right stick move, but it seemed a lot more effective than when I use it.

I had this a fair bit. In some matches I just couldn't understand how they could fill up their power meter given how little time was happening between shots. I sure as hell didn't have time to charge up a shot. At points it seemed like there was little reason to try and play with tennis tactics (aiming for the lines etc.) because they could return everything so just kept filling up the meter with the right stick thing. I just gave up in one match and kept hitting it down the middle until I had the power up just to win a point. Also I wasn't sure why sometimes I was getting knocked back or spun around from shots but couldn't do this to the other player.

Hopefully the single player stuff helps in breaking down the various mechanics. Its clearly good.

Two things you may not be aware of:

The L button allows you to cancel a charge. Now, I only realised the benefit of this late on so I have by no means perfected this but I suspect the top players are charging their shots super early every time (before they even know where the ball is going), and then cancelling if they need to move. If they don't need to move, they're more likely to return a fully charged shot.

Which leads me on to the counter mechanic, I think the knock backs are when you try to return a fully charged shot with the "incorrect" counter shot. The counters to fully charged shots are as follows:
Slice - use top spin to return
Top spin - use slice to return
Flat - use flat to return

I don't think the second mechanic was explained in the tutorial.

There's a lot of things going on here and from Nintendo's perspective I'm not sure a demo was the best idea-I think a lot of people are going to have been put off by the wealth of different mechanics they need to learn and getting hammered by those that learnt them quickly and started talking advantage of them.

Ahhh that could explain some of that. Thanks other Jazzem

The demo has left me completely deflated for the final product. This was one of my more anticipated games for the first half of the year, but the com opponents offer no challenge on the skill setting it is on and the online is a complete mess (for me at least). When i did manage to get a stable game it became apparent very quickly that there was going to be one overriding strategy that you would need to use to be competitive.

So yeah, i kinda hated it. And i expected to love it.

Tomous wrote:

The Watching Artist wrote:

smurphy wrote:I find the flow of the game really hard to understand. Sometimes I get into a rhythm where every one of my hits is a power shot and every one of their returns makes a star, whereupon I can just keep smashing it over the net until they screw up. Then sometimes it happens against me, but I have no idea how I get into that state. Also I just played two matches where it seemed like they could return absolutely anything. I'm guessing it was the right stick move, but it seemed a lot more effective than when I use it.

I had this a fair bit. In some matches I just couldn't understand how they could fill up their power meter given how little time was happening between shots. I sure as hell didn't have time to charge up a shot. At points it seemed like there was little reason to try and play with tennis tactics (aiming for the lines etc.) because they could return everything so just kept filling up the meter with the right stick thing. I just gave up in one match and kept hitting it down the middle until I had the power up just to win a point. Also I wasn't sure why sometimes I was getting knocked back or spun around from shots but couldn't do this to the other player.

Hopefully the single player stuff helps in breaking down the various mechanics. Its clearly good.

Two things you may not be aware of:

The L button allows you to cancel a charge. Now, I only realised the benefit of this late on so I have by no means perfected this but I suspect the top players are charging their shots super early every time (before they even know where the ball is going), and then cancelling if they need to move. If they don't need to move, they're more likely to return a fully charged shot.

Which leads me on to the counter mechanic, I think the knock backs are when you try to return a fully charged shot with the "incorrect" counter shot. The counters to fully charged shots are as follows:
Slice - use top spin to return
Top spin - use slice to return
Flat - use flat to return

I don't think the second mechanic was explained in the tutorial.

There's a lot of things going on here and from Nintendo's perspective I'm not sure a demo was the best idea-I think a lot of people are going to have been put off by the wealth of different mechanics they need to learn and getting hammered by those that learnt them quickly and started talking advantage of them.

I thought that the shots were in a triangle where top spin beats slice which beats flat which beats top spin.

kazanova_Frankenstein wrote:the com opponents offer no challenge on the skill setting it is on

I don't think that's going to be what the actual game is like, presumably the story will have progressive difficulty and for exhibition matches/tournaments you'll be able to set the difficulty.

Super Dragon 64 wrote:I thought that the shots were in a triangle where top spin beats slice which beats flat which beats top spin.

Don't think so, have checked online and few people reiterating the way I said. Can't check for a few weeks now though....

OrangeRakoon wrote:

kazanova_Frankenstein wrote:the com opponents offer no challenge on the skill setting it is on

I don't think that's going to be what the actual game is like, presumably the story will have progressive difficulty and for exhibition matches/tournaments you'll be able to set the difficulty.

Undoubtedly, but seeing it in such a compromised form has made me lose all interest. It felt (to me) like it would settle in to a couple of rituals that just about every tennis game over the years has. I guess its a requirement of the genre. I have played and enjoyed loads of tennis games over the years (probably more than 15 different titles), but i guess i just felt instantly jaded when i actually sat down to play. Nothing had really evolved save for the gimmicks that try and keep it fresh, but in doing so offer a (i fear) rigid meta game of charge shot building and exploitation.

I think you're right that it's not going to revolutionise tennis videogames, although hopefully the story will add variety and freshness.

kazanova_Frankenstein wrote:

OrangeRakoon wrote:

kazanova_Frankenstein wrote:the com opponents offer no challenge on the skill setting it is on

I don't think that's going to be what the actual game is like, presumably the story will have progressive difficulty and for exhibition matches/tournaments you'll be able to set the difficulty.

Undoubtedly, but seeing it in such a compromised form has made me lose all interest. It felt (to me) like it would settle in to a couple of rituals that just about every tennis game over the years has. I guess its a requirement of the genre. I have played and enjoyed loads of tennis games over the years (probably more than 15 different titles), but i guess i just felt instantly jaded when i actually sat down to play. Nothing had really evolved save for the gimmicks that try and keep it fresh, but in doing so offer a (i fear) rigid meta game of charge shot building and exploitation.

I think it's abit unfair to say nothing has involved, they've developed a lot of new mechanics and they certainly seem more than just gimmicks. There's a lot going on and I think it's way too early to say there will only be one rigid way of playing. Infact, it looks like quite the opposite to me, with lots of different ways you can utilise your energy.

Really enjoyed the online weekend it was really fun and while some matches were rather laggy, I'm really interested in getting it.

kazanova_Frankenstein wrote:The demo has left me completely deflated for the final product. This was one of my more anticipated games for the first half of the year, but the com opponents offer no challenge on the skill setting it is on and the online is a complete mess (for me at least). When i did manage to get a stable game it became apparent very quickly that there was going to be one overriding strategy that you would need to use to be competitive.

So yeah, i kinda hated it. And i expected to love it.

I'm the total opposite. Wasn't that fussed before, but it had a lot more depth to it than I imagined. I don't recall Power Tennis being quite so involved, and it had those god awful 'press X to win' power moves.

Still kind of sticks in the craw paying upwards of £40 for a game with essentially a single mode, though. And I don't think I'd be playing much online if I get it, will stick to local play.

Cool new trailer with Rafael Nadal and Mario hitting the court.

Nintendo's marketing campaigns for the Switch are spot on, and the polar opposite to the Wii U.

Reviews up at 1pm today.

Disappointingly, from comments online from people who have managed to buy copies early, sounds like offline content remains light. Apparently it has only three tournaments and the Adventure Mode is being pegged at 3 hours long.