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Camelot's Mario Tennis GBC Comes to 3DS eShop (Best Mario Tennis)

M

maxcriden

Member
478px-MarioTennisGBC.jpg


Hits eShop NA today, PAL on 1/2 (this means January 2nd, I am American, sorry about this!). Already out in JP.

Boo_blast.png


The Game Boy™ Color version of Mario Tennis is a winning mix of court action and RPG. Train your character from novice to pro as you rise through the ranks of the Royal Tennis Academy, before taking on the champion himself: Mario! Build up your skills in Mario Tour career mode, jump right into the action with exhibition matches and relax with minigames while playing as Luigi, Donkey Kong and more. There is even a dictionary to help you brush up on your tennis terminology!
Click to expand...

mairotennisgbc_002-large.jpg


What was so awesome about this game was the depth to the RPG tennis experience, which is pretty unparalleled. There are also plenty of clever minigames. Per Mario Wiki:

In Mario Tour, the player takes control of Alex or Nina. They are the new students trying to make their way up the ranks at the Royal Academy, a school for tennis. At the beginning of the game, the player gets to choose whether they are going to play singles or doubles matches.

In Mario Tour, the player's character does exercises with coaches and plays against higher ranked players in order to get a higher rank for him or herself. Higher ranks mean they can challenge better players. Eventually, they can get a high enough rank to enter the Island Open. After the Island Open the player can face Mario in singles. In doubles, both Mario and Peach.

As the player progresses through the ranks, the player gets to increase their characters ability in different areas (similar to an RPG).
Click to expand...

mairotennisgbc_004-large.jpg


Mario Minigames

This is a group of minigames presented by various Nintendo characters. Some need to be unlocked. The minigames include:

Luigi Shooting Stars
Baby Mario Target Shot
Donkey Kong Banana Bunch
Mario Boo Blast
Peach Perfect Shot
Yoshi Fruit Factory
Wario Treasure Box
Waluigi Medallion Match
Bowser Two-On-One
Click to expand...

mairotennisgbc_006-large.jpg


Craig Harris (of when IGN was legit) gave it a 9/10 back in the day, read his review to see why the game's so prized:

http://www.ign.com/games/mario-tennis/gbc-14380

Mario Tennis is an extremely deep Game Boy Color game, but there's not as much variety to the game as there is in Mario Golf, and the only difference in challenge is how difficult the computer AI can get in higher levels. It's a brilliant game, absolutely - just one ace shy of perfection on the handheld.
Click to expand...

mairotennisgbc_005-large.jpg


40-
lo
ve
ck if old.
 
G

Grizzo

Member
Great game. I've spent so much time with it as a kid and I loved every bit of it. Too bad we couldn't get Mario Tennis Power Tour (the GBA one), which is essentially an updated version of the GBC one, with really nice graphics. Oh well. This one will do, I guess/
 
terrisus

terrisus

Member
No N64 Transfer Pak capability, no buy.

Kidding. Even without that great feature (which I did use a whole bunch), Mario Tennis for GBC is still a great game (although I prefer Mario Golf), it will be nice to always have it on my system with me.
 
R

Rich!

Member
terrisus said:
No N64 Transfer Pak capability, no buy.

Kidding. Even without that great feature (which I did use a whole bunch), Mario Tennis for GBC is still a great game (although I prefer Mario Golf), it will be nice to always have it on my system with me.
Click to expand...

You've just reminded me of that. I have the N64 version and a transfer pak, but I never got to use it as I lost my GBC cart years ago.

Might go that route via eBay rather than the eshop actually.
 
terrisus

terrisus

Member
richisawesome said:
You've just reminded me of that. I have the N64 version and a transfer pak, but I never got to use it as I lost my GBC cart years ago.

Might go that route via eBay rather than the eshop actually.
Click to expand...

Yeah, taking massively over-levelled characters from the GBC Mario Golf/Tennis games into their respective N64 games was always great fun.

Glass Rebel said:
I read "best Mario Tennis" in the title and thought GBA games were finally coming to 3DS ;_;

still, will buy
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Well, "best Mario Tennis" to me would mean that we were getting Virtual Boy games.
 
N

Nemo

Will Eat Your Children
Second only to Hot Shots Tennis Get a Grip as far as tennis games go

What's the price on this? If it's 5 or under it's a no brainer
 
K

Khaz

Member
Better than the GBA one? I played that one and it was quite good, with both tennis and RPG and good visuals.
 
G

Grizzo

Member
Khaz said:
Better than the GBA one? I played that one and it was quite good, with both tennis and RPG and good visuals.
Click to expand...

I'd say it's essentially the same game. But it all comes down to which type of graphics you prefer. The "8 bit" GBC ones or the digitized 3D models of the GBA version.
 
G

Grizzo

Member
entrement said:
RPG elements in a tennis game? Wacky. But it seems to add a lot of content.
Click to expand...

It might sound wacky, but it is actually a really nice touch ! You've got to gain experience points by winning matches and upgrade your stats. There are also different type of rackets which you can get (they're like the weapons equipment from RPG games). The game was developed by Camelot, which went on to make the Golden Sun series.
 
M

maxcriden

Member
entrement said:
RPG elements in a tennis game? Wacky. But it seems to add a lot of content.
Click to expand...

It really does! The minigames alone are worth the super-low price of admission. This retailed for what, $29.99 when it came out? Worth every penny, many more hours of enjoyment in this cart than lots of other GB/C games.

richisawesome said:
In terms of the actual tennis itself, yeah. I felt the GameCube Mario Tennis was a huge letdown - the special moves ruined it.
Click to expand...

SparksterMeta0 said:
Better than the N64 one? That was my favorite.
Power Tennis on Gamecube... not so much.
Click to expand...

Dion Blaster said:
I actually preferred the N64 Mario Tennis, whereas I thought RPG elements worked much better with Golf on the GBC.
Click to expand...

I agree the N64 one has a terrific overall "feel" of playing tennis in an arcade-y video game setting, but I think the GBC game is overall the better package with the mix of RPG elements and arcade-style exhibition gameplay.

brinstar said:
I've been waiting forever to get to try this-- never had a Game Boy Color. Will buy when eshop comes back up
Click to expand...

Ah, you're in for a treat, brinstar!
 
H

HerbertBirdsfoot

Member
If it counts, that was my first JRPG. I loved it and just recently my daughter got me into Pokemon. And I got Fire Emblem. Now I need to really get into this genre. I remember the tennis game having lots of "..." dialogs which seem to be a genre staple. :)
 
Robin64

Robin64

Member
A shame about Mario Tennis Open not having the RPG stuff. That part just made Mario Golf on the GBC. Never got Tennis though, so this will be great.
 
entremet

entremet

Member
maxcriden said:
It really does! The minigames alone are worth the super-low price of admission. This retailed for what, $29.99 when it came out? Worth every penny, many more hours of enjoyment in this cart than lots of other GB/C games.







I agree the N64 one has a terrific overall "feel" of playing tennis in an arcade-y video game setting, but I think the GBC game is overall the better package with the mix of RPG elements and arcade-style exhibition gameplay.



Ah, you're in for a treat, brinstar!
Click to expand...

That's what I thought. I've played all the Mario Tennis games since 64 and the SP modes are lacking. Tourney mode get boring.
 
M

madmook

Member
Loved this game, will definitely get as soon as the eShop recovers from oblivion.

Loved the rpg progression, by the end of the game you are a beastly mofo.
 
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