The Legacy of Mario Sports, Their Present, and Future

Before the 2010s Mario sports games had often been fun and light-hearted takes on a variety of sports, such as tennis or baseball. I was never a fan of traditional sports games like Madden or Fifa, but some of my fondest gaming memories come from Mario sports titles. This specific line of Nintendo titles spiced up traditional sports with unique levels, items, characters, and mechanics. The games were imbued with that Mario charm and added to the ever-growing Mario universe, especially alongside games like Mario Party and Mario Kart. They’re filled with awesome and imaginative touches like how Donkey Kong, in Mario Super Sluggers, swings his boxing gloved fist as a bat or the intro to Mario Power Tennis is Wario and Waluigi trying to literally kill Mario and friends with a tennis ball launcher retro-fitted with bob-ombs.

These titles were aimed at a more casual audience with simple controls and statistics, while still retaining depth and addictive action. Some of my favorite Mario sports titles include Mario Strikers and Strikers Charged, Mario Superstar Baseball and Mario Super Sluggers, Mario Power Tennis, and Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour. All of these titles were playable across either the Nintendo GameCube or Wii (MARIO POWER TENNIS Wii VERSION WAS A JOKE). Mario Super Sluggers had a massive amount of replay-ability and content with an expansive and diverse campaign mode. The Mario Striker games had a refreshingly gritty and more mature style compared to most other Mario games, this helped it stand out and made the whole series feel like an epic blood sport (there was no blood, but it was rated E10 AND UP, BABY).

Once the 2010s had started, we unfortunately rarely saw many releases in the Mario sports line of titles. There were the black sheep of the games being Mario Sports Mix (2010) and Mario Sports Superstars (2017), and the problem with these games was that they were essentially a shallow variety pack of sports you could play with Mario characters in standard courts/stadiums/etc (instead of something special like Bowser Jr’s Toy Stadium or Luigi’s Mansion Tennis Court). Each sport in these mixes wasn’t given much love or attention and therefore had nearly no depth or charm. These games weren’t necessarily bad and I'm sure there is some fun to be had, but they pale in comparison to the older Mario sports titles’ clear focus, uniqueness, and polish. Mario Golf: World Tour (2014) was a highlight in the great Mario sports drought of the 2010s and I've heard good things about the game. This finally brings me to Mario Tennis Aces (2018). This is one is a mixed bag If I ever did know bags and their contents, let me tell ‘yah. I was ecstatic about Mario Tennis Aces near its release. I loved Mario Power Tennis and I heard horror stories about Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash on Wii U, so after seeing gameplay, pre-ordering, and playing the beta, I was confident this would bring back the glory days of Mario sports titles! The golden age is clearly upon us now right? Eh… maybe?

Mario Tennis Aces was a huge step up from its garbage sibling on the Wii U, but I feel it's still overshadowed by Mario Power Tennis by a LONG SHOT, haha! There's an irritating trend Nintendo has going with SOME of their games and Its called lack of content. Mario Tennis Aces was seriously lacking content when it first launched and even now after several free updates, but to a slightly lesser degree. Mario Power Tennis has a nice roster of characters, with 18 counting unlockable characters. Mario Tennis Aces’s has a roster of 28 counting the 8 added in free updates. Here's the issue: Both Mario Power Tennis and Tennis Aces differentiate their characters with different stats like speed, power, etc, but unlike Aces, Power Tennis characters have a special offensive and defensive shot that possesses different properties and effects, whereas Aces’ characters have different cinematics before taking the same “trickshot”(defensive shot) “special shot”(offensive shot). It’s just boring when the end result of a trick or special shot is the same across all characters.

Now besides this, Mario Power Tennis was also filled to the brim with unique and charming courts and modes. From courts like Glooper Blooper or Wario’s Factory to special modes like “Artist on the Court” where the player must paint a Mario themed picture by hitting a ball on the colorless spaces to fill them in. There was so much to see and do in Mario Power Tennis. Mario Tennis Aces on the other hand… It has a “story” mode which can be fun and sometimes challenging to play through but is quite short. Aside from that is tournament mode (standard matches climbing a tower), online play, local play, and motion control play (instead of buttons were transported back to the Wii era). As you can see there isn't much to do in Mario Tennis Aces after completing the story mode unless you’re an avid online player, but even then it looks pretty barren. Nintendo’s solution to this was barely a solution at all. Instead of adding more courts and more modes they opted to add more characters. This being the only department Aces did not need additions, but I guess they are welcome regardless. The biggest strength Mario Tennis Aces has is the depth of its gameplay, although that could be seen as a weakness as well. Mario Power Tennis was not completely shallow in terms of game play by any means, its actually quite close to Ace’s in that it allows for a variety of shots including top spins, slices, flats, lobs, and drop shots along with special shots. Aces added a new resource meter to use techniques like “Zone Speed” which slowed time down (besides the player), “Zone Shot” which slowed time and let the player aim the ball where he or she would like to slam it, and the trick shot which is used to cover ground and hit balls that are too far away for normal movement. This both adds depth to the moment to moment gameplay of Mario Tennis (cool!), but also adds a steeper learning curve for beginners and is more to worry about in general (yikes).

All in all, I feel Mario Tennis Aces was a decent return for the Mario sports line of games. Its a game that disappointed me, but a game I had fun with regardless and still boot up here and there for a match with friends. Although a lack of content and the change of direction towards less casual game play has me worried for future Mario sports titles. I would love to see a return of Mario Strikers or Mario Baseball in the future, hopefully with Nintendo learning from their mistakes with Mario Tennis Aces! Remakes of Strikers Charged and Super Sluggers with extra content would be a fantastic alternative in my mind. Here's another idea: A Mario Sports Mix for Switch that is made up of remakes of Super Strikers, Super Sluggers, and Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour? Eh? Eh? Yeah, probably never going to happen, but a guy can dream!

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Do you have any memories of Mario sports games? Do you have a favorite? How do you feel about Mario Tennis Aces? Let me know down below!