Racketeering

Best representation of tennis for a long time; Typical colourful Nintendo presentation; Great with mates

Frustrating story mode; Lack of things to do; Gimmick courts are awful

Camelot have been the kings of the Mario Tennis (and Golf) kingdom for some time, after the pure disappointment that Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash on the Wii U was, everyone has been waiting for them to give Tennis another real shot.

This review originally published on June 20, before its online was live. We've since updated this review with multiplayer impressions and a score. I admittedly don't know much about traditional tennis. I know there are tennis balls. I know there are courts.

I bought this game on a whim having only limited prior experience with Mario Tennis. I had loads of fun for the first couple of world's, but the difficulty seemed to just spike out of nowhere.

With both Virtua Tennis and Top Spin MIA for some years now, 2018 always looked like a dream for fans of the sport, as no fewer than three racket-based titles were scheduled to launch before the summer.

The Mario Tennis series is a bit like that former tennis prodigy who never quite broke through to the big time. Early signs of spontaneous genius appear to have been gradually ground out of them, as they turn into a thoroughly solid but firmly second-tier pro.

Bereft of feature content though it was, the Wii U's Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash delivered addictively enjoyable core gameplay, for as long as its online servers remained populated.

It's been a little while since Nintendo players saw a good Mario Tennis game – after some solid and deep titles like Mario Tennis Power Tour, we saw Mario's game drop off drastically with 2015's Mario Tennis Ultra Smash.

Lots of modes and ways to play; Well-written; deep Adventure Mode; Surprisingly realistic tennis

Uneven difficulty; Throws lots of information at you quickly

Mario Tennis Aces is the best sports game for Nintendo Switch, offering enough in-depth action to keep you swinging.

Deceptively strategic, satisfying gameplay; Tight conventional controls; Lots of multiplayer options

Online performance is inconsistent, especially on Wi-Fi; Awkward motion controls in Swing Mode

Mario Tennis Aces is a move in the right direction for the series and is a great way for Nintendo to show that they're taking even their secondary franchises seriously this console generation.

Adventure mode makes a welcome return after being absent in Ultra Smash; Local multiplayer has a ton of options on how many Switch consoles and players can join; Added gameplay elements enrich the gameplay

Multiplayer options concerning match length are missing; Tags