Mario Tennis Fever review for Nintendo Switch 2

There are a couple of key things you need to know about Mario Tennis Fever before you get into it.

The first is that its Adventure mode – the single-player story mode in which you control Baby Mario, alongside Baby Luigi, as he defeats Bowser’s plans for domination by getting really good at tennis – is painfully boring, but not to the extent that some people would have you believe.

See, on the one hand, you can finish it off in about 4-5 hours, with a good hour or two of that being a very extended tutorial where the game slowly teaches you every aspect of the game you need to know. It’s unquestionably a massive waste of time, given that Mario Tennis Fever is pretty much the definition of a pick up and play game: it’ll take you a long while to get good at it, sure, but the basic controls feel instantly familiar. Dragging it out for over an hour seems cruel.

But, at the same time, it’s not just a tutorial: eventually you get to put your skills to use in a variety of places and against a number of different bosses. While some of these worlds and bosses are easy, they’re eventually challenging enough that you feel like you haven’t just wasted your time completely.

On top of that, Mario Tennis Fever boasts more single-player content than just its Adventure mode. You can play through tournaments, of course, which run the gamut from nice and easy to absurdly difficult. There are Trial Towers, which are sort of like a roguelike version of the game in that you’ve got to overcome a series of challenges, and if you fail you’re sent back to the beginning to try different challenges in a different order. These modes add to Mario Tennis Fever’s value, and mean that if you want to play the game solo, you won’t feel neglected.

The other key thing to know about the game is that it features Fever Rackets, which are either the greatest tennis innovation ever, or a blight on the game that fundamentally breaks it at a certain point. Of course, how you view it probably depends on whether you’ve been lucky enough to slam a rotating ball of fire on your opponent’s side of the court, or if they’ve just dropped a giant mud puddle on your side that makes it impossible to see the screen every time mud splashes up and covers your field of vision. They add a level of difficulty to the game that’s sure to infuriate nearly everyone at some point or another.

Which, in a way, is kind of perfect for Mario Tennis Fever, because it’s designed for multiplayer – especially local multiplayer – fun. I’ll admit that I haven’t yet played the game with friends, but I’m quite confident that when I do, they’ll be overjoyed to dispatch some of the powers the Fever Rackets bestow on their users. The Fever Rackets give the game the same sort of vibe as any number of items in Mario Kart, and ensure the game has replayability long after you’ve forgotten the Adventure mode.

For a party game like Mario Tennis Fever, that’s probably the highest compliment I can pay it. As a single-player game, it’s solid enough, but add in some friends and multiplayer, and you’ve got the makings of a party classic.

Nintendo provided us with a Mario Tennis Fever Nintendo Switch 2 code for review purposes.