Mario Tennis Fever

Mario Tennis Fever is a ton of fun with friends thanks to its wacky new abilities and huge character roster, but it’s once again let down by a bland Adventure mode that’s little more than an extended tutorial.

Mario's various dalliances into sports have been inconsistent, often because they feel so bare-bones and perfunctory. Mario Tennis Fever breaks this trend with a multitude of modes and a playful, flexible gimmick that makes it more wild and unpredictable while also testing your tennis skills in a new way. It's the best a Mario sports game has been in years, and hopefully charts a course going forward for the Mushroom Kingdom's other sporting events.

The experience of hurling ink and mud and fireballs at your friends - while some small part of your brain tries to still think about court positioning and slices and dropshots - is riotous, hilarious, chaotic fun. It's just a shame that, at launch at least, Mario Tennis Fever can't serve up a more complete package.

Mario Tennis Fever is hardly a revolutionary entry, but it nails the series' most important element by offering a well-rounded experience with myriad ways for players of all skill levels to enjoy the game of tennis.

This ruthlessly competitive game will have everyone from your granny to semi-pros trying to set fire to their opponent's side of the court with powered-up 'fever rackets'

Mario Tennis Fever is another solid enough sports game from Camelot, but a disappointingly short single-player offering and a real risk of imbalance – whether using Fever Rackets or not – means what could have been fantastic will have to settle for simply being good.

Mario Tennis Fever serves up my favourite game in the series thus far, by finding an addictive balance between Mario's madcap antics and real-world tennis fun. Streamlining superpowers into Fever rackets makes everything easier to parse, and keeping player movement relatively restrained makes for tennis matches that retain an exciting flow without constant slo-mo interruptions.The adventure mode is a letdown, and solo players don't have a ton of options, but there's depth and strategy at the core here that should see this one ace things online for some time to come.

Mario Tennis Fever doesn't reinvent the formula from its predecessors, but it tweaks just enough to make for a fun game. Whether you're playing through the quirky adventure solo or sitting with your buddies talking trash in multiplayer, the game is filled with enjoyment. Check Amazon Check Walmart

Mario Tennis Fever still scores points for its core gameplay, particularly when playing against other people, but the game’s frustrating new Fever Racket gimmick and underwhelming single-player modes don’t bring all that much to the court. The result is a game that can be fun at times, but doesn’t stand out from other recent Mario Tennis games in a way that’s likely to raise Switch 2 owners’ temperatures.

Pick up the racket, Mario, as the world of Tennis won't save itself.