The latest installment in the Mario Tennis franchise, Mario Tennis Fever, aims to recapture the spirit of the GameCube originals. The game shines when played with up to four players locally, offering a chaotic and exaggerated take on tennis. Developer Camelot has packed the title with unique characters, solo and multiplayer modes, and quirky gimmicks, delivering a polished experience on launch day. However, the single-player adventure falls short in both length and quality. When played locally or online, the game’s responsive controls and outlandish abilities create a fun, if frenetic, party game.
At the heart of this new iteration are the powerful “Fever Rackets.” Players can choose from 30 different rackets, each with a unique special ability that can turn the tide of a match. These abilities are activated by filling a gauge to unleash a “Fever Shot,” ranging from offensive moves like launching rotating fireballs from Super Mario Bros. onto the opponent’s court, to defensive maneuvers that create shadow clones to expand coverage. Other effects include covering the screen in ink, scattering banana peels across the court, or temporarily enhancing shot curve for 20 seconds.
Experimenting with the Fever Rackets is a key part of the fun, adding a new layer of flavor to each match. The game cleverly forces players to consider all the potential variables in play. For example, if a player lays down an icy patch on a quarter of the opponent’s side, both players will likely anticipate a shot towards that slippery area. Or will they? The psychological element of shot placement is already strong in tennis, and the unpredictable effects of the Fever Rackets amplify that dynamic.
The rackets similarly have counter-relationships, adding another layer of discovery. The “Killer Racket,” which transforms shots into incredibly fast straight lines, appears powerful at first glance, but can be easily neutralized by playing close to the net. A match between two players wielding the Killer Racket often devolves into a rapid-fire rally ending in a humiliating body shot. Even as mixing and matching racket types to see the results is enjoyable, the inability to randomly select a racket for either human or CPU opponents is a frustrating omission. Given the option to utilize a random selection, players could have fully leveraged the available options. Characters and courts can be selected randomly, making the racket restriction feel like a feature that should be added in a future update.
Fever Rackets are fun to experiment with and add a unique flavor to each match.
While some Fever Rackets are more powerful than others, Mario Tennis Fever incorporates clever mechanics to maintain a degree of balance. When a player activates a Fever Shot, most of the effects don’t take place until the ball lands, leading to tense rallies where both players desperately try to return the shot before it bounces. Players must be confident in their racket choice and timing, as a miscalculation can allow the opponent to return the powerful shot.
However, the Fever Rackets can sometimes build the game feel reliant on luck, particularly in doubles matches. When all four abilities activate simultaneously, the court can descend into chaotic disarray, filled with mud, fire, and other uncontrollable elements – similar to a Super Smash Bros. Ultimate match with all items activated. Losing health in doubles results in being benched, or slowed movement in singles, often feeling unavoidable, even when hit by a partner’s Fever Shot. This isn’t necessarily a negative; Fever focuses more on the party game aspect than its predecessor, Mario Tennis Aces, which leaned closer to a fighting game with its complex gauge management and perfect block mechanics.
Rally Time
Considering the chaos introduced by the Fever Rackets, the core tennis gameplay has been simplified somewhat. The overall speed is slightly slower, and the ball has a higher arc, while last-second dives are less punishing, and the court is a bit smaller, making it easier to reach cross-court shots and maintain rallies. This decision is understandable, as combining the intensity of Aces with the madness of Fever could have been overwhelming. However, the more hardcore tennis experience offered by Aces is missed. Its high skill ceiling and rewarding mechanics made it a compelling online experience for years, and it was a truly inspiring sports game. Fever, is more accessible, making it more enjoyable for casual game nights with friends. While it may not satisfy competitive tennis players, it excels as a party tennis game. Most modes also allow for faster-paced play with high-speed balls, but this doesn’t fully compensate for the loss of the thrilling trick shots, racket stamina, and time-bending abilities of Aces.
Despite this, the feeling of predicting where the ball will land, positioning yourself, and hitting a fully charged topspin shot with satisfying sound effects remains incredibly rewarding. Camelot has refined the control scheme for drop shots, lobs, and angled smashes over decades, and the largest roster in the series, combined with challenging CPU opponents, ensures replayability. You’ll see 38 playable characters, each with unique stats and attributes. Newcomer Baby Waluigi has become an online sensation, but I found myself drawn to the underappreciated Baby Wario, whose enhanced topspin shot helps control the pace of rallies. The redesigned DK and Diddy Kong, inspired by the “Donkey Kong Bananza” style, are also a welcome addition.
Character modeling is arguably the most visually impressive aspect of Fever, with detailed clothing textures and expressive facial animations. Luigi’s shirt and Mario’s mustache appear more lush than ever before. However, as a Switch exclusive, it doesn’t push visual boundaries. The cartoonish art style is consistent with other Mario games, but it doesn’t feel like a significant technical leap. While the game generally targets and maintains 60 frames per second, I observed occasional frame drops before serving in split-screen doubles matches. Nevertheless, it maintains consistency during the most crucial moments, even with the chaotic Fever effects filling the screen.
In keeping with the GameCube spirit of Fever, players must unlock a vast array of characters, rackets, courts, and special outfits by completing challenges, playing a certain number of matches, and progressing through the story mode. Recent Mario sports games have tied progression and unlocks to online play, so it’s refreshing to locate plenty to work towards offline when first launching Fever. That is, until you actually start the story mode.
Baby Fever
If you’re primarily looking forward to Mario Tennis Fever for its single-player story mode, prepare for the most disappointing aspect of the package. Mario, Luigi, Peach, Wario, and Waluigi are transformed into babies, and Baby Mario must somehow regain his tennis skills to save everyone. It starts promisingly with a few well-produced cutscenes showing Baby Mario and his friends thrown into unexpected circumstances. Camelot maintains its reputation for these impressive cinematic sequences, but the story mode quickly goes downhill.
The shockingly short, three-and-a-half-hour campaign begins with 90 minutes spent at a tennis academy, where Baby Mario endures a painfully drawn-out and simplistic tutorial on the basics. Players complete rather monotonous minigames to improve stats, scroll through text repeatedly explaining each shot type, and participate in laughably easy qualification matches to rank up. There’s even a tennis trivia quiz, asking questions like which character type is known for speed: all-rounder, defender, or speed. The answer should be obvious. It feels like it’s aimed at children completely new to Mario Tennis, and “tutorial” would have been a more fitting name. The dialogue isn’t funny or witty, and the characters simply deliver bland lines meant to teach the game. What we have is a far cry from Golf Story, which combined a compelling narrative, captivating challenges, and quirky humor to create an arcade sports game campaign, all of which are missing here.
The story mode is filled with tedious tutorials and monotonous minigames.
Eventually, you leave the academy and navigate a comically small world map, where the story mode resembles the campaign in Aces, involving traveling to fight a handful of bosses and solve very light puzzles using tennis skills. There are a few challenges to uncover, but tennis matches are surprisingly scarce for a tennis campaign, and the momentum never truly builds before it abruptly ends, leaving you shrugging and moving on to other single-player modes.
Tournament mode is a staple of the Mario Tennis experience, and unfortunately, this iteration features one of its worst implementations. While progressing through three brackets to win trophies is as enjoyable as ever, Fever features a constantly chattering flower from Super Mario Bros. Wonder as the announcer. He reacts to every single shot, and I felt like I’d heard all of his lines multiple times after completing just the second tournament. It quickly becomes grating, and it’s questionable whether even children would enjoy the incessant commentary. The chatterbox flower is enabled by default in all modes, but thankfully can be turned off everywhere… except Tournament and Story Mode.
By far the best single-player mode is “Mission Tower,” a new addition reminiscent of the event matches in Super Smash Bros. DX. Each challenge presents a specific scenario, such as a match with a constantly full Fever gauge or a battle against three babies facing off against a giant Koopa. Players must figure out how to win a short, five-point match by exploiting the setup. Optional, challenging objectives are also available for perfectionists, such as winning without taking damage. Completing these challenges is genuinely fun, and integrating this concept into a story mode with unique characters and an engaging narrative is where this series should head.
As always, Mario Tennis Fever shines in multiplayer, offering ample flexibility. Players can compete online in ranked matches, divided into singles and doubles, with or without Fever Rackets. Winning matches earns points to increase your overall score and climb the rankings, which will reset at the beginning of each month. I only had a few hours to experience online play before launch, but it was a smooth experience. In addition to playing with up to four players locally, two players can enter a private online lobby from a single console to set up custom casual matches.
If you’re looking for something beyond traditional tennis, you can choose from special matches like “Swing Mode,” which focuses on motion controls, “Ring Shot,” a classic mode where players hit balls through floating rings, a pinball court using bumpers and paddles, or courts featuring “Wonder Effects” from Mario Wonder, like floating hippos. These range from decent distractions, like carefully aiming a Fever Shot at a Piranha Plant to enlarge the opponent’s court, to completely uninteresting ones, like hitting lobs and drop shots 30 times in a row against a mindless CPU opponent. While the best special modes become repetitive quickly, the core modes benefit from the vast character and racket roster, but it can feel overwhelming at times. Fever remains genuinely fun in short bursts, but it feels more like a lighthearted warm-up game to play with friends before moving on to other titles, rather than a game to sink hours into.
Mario Tennis Fever is most enjoyable when played with a few friends. The new Fever Rackets introduce wacky and exaggerated abilities, adding a unique twist to each match, and creating a chaotic party game that’s accessible to players of all skill levels. It’s difficult to recommend to solo players, as Fever’s bland and uninspired story mode feels more like an extended tutorial than a true adventure. However, the exciting multiplayer moments, solid controls, and massive character roster make it a worthwhile addition to offline or online game gatherings, even if it doesn’t have the staying power to be the main event.
As expected, Mario Tennis Fever is most fun when played with a few friends. The new Fever Rackets introduce wacky and exaggerated abilities, adding a unique twist to each match and creating a chaotic party game that’s accessible to players of all skill levels. It’s difficult to recommend to solo players, as Fever’s lackluster and uninspired story mode feels more like a lengthy tutorial than a true adventure. However, the exciting multiplayer moments, solid controls, and massive character roster make it a good game to add to offline or online game nights, even if it doesn’t have the staying power to be the main event.
