The thing about a Mario sports game is you immediately know you’re in for chaos and a wild ride of fun.

While Mario Kart far and away is the best adaptation of a sports license, the plumber also plays a pretty mean game of golf. Football. And yes, Tennis!

This time around, though, Mario Tennis Fever feels like the pinnacle of the series. A title that has learned so much from its predecessors, understood what made them so enjoyable, entertaining and enriching, retained those qualities, and made smart design decisions to truly make this one stand apart on Nintendo Switch 2.

Right from the get-go, you’re given an array of options, between tournaments, free play, a mix it up mode full of special matches and, of course, an Adventure mode.

Sure, 2K are ruling the roost with the tennis license at the moment with Top Spin, but the arcadey, frantic, visually striking feel of Mario Tennis Fever just scratches an itch.

The variety is astonishing, honestly, with the option to play using the JoyCons for swing action and even dive into Ranked Matches online. There’s also a bunch to unlock between courts, characters, rackets, and color variants, and even the ability to GameShare to those who don’t own the game so they can stream on a Switch.

Beginning with Adventure, though, you get a great opportunity to learn the basics of the game through a tiered, graduation system and then are thrown into a series of unique challenges and boss fights across various settings and against familiar faces that tie together to make for an interesting little narrative.

With Adventure Mode, you quickly might feel like you’re entering a rhythm with it by completing a series of challenges, doing a quiz to learn more about Tennis and then facing a team, beating them to graduate. But before long you’re putting out fires, battling Bowser’s airship and batting bats at chomps to knock them out. It throws the unexpected at you as you try to restore your adult self. Yes, you’ll be spending most of the time playing as Baby Mario and Luigi.

They’ve even brought Baby Wario and Waluigi along for the ride. Quite something!

But it works as you build up your strength through each demanding task, gathering new rackets which grant new abilities like lighting shots and scorching the earth beneath your opponent. Is it the most complex story ever? No, but it certainly goes hard out of the gate by presenting poor Princess Daisy in her sick bed!

Crossing different environments offers some really fun Tennis challenges and by the end, you’ll feel pretty competent at the game to go ahead and play against others online or unlock everything through the extensive Achievements.

But the thing that most impresses  me is the feel of the game. I’ve always enjoyed the Mario Tennis games but not as much as I’ve enjoyed rallies in Fever. At first, I was a bit frustrated by it, rallies seemed to go on forever and there was no real sense of progression or purpose to it. But as I learned the game, faced tougher competition and actually got a feel for the techniques, this is actually a really engaging, interactive, and downright fun tennis game.

I had several great back and forth rallies – both in Adventure Mode as well as Free Play and Tournaments – that just made for a good old satisfying match. I had to think about my shot placement, be quick off the mark with my returns, decide where to stand on the court – if I was by the net or at the back of the court – and sometimes just have patience. But my opponents and their choices felt different, which was genuinely exciting and really good fun to play a part in.

Overall, Adventure does a great job of getting you in the right mindset, with the varying conditions and shot types, so you can then go to Quick Play and try out on different courses – like a Mushroom course that has extra bounce amd a sandy terrain that slows down the ball. Each course requires you to think about shots a bit differently, like the sandy course directs you to focus on drop shots and a brick court advises topspin.

It’s surprising how much of a tactical game Mario Tennis Fever can be. But that’s what makes it all the more enjoyable. Sure, it’s good throwaway fun where you can just smash the ball at each other in different ways to see who can emerge the victor, but unlike some of the previous instalments, shot placement, character choice, court control will matter a lot more than it might first appear.

It’s a significant improvement from Aces, then, which admittedly I bounced off quite quickly, whereas I’ve found the more time I’ve spent with Fever, I’ve enjoyed it more and it’s held my interest for longer, too.

There’s been questions around the price of the game, and there’s certainly an argument here that without someone to play with – be it online, locally or to Gameshare with – Mario Tennis Fever is a bigger ask on the price side of things. Adventure will only last you around 5-7 hours, and while there’s a lot to unlock, once through it’s either you and the computer or taking your skills against other people. If that doesn’t sound like your bag, then yes, this is a harder-sell for the price.

And in that sense, Mario Kart World offers the solo player a lot more between its open circuits and side missions, the variety of tracks and tiers to them, as well as the modes and character options. Yet you can make your own fun in Fever by playing Trial Towers Solo or doing some wacky Mix it Up gameplay. But you’ll be surprised by just how much fun the game feels, both handheld and on TV.

The vibes and presentation around the game help sell the dream considerably more than many other releases, and the charm of the roster, as well as the game’s creativity ensure it lifts this to a seal of quality you’ve come to expect from Nintendo. It’s a game Nintendo can continue to update and develop as the year goes on, with more courts and characters, maybe even a new mode. It’s rife for expansion, but it also looks good, feels smooth, and is just truly dazzling to play and watch online.

It’s so good, in fact, it’s possibly the closest I’ve felt to fun in a Tennis game since the absolutely incredible Virtua Tennis. It captures that arcade magic SEGA did so so well all those years back and I feel has been missing from basically every other Tennis game ever since.

Truly, there’s a lot to do and unlock here, more than any other Mario Tennis game. And the unlock conditions all require a little something different, some trickier than others, but Camelot and Nintendo have found smart ways to keep it interesting and ensure you see the full length and breadth of the game. As mentioned, the on court action is a breath of fresh air and not only is incredibly smooth but stupidly satisfying to play.

Also, big shout out to the Towers! While I found the Adventure Mode to get a tad repetitive and confusing, these really filled out my time in the game. Think the Mortal Kombat tiered towers where you try to ascend to the top, but will have to complete a series of different challnges, like fast paced doubles matches where you try to hit multi-balls bouncing on court, or shooting balls through hoops. Even handicap matches and enlarged opponents who hit harder and have greater reach. These are a fantastic test of your abilities and will certainly keep you busy.

Mario Tennis Fever is a truly satisfying addition to the Switch 2 library. While players are clearly starving for more solo driven adventures in the vein of Donkey Kong Bananza, what we have with Fever is an absolutely great multiplayer game that also has some surprising depth, unlockables and a great gameplay feel that you can easily lose hours and hours to. It’s also clear to see why this one is a Switch 2 for how stunning and smooth it all feels, really lending itself to an arcade style tennis game we have long waited for and deserve.

It’s not always perfect and can feel a bit sloggish sometimes, and some missions feel quite repetitive, but I had a better time with this one than I didn’t, and it kept my glued to my Switch longer than I thought it could!

Verdict

Mario Tennis Fever is a great feeling Tennis game that truly harkens back to that classic arcade feel every Tennis game has been chasing since Virtua Tennis. It’s the best Mario Tennis game to date, full of characters, rackets and courts to unlock, with a good range of modes and great smooth, stunning action that just feels great to play. There’s repetition with the adventure and challenge modes, and singleplayers might find this a tad underwhelming if they don’t tend to play online or have anyone else to play with, but for most, there’s so much to appreciate and enjoy here. And knowing Nintendo, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Most fun I’ve had with a Tennis game in years!

Pros

---

Mario Tennis Fever is out now on Nintendo Switch 2

Code Kindly Provided by Nintendo for review purposes