Mario Tennis

[Twed]

I know it's difficult to get to grips with and the story mode and all COM players are shit, but online this is absolutely amazing. One of the most important games of my life, for me. Such nuance to the controls, every player's personality evident in their play style, genuine constant strategy in every single match. Just wow.

[The Boston Crab]

Worst game I've played on the Switch. I hate being alive when I'm playing the game and I hate the people who made it. Genuinely I wish I was dead when I hear the soundtrack to this shit game. If I could go back in time and legally kill myself before I was born, I'd do it to erase the convergence of this game and my life.

[falafel]

Mate this isn't the Bayonetta thread

[Twed]

I've captured a nice little selection of videos with my opponents quite obviously rage-quitting.

I've been playing too much. Starting to appear quite highly in the rankings. The mechanics of the game are seeping into my blood. I get considerably better each day. This is my Street Fighter.

[The Boston Crab]

Fair play. I really wish I wasn't so shit at it because I would love to have another different online multiplayer game. Also, fifty quid down the bog. Any tips? Every shot I play gets returned as a winner.

[Twed]

Keep playing, I guess. Watch good players like Quizzle. Put the hours in.

But honestly, if you don't find yourself enjoying it then just cut your losses. You don't want to waste 50 quid and your own time, and this game absolutely is a time investment.

Something that might work to your advantage is knowing that anybody who has won a tournament no longer gets to play in the first round. They start in round 2. So maybe a decent chunk of the better players have won a tournament since you last played and so things are streamed by ability a little better.

The major game mechanics are trick shots, lob and drop shots and charge shots. Trick shots and charge shots manage your energy meter. Once you played 40 games you'll have a firm understanding of form, which kinds of shots to use and when, how to hit things, when not to hit things to give the opponent a huge lob shot advantage against you, how to prevent yourself losing form and being put on the back foot, etc.

And then at 4am you can play as Chain Chomp against Daisy and yell "If I record this match it will be the second video starring you being dominated by a dog" followed by "oh fuck!" when you wonder how that came out of your mouth without your brain getting involved with the process.

Even when you get good at the game it's still flawed though. Waluigi and Bowser Jr are overpowered to the point where most players decline games against them. But I kind-of enjoy taking the fuckers down. I think it balances out by the fact that most good players use other characters.

[The Boston Crab]

Cheers for the reply. It does sound like they've got work to do still with the balancing if certain characters are personae non gratae. For me, I always feel like I'm one shot behind from the off, constantly stretching for a weak return while my opponents send me round the court. Maybe I should be using some meter to get back on firm ground and try to turn the tables.

The other point is as you say, it requires a significant investment and I already have a few online multiplayer games I would like to put a bit more time into, and which I find a lot more fun and rewarding. I'm going to keep my fingers crossed that this receives lots of support, updates and balance patches (like ARMS and Splatoon) and I'll dip back in to see where it's up to in a few months. Thanks for the reply and tips, by the way.

[TIAL]

I am obsessed with this, particularly as you can listen to music/podcasts whilst playing and it puts me in a weirdly meditative state. Not even playing the 'proper' game, the 'simple' version online is where I'm at. Still really difficult but you do eventually learn how to beat certain players.

I am so utterly shit playing against Boo, the curved shot gets me every time.

[Twed]

I'm not too good against Boo either.

If you want a match sometime let me know. I think you'd crush me in simple mode, although I am tempted to switch to that as trick shots are wearing thin on me, and are not my forte.

[TIAL]

If you want a match sometime let me know. I think you'd crush me in simple mode, although I am tempted to switch to that as trick shots are wearing thin on me, and are not my forte.

That would be great, how do we go about this? I'm generally available after 6pm UK time.
Some have said that it's good to establish yourself on Simple mode first before adding the Standard mode. That way you don't rely on the power movesZ

[The Boston Crab]

Massive balance patch coming for this on Friday. I can't be bothered finding the patch notes but a lot of the issues people have had with the meter and abusable strats and OP characters and specials are being addressed. Pretty pleased that they're listening.

[Twed]

Yeah, changing the trick shot fuckery which I am starting to become tired with.

Are you playing now TBC?

[The Boston Crab]

I'm not actually but I'll get back on it this Friday. I don't know if we're Switch buds, by the way.

[Twed]

Don't think so. SW-1783-3188-9696 (will appear as Groke or Wayne)

[Junglist]

Twed you've just made me order this, despite my doubts. Will get stuck in over the weekend.

[The Boston Crab]

Patch seems to have made a difference. Seems more tennis, less specials/meter management. Had a quick bash over lunch and had a lot of fun.

[Twed]

For me the best mechanic in this entire game are the racket breaks, and I didn't realise it at first.

You can get some serious tactical play around this across games. Bearing in mind that a racket has three hit points and a badly-timed zone shot serve return takes one away, you can really bully your opponent. I like to get the zone serves in there ASAP and break a racket early on. Then they are petrified of every special shot, which could mean an instant loss. And you can still keep the zone serve stuff up. It's good fun.

[Twed]

TIAL and myself discovering that Nintendo have made trying to play a match with somebody on your friends list as difficult as possible. Seems you have to be on the same screen at the same time to start a match together.

[Kelvin]

Their approach to friends lists is universally terrible, from the fiddly codes, through lack of voice chat, through to the impossible hoops you have to jump through to set up a match in their games, to the lack of even the most basic communication/invitation options. It is an absolute joke, and probably the thing that pisses me off most about the company.

[Twed]

I always get the impression they're really worried about paedos.

[TIAL]

Yeah, you literally have to make your own 'room' and just sit around waiting for one of your friends to join. That would be ok if there was some way of inviting them but you can't do this through the Switch, so you're left with 3rd party messaging systems.

There's no in game messaging either. Almost drives you to invent your own language e.g "If I play as Mario it means I can do one more game but then have to go."

It's a shame because I really love playing this game, as rubbish as I might be.

[Twed]

Bosto I looked at the rankings and it seems you mainly play as TOAD? No wonder you're finding the game difficult. Some of the best players in the world can't win with Toad.

[The Boston Crab]

I probably only played about ten or twenty matches online since I got the full game, maybe less, so just randoming it up, really. I played a lot of Daisy in the demo weekend and then Chain Chomp I did better with. Just done some Toad since the patch, basically. Good to know, though. I'll maybe switch back to ChCh.

[The Boston Crab]

I still fucking suck at this, by the way. It's just a bit closer now. Its weird. I've never been that bad at games and pretty decent at a select few but this must be the worst I've ever been at any competitive multiplayer game, even shit I've just picked up randomly. I've had a few good matches this morning though, put the meter to good use, some last-second saves with trick shots and plenty of winners, blocked almost everything I've gone for, high percentage of nice serves...and yet, that seems to be the minimum barrier of entry. Who are all these fucks that are better than me? They seem to just do the same shots again and again and I can't reach them. Must be poor positioning after my shots, I suppose, but every time I return I feel I'm in a 50/50 situation whether I'll get their next shot back. And I actually play tennis pretty well, too! It's...baffling.

[Twed]

I'm really bad at trickshotting and blocking, so I wouldn't say that's the barrier to entry. There's lots of scope for all kinds of play styles.

A useful thing for me was learning that you can drop shot and lob by pressing ba or ba quickly instead of R-stick and up/down. Much easier. A charged drop shot is a beautiful thing.

[The Boston Crab]

Funnily enough, the drop shot has been my most successful winner, especially returning serves. I'll give that a go but I'm not struggling to pull off my own shots, I just get easily and almost immediately dragged out of position and passed. I guess I'm not moving them around the court enough and applying pressure. As I say, I'm genuinely shit at this but starting to enjoy it more.

[The Boston Crab]

Hmm, reached round three or four of a tournament there, very very good fun matches. Tight and close even when I got whupped in the end. It seems you really do have to be constantly mixing it up with shot selection, and nudging your slowdown to make sure you don't just bunt the tough returns and therefore keep your opponent moving and burning meter. I am confident now that I would destroy any of my mates at this. It does kind of remind me of ARMS in that there's a basic skill level you have to reach before the game becomes fun. It's not pick up and play in the Wii kind of way. You do have to git (a tiny bit) gud to even access the basic gameplay.

[Twed]

New character, Blooper. Good fine, crazy topspin angles.

I've stopped playing. I thought about what I'm going to get out of playing this from now that justifies the time expense, and there's nothing really. The rush from winning has become old. It would surely be nice to hone my skills to I no longer make silly mistakes and can consider all of my plays to be as good as possible, but that's a stupid waste of time unless your job title is Pro Gamer. Time to fuck it off and play Octopath and Toad.

[The Boston Crab]

I don't know if you've ever played ARMS or Splatoon but the Party Crash and Splatfest events are basically the things which keep me coming back. This desperately needs something similar, some reason to get better and some rewards for playing, even if just cosmetic. As it is, an arbitrary number moves up and down a bit before resetting. I think it's going to do OK but it's nowhere near its potential and I feel like it's been forgotten or dismissed already.

[Twed]

I think you're right. This doesn't feel like it got the budget or time it needed to shine. It's just not destined to be a flagship game.