Mario Tennis Open

Why I bought it: I bought it because I hadn't played my 3DS in a while and I wanted a game that Danielle and I could play together.

Thoughts: If I had to pick two words to describe this game the first word would be easy. Very easy. The basic formula for each match is that there are five basic shots you can hit. Depending on what type of shot you hit, the five different shots your opponent can hit will have varying effect. Some will be hard to return while others will set you up for power-up returns. These power-ups show up on the screen as colorful circles on the court. Depending on whether these circles are purple, white, yellow, red or blue determines what button you should hit to get an almost un-returnable shot. The strange thing though is that if you hit x you automatically do the more powerful shot, making this game easier than it already is.

The second word is fun. Yes this game is easy. Yes this game lacks some depth. But damn if the basic game of tennis isn't really fun. Tim and I played this game for four straight hours trying to defeat the doubles tandem of Waluigi and Bowser without letting them win a game. It was damn near impossible despite the fact that we won the first set without letting them score a point almost every time. This was a result of rubberband AI, but still, when we finally blanked those fucks it was quite rewarding.

The one-player aspect of this game is a series of 8 tournaments. 4 regular and 4 "star" tournaments. 7 out of the 8 tournaments were incredibly easy. I literally did not lose a set. However, the 8th tournament was incredibly hard. It took place on the "galaxy" court in which the court itself would change between shots, giving the ball different spins after hitting the ground. Every fourth shot or so, the court would change to a purple-super-nova-looking thing and there was no way to tell where the ball was going, of course, unless you are CPU. This purple-super-nova-looking thing made beating Bowser in the championship exceptionally hard. It took me about 7 tries.

Anyway, like I said before, this game does not offer a lot of depth. The only things you can unlock are just clothes for your Mii (did I mention you can play as your Mii?). You don't unlock new characters or new rackets for the Nintendo mascots. There's really no reason to play through with more than one character. But, if you've liked Mario Tennis in the past and you want to be able to play it on the go, this game is great.

Should I have bought it: Yes. This is one of my most played 3DS games.