Tag Archives: Nintendo

Astral Chain Review

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It’s time to look at one of Nintendo’s most recent games. This one looked like a day 1 purchase right away. It really had everything I could want from a game through its solid gameplay, epic soundtrack, cinematic story, etc. Astral Chain was pretty much guaranteed to be a home run hit and I’m glad to say that it did not disappoint. I definitely hope the game gets a sequel and it continues to show why Platinum is so good at making quality titles. The game will last you for around 14 hours to complete the main story which is pretty good.

The basic plot is that the world is under attack by invisible monsters. The only way to see them is to equip a Legion which is effectively a captured monster that you fight with. This helps to even the playing field with the evil monsters. The main character is one of those silent assassin types who gets the job done without complaint. His sister Akira is the more vocal member of the group who isn’t afraid to speak her mind. The two are selected to be in the Legion program and now work to make the world a safer place. Still, it is odd how there are so many portals with monsters showing up lately and their boss seems rather shady. Akira and the lead will have to stay sharp.

I picked the guy to play as, but if you had chosen to play as Akira then the guy would probably be doing the talking while you are silent. I’m definitely never a big fan of the silent lead, but I suppose it’s not like it hurts the story all that much. It just makes him really lacking in personality. Also, even though I named him Terry nobody actually called me that and in two different cutscenes they called him something else which I’m guessing is his actual name. Still, while the lead has no character the heroine is mostly solid. She’s quick to stand up to the bosses and jumps into action. Her character arc does go in some dicey directions such as her final fight with us which really came out of nowhere. Akira was solid for the most part though and that’s what counts in the end.

The gameplay is that of a 3D brawler. You can fight up close with the sword or hang back and use your gun. The gun is significantly weaker than the sword so it’s not something you’ll want to use very often. A big part of the gameplay is also in controlling your Legion. It’s effectively like an A.I. ally who comes in to help you. His attacks deal massive damage and you can also use him to jump across large distances or for combo moves. The gameplay has a lot of depth to it, but it’s explained well so you’ll quickly get the hang of it. There is also a training room with a lot of tutorials you can go to if you ever forget how to do something. The game also helpfully reminds you of the key abilities whenever you’re in a puzzle which I definitely appreciate.

The soundtrack is definitely quite solid. The main boss theme is rock based and really gets you into the zone. The whole game just clicks really well and it goes without saying that the graphics are really good as well. You can customize your character’s look a lot as well which sticks around for the cutscenes. I had fun changing up my character depending on what was happening. I started out as a hopeful cadet, then I switched to a casual slacker, and then finally to a very cynical rogue. It was a fun little side thing for sure.

I’d say that the only weak part of the game (relatively speaking. This is still a 9 star title so there wasn’t anything seriously weak here) was the investigation parts. I don’t really think this ended up adding much to the game. I suppose it helps the immersion since you’re a cop and there should be a lot of investigating going around. It’s just a lot slower than the actual combat and while you’re finding clues all you can think of it continuing the story a little more. Other than that, the game is very fast paced from start to finish with a lot of twists and turns all around.

I would say that there are enough loose ends here to have a sequel come up. Really it feels like the humans are still the shady ones here, but either way the threat isn’t over. Two plans have already been put into action without results so the heroes are going to have to think of what to do next. If there is no sequel the ending here can still be seen as definitive, but I think a sequel would be a good idea. I’m also glad that the main character stayed strong all the way through to the end even if his legion did not have similar resolve in his actions. One is better than none.

Assuming you’re playing on the Platinum difficulty then I recommend buying upgrades to your Legolas right away. Doing so gives you extra batteries which are effectively extra lives. They are incredibly handy when fighting with the bosses. The game is reasonably difficult so you’ll also want to have items on hand. They’re a little expensive but you want to be maxed out on battery chargers at all times. I barely took down the final boss and that’s considering that I came prepared with around 10 batteries and a bunch of full heals. If you come in with anything less then you’re definitely going to possibly be in some trouble. For replay value you can work on maxing out all of your legions after beating the game. There are also a bunch of side quests and achievements to complete as well. This will definitely take you some time and I expect you will be well acquainted with the world by the end of your adventures.

Overall, Astral Chain is definitely an excellent game and I highly recommend checking it out. The menu screens are all very intuitive. Leveling up is pretty easy and never feels like a drag. Obtaining enough premium codes to max everyone out seems like it’ll take a long time, but the replay value is good. It’s not forced so you only have to keep going if you want to. With all of the difficulty levels here you never have to feel like you’re truly stuck. As you learn the boss patterns you can also put up a much better fight the longer you train. If you don’t have this game yet then you’re going to want to change that.

Overall 9/10

Family Party: 30 Great Games Obstacle Arcade Stats and Records

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Stats time!

Play Time 1h 44m

Stage records

Balance Bridge 18000
Roll’em Up 6875
Penalty Kick 16800
Hide the Joker 24000
Ghost Flashlight –
Fantasy Stick 15500
Number Balloons 16100
Rodeo 12500
Block Race –
Lightning Order 17040
Cloud Jumper 3500
Obstacle Overrun 14300
Dot Image 11200
Spark Ball 21360
Boat Race –
Air Hockey 18600
Chancy Crane 4850
Earth Defense Team 15200
Cowboy Barrel Dodge 15000
Flying Teacups 15000
Magical Panels 11500
Horse Jump 16700
Total 274025

Pokemon Battle Revolution Review

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Technically, I played through this game many years ago, but my Wii broke before I could grab the review. We got a new Wii shortly afterwards but never really got around to replaying this game. I figured now was as good a time as any so I booted it up and went through a few tournies. I grabbed my team from Pokémon Diamond which included fighters from Pokémon Ruby. With Groudon and Blaziken at the ready I was prepared to take names. Unfortunately this game still doesn’t hold up as a spiritual successor to Pokémon Stadium.

When you start the game you are introduced to your limited amount of modes. The main one is to jump right into the Colosseums as you try to conquer them all. Every time you defeat an arena you get some money which you can use in the local shop to buy some clothes. The idea is that your character will look fancier and fancier as you win tournaments and by the end you will look like the champ. There’s not a ton of outfits to buy at the moment so it seems easy to get them all, but I’m guessing that you unlock more outfits as you progress during the game. It’s a quick but nice way to add replay value I suppose. Hopefully you enjoy this because that’s really the extent of the replay value.

For the Colosseums the game makes the odd decision to add a lot of luck and chance to the equation. Before I get ahead of myself though you may be wondering how you get Pokémon. Well, you start the game off with a “rental pass” which gives you access to 6 Pokemon that the game chooses for you. You can also connect one of your portable Pokemon games to bring over a real team which I highly recommend. Once you’ve done that, you enter the colosseums which all have different rules. There is the standard 1 vs 1 battles with 3 Pokémon each and the doubles battles with 4. These are classic and work well.

Then the game decides to get sneaky and introduces the Neon tournament. This one throws in a wheel of fortune and the gimmick here is that your Pokémon as well as your opponent’s are thrown into the wheel and both of you throw darts at it. Whoever it lands on is the Pokémon you will use and each of you do that until you have a full team at the ready. Of course the computer got my Groudon right away…. I don’t see the point of putting this level of luck into the game. Part of the point of Pokémon is to fight alongside the Pokémon you’ve trained up, not some random ones.

Another problem with this one is the colosseum length which makes losing pretty punishing. The tournaments are mainly 7 rounds and you have to win them all back to back. You can do a quick save to take a break from the game but if you lose any of the 7 matches then you have to start the tournament all over again. That means for the luck based one you have to be fortunate many times in a row. That’s not really something you want to bank on. Personally I would have either shortened the tournaments to 3-4 battles or I would have just made it so you continue from where you lost. Either option makes for a much more enjoyable gameplay experience. As it stands the colosseums are too punishing and not rewarding enough.

The game also suffers from how long the matches take which is something that affects most of the big console Pokémon games to be fair. There are a lot of animations in the battles and they can’t be turned off so you have to watch each attack. Even Pokémon Colosseum was affected by this so I’m guessing it is difficult to speed up the games. The portables do it though so there’s got to be an answer. That’s actually one of the things I’m hoping Pokémon Sword can fix. If any Pokémon game can get around this it would be the latest installment in the main series. I’ll give the developers of Battle Revolution props for adding so many unique effects to all of the characters since I’m sure it was visually challenging. There should just be a way to toggle it on and off. Graphics is one of the strongest points of the game and they aged very well. All of the character models are on point and stages look quite solid. The soundtrack is also pretty iconic at this point. As soon as I turned on the game I was hit with the nostalgic tunes. Battle Revolution did a good job of creating its own soundtrack and it holds up quite well. It does lot have the scope and variety of the main games but is still a solid collection in its own right.

I think another part that hurts the game is that aside from having no story you don’t even have the classic Gym Leaders to help out. We do have Colosseum leaders, but none of them are particularly noteworthy and since you have to make it past a full gauntlet to see them you won’t really get to savor the experience for long. There’s no real hook beyond the fact that this is a Pokemon game and that’s not enough to carry a title for very long.

Overall, Pokémon Battle Revolution is one of those games that should have been much better than it actually was. I feel like it’s hard to mess up with a Pokémon game but this one threw away a bunch of opportunities through its Colosseum format. I really don’t understand why the game did that. Pokemon Stadium already created a very nice format for how you would handle a home console Pokemon game. Battle Revolution should have focused on that rather than trying to re-invent the wheel. That was their big mistake and while they may have been trying to be innovative it completely backfired. It’s still entertaining, but only in small batches and you could always be playing a better Pokemon title.

Overall 6/10

Vice: Project Doom Review

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Project Doom is one of the newer games added to the Nintendo Switch online service. It’s a pretty innovative game for its time as you get some racing levels as well as traditional shooter ones. The mechanics are all on point for both types of gameplay and the story is pretty engaging. Considering that it’s free there is really no reason not to take the plunge on this one. You’ll be glad you went for it. It’s challenging but there are enough quality of life features to make it feel enjoyable at all times. When you die or even when you get a game over you aren’t sent all the way back which I was happy about. That seems to be rare in the NES era.

At first I actually thought this was purely a driving title so I was actually surprised when the level ended and you were suddenly on the ground. When you’re driving you get a machine gun so you blast the other cars away and try to live until you hit the finish line. The controls are pretty straight forward and the whole thing just flows really well. When it comes to the land levels they are just as solid. You’ve got a energy sword that you use to slice and dice away at the enemies in your way. The level backgrounds and general design feel like something out of Mega Man. These levels are difficult, but not downright impossible or anything like that. You’ll be able to make it pretty far either way. Even when you die you don’t get sent back to start as I mentioned before so that helps lower the pressure.

The boss battles are also pretty fun. The first one is definitely original as you’re fighting a giant tank that’s spamming missiles. You have to hit the power core near the top of it, but can’t touch the tank or you’ll take massive damage. I died here quite a bit, but then I figured out the trick which is really just to duck. Ducking allows you to dodge just about all of the tank’s attacks so it’s incredibly handy. I cannot stress enough why this is a technique that you really must use here.

I didn’t make it particularly far in the story, but that’ll be one of the incentives for you to make it all the way across. You’re playing as a secret agent uncovering a conspiracy and there are a lot of twists and turns. I think you’ll have a really hard time guessing the twist about the villains and the whole thing gets very personal to the lead by the end of it. It’s not really the kind of story you’re used to seeing on the NES and it is a shame that this game never got bigger. It seems to me like it should have done exceptionally well back in the day. It holds up really well to the modern day.

The game is technically pretty short at under an hour, but that is really presuming that you won’t die at all and that’s borderline impossible. There’s no way you’ll be getting out of this game with just a scratch so to speak. You’ll die quite a few times as you learn through trial and error what works and what does not. Only after that will you be ready to go on those famous speed runs. The levels are quick and the gameplay is fast paced so I don’t imagine you will have much of a problem replaying the levels over and over again. If anything it’ll just help you map them out even more.

Vice’s graphics are definitely sharp. They wouldn’t feel out of place in a GBA title or on the SNES. It’s really ahead of its time in that regard. The lightsaber sword is also pretty cool and you feel like you’ve got a lot of power on your side. The soundtrack is less impressive, but still good overall. I certainly wouldn’t give that part a thumbs down either. This is the kind of game where you can see how a lot of care would have gone into producing it.

Overall, Vice is one of the best NES games I’ve played through the online service and it’s a solid addition to the lineup. I know at this point we’re all waiting for the SNES games to show up, but in the meanwhile at least I’m getting to see all of these other obscure games. If you’ve got a Switch and haven’t checked this one out yet then I recommend changing that. I think you’ll be hooked on this game before long and then you can be added to the list of people who are ready for a proper reboot/sequel someday.

Overall 7/10

Pokemon Ranger: Shadows of Almia Stats and Records

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Stats time!

Play Time 15h 2m
Styler Level 38
Pokemon Browser 178/257
Steps 17587
Conversations 56
Targets Checked 219
Saves 83
Pokemon Rides 24
Quests 1/60
Pokemon Captures 445
Best Partner Pachirisu
Abandoned attempts 19
Pokemon Assists 102
Capture Line Length 312893 feet
Loops 9657

Pokemon Ranger: Shadows of Almia Review

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It’s been many years since I played the original Pokémon Ranger so it’s nice to finally be checking out the sequel. Shadows of Almia takes you through the full experience of being a ranger and does a great job of giving you a lot of content. It’s a very solid all around game with no real weak points. The level up system is solid and it delivers on everything it sets out to do.

The plot follows a kid who is in ranger school and learning to be one. As time goes by he actually does join the rangers and quickly begins to rise up the ranks. However, it isn’t all fun and games as a villain organization known as Dim Sun shows up and begins mind controlling Pokémon. The ranger must now find a way to save the Pokémon and stop this villain group once and for all. He doesn’t have enough power on his own but if the lead can capture enough Pokémon for temporary duties then he has a shot.

Right away I can say that the gameplay plays a big role in why this game is so much fun. It revolves around making circles around the Pokémon to weaken it until you eventually have trapped it which counts as a catch. You only keep the Pokémon until you’ve used it once so be sure to wait for the right opportunity. You can then use that Pokemon to help you catch others down the road. You can’t stockpile a whole lot of Pokémon so it’s best to be using the abilities here and there. Usually if you see a big Pokémon it is there for a good reason like an obstacle or something so keep an eye out for that and don’t use the Pokémon too soon.

It’s a very quick paced gameplay and one that feels like it has a lot of rewards. You get level ups pretty quickly and it does give you a noticeable boost in power. As a result you can really feel yourself getting stronger as you progress through the game which is great. Personally I think level ups should always matter so it should never feel like you are basically the same. Running around the large hub world is never tedious because you learn how to fly later on and the first half isn’t so large that it would take forever. The directions are always clear and there are no forced encounters so that’s a recipe for a leisurely time.

As for which Pokemon abilities you will want to use, I recommend the thunder shock the most. Hopefully you chose Pachirisu when the game first starts as his ability is the best if you ask me. The opponent is frozen for 2 seconds so you get to spin a lot of loops around the Pokemon. You’re gonna need to go very quickly to pull this off, but the more you play the game the easier that’ll be. It can be tough when a Pokemon goes to the edge of the screen, but you’ll always find a way. You don’t even really need the abilities as the upgrades to your base pointer are good enough, but the abilities definitely make things easier. You can also skip Pokemon encounters, but I don’t recommend doing this since the EXP is very important and you’re gonna want it down the stretch.

As far as the graphics go it all looks pretty solid to me. The sprites hold up well and I do like the victory pose that the lead uses whenever he takes a win. The soundtrack is also pretty solid although it does feel very limited. For example you are going to hear the Dim Sun theme more times than you can count. Fortunately it is catchy so that works out. I’d say that the best theme in the game is the boss theme. It gives those fights a good level of importance.

The story’s definitely a lot of fun and one of the villains here definitely ranks as a top tier character even among the main games. His name is Ice and he is one of the big members of Dim Sun. This guy’s actually very intelligent and is able to keep up with the main genius in the game. He’s got a cool personality and always hits the dab. For a while all of the members were your standard grunts so when the 3 big villains were introduced I was pretty thrilled. They come into the game fairly late, but leave an impression. In general the game turns the story up a few notches towards the end as the villains invade your base and a lot of chaos ensues.

The heroes are also fun, but definitely less useful. Typically it’s up to you to save them time and time again. While the others are supposed to be your equals that rarely feels like it’s the case. The lead is just really good at being a ranger and the others inevitably become second fiddle in comparison. There’s no shame in that though and the important thing is that they can keep up at least a little. Sven is one of the pros here and that guy holds his own. He certainly does better than Keith who takes a whole lot of Ls throughout the game. Then you’ve got the scientist but he’s suckered pretty easily so he didn’t quite rank. At least he didn’t go into full traitor mode unlike a certain other character. Granted, that character was evil from the start so maybe calling him a traitor is uncalled for.

In terms of replay value there is quite a lot here. The main story took me around 15 hours and that’s considering that I didn’t really do any of the side quests. If I had then you could jump that number up quite a bit since there are many extra quests. You get a lot of bang for your buck with this installment that’s for sure. I can’t stress the enough the importance of having a good hub world. I’m not talking purely about size of location, a good hub world means your character should move quickly enough so you can get through it. There should be minimal distractions and the exits should be clearly labeled so you don’t have to use much memory on it. Pokemon Ranger does a solid job of everything above.

Overall, Shadows of Almia is a great game and one that I highly recommend checking out. It continues to do justice to the Pokémon brand as even the spinoffs tend to be quite well rounded. The length is pretty good and the plot/gameplay are enjoyable. As I mentioned there really aren’t any negatives to be found here so as soon as you see this game in stores you’re gonna want to snag it. Now I look forward to getting the final game on the Ranger series at some point.

Overall 8/10

Adventures of Lolo Review

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It’s time for Lolo to come up to bat. There are definitely quite a lot of NES Online titles that I have yet to play, but Lolo seemed like the best one to check out at the time. It’s got a Kirby vibe to it, but it is puzzle based instead of being a platformer which is pretty interesting. It definitely changes things up and I’ll give the title credit for trying something new. I don’t think it’ll keep your attention for too long, but it’s a nice way to spend an hour or two.

The basic plot is that the princess has been captured and Lolo has to save her. As with the Mario games, Lolo always gets close only to be told that the princess is in another castle on a different floor. You have to scale all 10 floors and 50 puzzles if you actually want to save her. I completed the first 5 floors and then stopped on the 6th one. It’s definitely a title that is easy to get into, but hard to master. You’ll really have to think long and hard about the puzzles if you want to get all the way.

The access points help a lot but without them I can’t imagine going too far in this game. I died dozens of times during the course of the first 27 levels and they kept on getting harder with each new one so I would have been cooked. The game is overhead and the goal is to grab all of the pink orbs which opens up a chest on the level. Once you grab the gem in the chest all of the enemies in the area will blow up and you can proceed. Rinse and repeat as you go through the 50 levels. You have the ability to summon a ladder in levels that give you this option and you can shoot an energy blast which you get from energy squares. You only get 2 shots so make them count. One shot will turn an enemy into a gum drop and hitting them a second time will shoot the ball far off into the distance so they can ponder what just happened. You’ll need these gumballs to float in the ocean or to keep them out of your way as you get through the goal.

The toughest enemies to get around are the floating heads. If you walk in their line of sight at any point then you die instantly. They can see in 4 directions at once so dodging them is tricky. Typically you need to use a block to try and block them, but even that can be pretty difficult to achieve. One wrong step and it’s curtains. Then you’ve got the speed ghosts who move much faster than Lolo and a single touch is death. Well….okay any hit in this game is death so just don’t get hit. That’s a lot easier said than done though.

The enemies all activate when you’ve hit the final target in the level so you want to try and leave the one that is closest to the chest for last. Of course, that is easier said than done and some levels rig it so you can’t do this. You have to manipulate the blocks to make the best possible course for yourself so you can dodge these guys. It feels like a Layton puzzle to an extent just with less variety. These are real brain challenges though and are definitely not to be underestimated. I haven’t played a game this hard in quite a while. The NES definitely had a lot of real tough ones. I can’t say I miss the days of not being able to save and all, but they definitely had their charm.

Adventures of Lolo doesn’t have much of a soundtrack, but it’s peaceful enough while you’re playing. It does hold up with the graphics very well though. You’d barely believe that this game is so old because it just looks very smooth and clean. It’s the kind of game that could come out right now and you probably wouldn’t bat an eye. The length is pretty good too. Someone beat it in around 40-60 minutes which would be pretty crazy to me. There are 50 puzzles as I mentioned and it took me around an hour and a half to beat half of them. So you’ve probably got 3 hours of solid entertainment here and you can increase that number by quite a lot since you’ll likely be dying in some of the levels. There isn’t much replay value after beating the campaign, but that’ll take long enough as it is.

Overall, The Adventures of Lolo is a fun title. I’ll definitely remember it although before I play the sequel I’ll probably try something a little different the next time I head back into the NES world. If you’ve got the online Switch membership then you should definitely check this one out. It’s free so there’s no real downside and it’s nice to take a look at these retro franchises. Who knows, maybe Lolo will end up being the next title to get revived like Crash, Bubsy, or Spyro! The puzzle concept could certainly work well in today’s world as well, I just hope they add more of a story this time beyond the whole princess gets captured thing. I want full cinematics or at least a hype script.

Overall 6/10

Mario Tennis Aces Review

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I didn’t expect that I would be able to play this game for a few years, but fortunately Nintendo stepped up and made this game completely free for all online members. You get a 5 day demo and that was more than enough time for me since the story is only around 4 hours long. It’s definitely a fun tennis title, but one where I think Nintendo went a little too far in adding extra mechanics and gimmicks. The tennis gameplay was already amazing back in the Gamecube days. Nothing else really needed to be added to take it to the next level. Finally adding a full story was cool though.

Mario and Peach were busy winning another tournament when Wario and Waluigi show up holding a mysterious racket. Luigi manages to snag it and the dark power turns him evil. Mario must now travel the world to find the 5 power gems which will allow him to subdue the racket. This will be difficult though as the villains are after the gems as well and a powerful guardian protects each of the gems. Mario will really need to bring his A game if he wants to triumph here. He’s survived some tough odds before so I’m sure he’ll be fine.

The story is surprisingly good for a Mario game. We get actual dialogue for the characters aside from Mario and Luigi. They talk through recycled voice clips which may be a bit lazy, but it’s certainly better than talking through gibberish like in Yooka Laylee. I do think that the opening cinematic was made in a hurry though because the sound bites there are especially out of place. For the text box cutscenes it was all standard enough. Bowser gets to join in the story too as you would expect and the background elements of a dark and light god running around feels like something out of Final Fantasy. It’s a short story, but definitely a fun one and I was also glad that Daisy manages to get involved this time around.

As for the gameplay, at first it seems like your traditional tennis set up. You can hit lob shots, ground shots, power moves, etc. Your goal is to score points by getting the ball past the other player. Well, this all gets thrown for a loop when the tutorial continues and they introduce zone shots. This occurs when you have some special meter and an opponent hits a ball to you that bounces a little high. You can stop time for an instant and hit the ball wherever you want. If the opponent is slow to react or hits at any point but the proper one then their racket will take massive damage and potentially shatter. If their racket shatters then they lose the match instantly. Typically you start with 2 rackets so you’re fine if just one breaks.

On the defensive side of the ball you can also choose to slow down time at any point in order to make it easier to take the shot. Finally, you’ve got your final smash which is 3 times as strong as a zone shot so it will instantly break the opposing racket unless you perfectly block it. I used this quite a lot in story mode to win most of my matches via KO. It saves time compared to going the whole 9 yards. Still, I didn’t particularly like these extra mechanics. I feel like it takes away from the actual tennis fundamentals since these abilities really take over. You just can’t win without mastering them. Especially because you’ve got a new dive which takes you almost halfway across the screen in an instant. That mechanic also went a little too far if you ask me.

The gameplay may not be perfect, but it’s still fun. If you really enjoy Tennis then you should still have no problem with it. It was fun enough where I went back to story mode after clearing it and beat the extra dungeon as well as most of the bonus missions so I got all 5 rackets. Online I got destroyed by the other opponents so I’ll need some extra work there. The demo only lasts for another 2 days though so that’ll probably be it for me. In terms of offline content there isn’t actually a lot to do so hopefully you love the online. You’ve got tournament mode and a ring mode to pay through. Gone are the days when we had a dozen minigames to have fun with. I think the problem is that there is less incentive to play all these offline modes in Aces because you won’t really get anything.

I do think Nintendo has done a good job of continuing to support the game with DLC though. When you first boot up the game you’ll see that you’ve unlocked an extra 5-6 DLC characters right away. That’s pretty neat since it’s all free. Meanwhile the graphics are definitely quite solid. I don’t care for Mario’s new design, but you are able to switch back to the standard costume as long as you unlocked it from the trial copy a long time ago. The stages and the details within are all very clear so you always know exactly what is going on at any point in time. The soundtrack is not very notable for a Mario game, but I wouldn’t say it is bad. It just doesn’t have that all star quality that you’ve come to expect from Mario.

Overall, Mario Tennis Aces is a fun game. It’s the perfect rental for a nice weekend as you just relax with the characters. That being said, there is nowhere close to enough content to justify a 60 dollar purchase unless you really love the online. After 2 days you’ll likely have finished all of the offline content so online will be all that you’ve got left. I think once the price is around 20 then it’s not a bad purchase, but until then it’ll just feel like not enough content considering how much you’re spending. Hopefully Nintendo continues to add more and more to this game with each update and then my recommendation for the game will get stronger and stronger.

Overall 7/10