Mario Power Tennis

[Obiwanshinobi]

At this point anything with Mario voice acting makes me cringe, but this one's by Camelot Software, therefore I must ask:

a) is single player any good and

b) is the Wii version any good? The pictures of box I found online don't have the gamepad symbol on them, that makes me fear Camelot broke their own game.

[BrianC]

I rented this one for GCN and I liked it quite a bit. I found single player to be pretty good, though some the mini games felt a bit cluttered (been awhile since I have played, though). No RPG mode, but the tennis itself is well done. Power shots were fun to use, though they may or may not be unbalanced. I heard mostly negative things about the Wii controls. I heard they don't work as well as the button controls and you need both wiimote and nunchuck for full control.

I have been playing the GBA Mario Tenis Power Tour lately. No link like with Mario Golf GBA, but the RPG style single player is fun, though it seems somewhat easier than the GBC game.

As much as I like the Mario Tennis games, I prefer the feel of Tennis 2K2/Virtua Tennis 2 for Dreamcast. That also just an RPG style mode with mini games and, if I remember correctly, doesn't have moves that need two buttons pressed at once.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Yeah, in the cold light of the day I can't justify getting MPT having just gotten VT2.

[nosorrow]

I personally love it, but I'm a sucker for Mario-themed sports games, even the "unbalanced" baseball game on GC (hitting is so unsatisfying in that game, but I digress).

I seem to recall the GC iteration supposedly being Superior to the Wii update, but YMMV if you enjoy the motion controls of the latter. IMO, you can't go wrong with MPT, and that's coming from someone who also enjoys the Virtua Tennis series quite a bit.

[Strikers1945guy]

I personally love it, but I'm a sucker for Mario-themed sports games, even the "unbalanced" baseball game on GC (hitting is so unsatisfying in that game, but I digress).

I seem to recall the GC iteration supposedly being Superior to the Wii update, but YMMV if you enjoy the motion controls of the latter. IMO, you can't go wrong with MPT, and that's coming from someone who also enjoys the Virtua Tennis series quite a bit.

Never played the baseball game, but MPT is pretty good. Of course, Mario Golf Toadstool Tour on the GCN was pure gold.

[Mortificator]

I liked the N64 Mario Tennis, but couldn't get into the GameCube one. It focused more on flash, and I think its substance suffered as a result.

The GameCube Mario Golf was probably better than the N64 game, though the only Nintendo golf-like I really enjoy is Kirby's Dream Course. I think it's because the only action in regular golf is the moment you swing, while Dream Course has abilities to influence what happens while the ball's in motion.

[mamboFoxtrot]

I rented this once back when it was new and tried some single player. The only thing I remember about it was that they added short cinematic special moves for each character. It made things really damn annoying since not only did you end up seeing these cutscenes multiple times a match, you also had to spend a moment finding yourself and the ball on screen again once the cutscene was over.
If there was an option to turn these off for the single player modes I don't think I found it at the time.