Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash is about as paint-by-numbers as you can get. The lack of modes, characters, and new ideas make it a step backwards from the series’ debut on the Nintendo 64 back in 2000. In fact, Ultra Smash left me stretching to find any depth whatsoever. While the colorful characters and effects are definitely up to the Nintendo standard we’ve all come to expect, little else here is.
The one new idea Ultra Smash has -- Mega Mushrooms that randomly pop onto the court and cause characters to grow in size -- is actively bad. Not only does it it seem arbitrary and imbalanced, but the giant characters obstruct the view of the court and veer matches into the bad kind of chaos. It’s tough for me to understand why Mario Tennis leans so heavily into this feature when it stumbles so staggeringly.
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The one new idea Ultra Smash has -- Mega Mushrooms that randomly pop onto the court and cause characters to grow in size -- is actively bad. Not only does it it seem arbitrary and imbalanced, but the giant characters obstruct the view of the court and veer matches into the bad kind of chaos. It’s tough for me to understand why Mario Tennis leans so heavily into this feature when it stumbles so staggeringly.
Continue reading…
Continue reading...