I played the aces demo for about two hours tonight. My impression of the game itself is very positive, but the demo is disappointing. I was hoping for local multiplayer to be included, but it isn’t. Your only options are online singles play and singles matches against the AI. There’s also only one court to play on (the main stadium, which I assume is supposed to be a hardcourt because that’s how it plays, but it looks like a carpet/synthetic court). However, the actual gameplay is fantastic. It reminds me of the N64 version, which is what I was hoping for. That said, it can be overwhelming at first, with its zone shots, trick shots, power shots, etc. The simple mode (i.e., ‘pure’ tennis, if you will) is not included in the demo, which is a shame because that would have made for a smoother introduction. But after a few matches against the AI I felt I had an okay grasp of the mechanics. The UI is slick too. One cause for concern I have is that I have yet to hit a service fault or an unforced error, but I recall seeing those in a gameplay preview video so maybe they are just not part of the demo.
The four starting characters are well-selected and are all unique. Each has a different playstyle classification and there’s a huge difference between playing as Bowser and playing as Yoshi. In fact, I’ve unlocked a second ‘speedy’ character and he plays noticeably different than the also ‘speedy’ Yoshi. Some of the character classes seem odd—Waluigi is ‘defensive,’ but, much like the N64 version, if you aren’t taking him to the net you’re probably using him wrong—but they otherwise make sense. For example, Peach is ‘technical’ because her shots are more precise than others and Bowser is ‘powerful’ because he absolutely crushes the ball. I encountered some lag and one of my opponents lost their connection while we were playing, but most of the matches I was in online went smoothly.
Aces kind of reminds me of Blood Bowl in that you can win either by the traditional way or by destroying your opponent’s racket twice. Paradoxically, the characters that seem best suited for the latter method are the speedy types like Yoshi, who can keep the ball in play long enough to max out their energy gauge in a single point and then fire off their power shot. Bowser, meanwhile, can easily rip down-the-line winners and has no need for such trickery. I wasn’t sure I would like this aspect of the game, but it’s won me over. Partially because you can completely avoid racket damage as the returner if you want as the only way rackets gets damaged is if you try to block the power shot. Of course, by not attempting the block you are essentially conceding the point.
Even though I found what’s included with the demo a little disappointing, it’s done its job as I preordered the game as soon as I finished with it for the evening.
Well hell, I loved Mario Tennis on N64, but I didn’t connect much with the Wii Sports tennis tech demo. I wasn’t planning on getting excited for this, but now I think I’m obliged to at least download the demo.
The game is fun, but the netcode really needs some work. Online game is unplayable with lag (which I was getting plenty of). Also, the tutorial does a poor job of preparing you for online matches.
I made it to a tournament final last night playing as Bowser. The court changed color to black, character introductions were played, and some Toads provided commentary during the match. It’s a small thing, but the extra pomp was a nice touch. Lost to a Chain Chomp, but had fun doing it.
Simple mode is listed as an option for online play, but, unfortunately, when you click it nothing happens.
You’re not kidding. I played some more this afternoon and about every other match either me or my opponent started lagging to the point where we couldn’t return serves. Maybe things will settle down this evening, but for now all I can do is play against the AI. I can’t find a way to adjust the AI difficulty in the demo, so as solid as the gameplay is, it isn’t much fun anymore because the CPU doesn’t provide a challenge once you have the mechanics down.
I dunno if folks know already, but i stumbled upon Ikaruga in the Nintendo store.
I think this was originally released on the Dreamcast, as a sequel to radiant silvergun. I played it on the GameCube, and it’s a game that is well worth picking up. One of the greatest scrolling shooters ever.
Ikaruga is massively, even comically, overrated. The Switch version is apparently a fine port (and closer to the arcade version than the 360 version, which is a good thing!), but I’d recommend Dragon Blaze or the upcoming Switch version of Gunbird 2 instead.
Mario Tennis Aces demo was superb this past weekend. I really enjoyed it. I only made it to the semifinals of a tournament a couple times, but I could tell my skill was improving with each game as well as understanding the power systems and how you can affect shots.
I think my favorite thing was I never felt out of a match. It’s like a fighting game with tennis rackets in that there is almost always some kind of counter to your opponent and man, if you can pull off a block on their super move shot, that is even more exciting than executing a super move winner yourself. It’s great stuff.
I wasn’t planning to get it, but I think I will have to do that now. June 22 for those who are interested.
How was your connection? My Twitter feed seemed to love the game, but had enough issues with connectivity that it dropped them from a “definitely buy” to “waiting to see if this is addressed”.
How did you guys make it so far?? I got completely obliterated in any of my online matches. it was a joke. That being said, it kept matching me up against players that had over 1000 points when I was at 0. :/
Clearly they had a few more matches under their belt.
I had two out of maybe 20 games where I felt like the connection was a problem. I had one guy choose not to play me with a two bar connection. Most were three and up.
I have Comcast with 200Mb speed but play the Switch through wireless which I’m guessing most do? That can always be a problem for some people.
Nah, it’s just a cool game.
Not even the best game on the switch, which I think is still probably zelda.
But I liked it back on the gamecube, and picked it up despite my general annoyance at buying games I already owned, because it seemed like a cool game to have on a handheld.
I’m actually struggling to find games on the switch that I really like, despite liking the system a lot.
I’m looking forward to Moonlighters and Dark Souls.
It often felt to me like the tournaments were seeded so that players with few points were matched against players with many more points in the early rounds. I noticed that I never played against someone with over 1000 points in the first two rounds and rarely played against someone with more points than me until the semifinals. There are obviously other explanations for this—probably there were significantly more people with few points and those that did not have that many points likely weren’t good enough to advance to the latter rounds. Still, I hope they have some form of matchmaking for the final game so that you play against people with a similar skill level. Usually, I would only have one competitive match each time I played a tournament (the semifinals and sometimes the quarterfinals), otherwise I was winning easily or getting crushed in the final. Neither is much fun.
It probably depends on where you were geographically located when playing the games. I only played about 5 online matches on Saturday afternoon EST US. I was generally matched against equally low ranked opponents. Connectivity was only a problem on one game where I got dropped out.
It was a very enjoyable game, I can see how it is compared with a fighting game, it really is looking for those small advantages each shot to win the point.
