Super Tennis Rapid Review

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Fast Facts

Title: Super Tennis
Developer: Ultimate Games
Publisher: Ultimate Games
Website: Ultimate Games
Genre: Arcade, Puzzle
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Age Rating: 3 – PEGI
Release Date: 27/01/2020
Price: £5.39 – A code was kindly provided for review purposes.

Tennis is believed to have been first played in England between 1859 and 1865. Since then there have been a lot of evolutions in the sport and a lot of tennis video games. Not to be confused with the SNES title of the same name, Super Tennis is one of the latest offerings by Ultimate Games. Is Super Tennis for the Nintendo Switch a grand slam, or is this game one big fault? Let’s find out.

Tennis comprises of a lot of tactics, from the force you use to strike the ball to the spin that you apply. There are so many layers to the actual game itself; all of which are missing in Super Tennis.

You don’t actually play any tennis here. At no point are you diving over the court to return a volley, or ever scoring an ace on the serve. Super Tennis omits any actual tennis style gameplay. Instead what the player has to do is press a sequence of buttons before a timer runs out to return each shot. The time allotted can vary, the number of buttons required can vary too, but it’s never any more than that. Tapping all the buttons in the correct order will score you a 2x bonus, tapping all bar 1 correctly will get you 1x bonus and messing up twice in one sequence will cause you to fail the shot and lose.

As you play, you will earn credits, which can be spent on new outfits for your character.  More costumes open up as you win each cup, through the three seasons of play. The first season has more matches as you progress through the cups, containing progressively longer button sequences to press. The second season brings in different weather conditions which can obscure your view; however, it has zero impact on your ability to see or press buttons so is pretty pointless. The third season has you playing in different locations; the only change here is that you’re not in a stadium. Regardless of which outfit you choose, the experience is exactly the same.

When it comes to visuals, this game has opted for a pixel art style. It’s simple, yet all the outfits capture what they’re trying to convey with relative ease.  There’s nothing to write home about here, pixel art has become very popular since the rise of Minecraft, and it doesn’t look like this trend is dissipating anytime soon.

Audio is another disappointment, a forgettable backing track plays throughout each game, but the real problem here is the commentary.  The same sound clips are played over and over and over again.  It’s a real grind and gets noticeable very quickly.

Overall this game is an okay romp for 5 minutes of downtime. You could replace the tennis aspect with anything and have the exact same game.  It just comes down to this being a button memorisation game.  Sadly at its current price point, it’s just too much to ask for a game that offers so little.  Super Tennis is a swing and a miss. 

Rapid Reviews Rating

Super Tennis can be purchased for the Nintendo Switch using the following link: https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo-Switch-download-software/Super-Tennis-1708786.html