Tennis games that feel correct

Tradegood

orok oh heck yeah, as a once-mediocre junior tennis player myself, I’ve always wanted a truly simulatory tennis video game but mostly disappointed in the execution of the games out there. I don’t think anything actually stacks up to the kind of strategy, pacing, and nuance you get from actual tennis. Until a AAA VR game comes out I don’t think any tennis game is going to really do it justice. I’ve played that “Table Tennis VR” and it’s getting there, but it needs some feedback when you hit the ball and some space to run around.

Gameboy Tennis is my nostalgic game that I blindly loved even though it’s probably objectively terrible bargain-bin quality. But after Pokemon came out I got a link cable and one of my neighbors happened to have this game so we would occasionally play together. I can’t imagine we played more than 1-2 hours cumulatively though. The smaller court here feels better to me than any NES or SNES tennis game on the big screen but it’s probably just because it’s what I grew up with.

Oh hey is that Jump Man?

In terms of real-deal simulation tennis games, I think its gotta be Top Spin 4 on the Playstation 3, right? On the court it’s great. It plays smooth and the physics feel right. It was also back when theycould license all the best tennis players and grand slam tournaments in the game without having to rely on user-created content. One time I smoked a little “medicine” and I thought I was actually playing in the French open for the entire tournament.

My dream tennis game, much like Top Spin 4, has a career mode where you can micromanage the player even on off days. It’s not enough to just play the tennis Grand Slam, I like to have to manage my character’s jet lag from a long flight. Being a tennis player is not just about your performance on the court, it’s also about signing brand deals with Rolex and doing stilted TV interviews and jet-setting to a party in Monte Carlo with the global elite. The life of an elite tennis player is a legitimately weird existence and I love when there’s life-sim elements to a tennis game.

safetypads

Tradegood
I love this idea of an overly immersive and micromanaged athlete career simulation game, I always wanted a more in-depth take on the career mode ofthe Rock Band games and I think I would apply perfectly to tennis, something that lets me make dumb decisions that will truncate my matches for a better storyline.

Tradegood

safetypads Absolutely. Straight tennis is fine but its always fun to have something to break up the gameplay loop, and optional time management or minigames is a nice addition. It might only result in some small stat changes or your “Energy Bar” going down but it does make for a better storyline!

diogo

i fucked very hard with Everybody’s Tennis back in the day. what a game

◉◉maru

orok something that feels as good as Final Match Tennis

This won’t happen.

If I remember correctly, the (previously?) lone developer of the Tennis Elbow series started developing video games specifically because he was a huge fan of FMT and could not find any contemporary tennis game scratching that specific realistic itch.

Among more mainstream releases, I think Top Spin 4 (for a more realistic bent) and Virtua Tennis 2 (for a more arcadey bent) are the usual recommendations among tennis fans.

You’ll find many elite FMT players spread across the games industry, by the way. Nicolas Doucet of Astrobot fame is pretty strong at the game, for instance.

sabertoothalex

Virtua Tennis 2 aka Tennis 2k2 aka Sega Sports Tennis aka Power Smash 2 aka Virtua Tennis World Tour(as an expanded port) has the most names of maybe any game and was also a complete revelation to me months ago. I grew up playing a lot of Virtua Tennis and just never put it together that 2k2 was the sequel to it.

robinhoodie

I will split some of the difference and say that for me it is Mario Tennis GBC. I can’t think of as simple a game that gets as teeth grindingly tense.

hellomrkearns

antillese

There is a dude in Virtua Tennis you can pick that has “various shots” and my friends have been talking about this for 20 years.

safety_lite

Still waiting on that Infinite Jest RPG adaptation from Camelot…

onefiftythree

Mario Tennis Aces on switch feels great when you play on simple mode (no frills tennis). fun regular too.

I have never played a 2d tennis game i liked and it is my favorite sport.

if you have PSVR and a big room and the move controller with a joystick on it you can play Dream Match Tennis VR and it is actually a LOT of fun.

Tradegood

onefiftythree Mario Tennis Aces on switch feels great when you play on simple mode (no frills tennis). fun regular too.

Yeah, I liked Mario Tennis Aces too, but I think the special moves make it feel more like a fighting game than a tennis game. They’re way too powerful, so your chance of winning online depends almost entirely on how fast you can build up that special meter. It was fun at first but the novelty went away quickly for me. I haven’t played it in a few years but maybe I need to go back to play the simple tennis some more.

Dream Match Tennis VR sounds cool, but how does it actually work with such limited space? Do you have to lunge after stuff like you’re playing Squash? The idea of playing a VR tennis match in the living room is really compelling to me even though the Switch Sports tennis style of game is not at all. Does it feel different?

hellomrkearns That art style is so timeless, I feel like it’s wasted on iOS! They should bring it to consoles!

skelly

i remember playing a bit of the hot shots tennis demo on my PSP back in the day, i had fun so i would consider it a good tennis game

hellomrkearns

Apparently Clap Hanz golf on iOS is real good. Not surprising given their history.
It’s got some good character names.

onefiftythree

Tradegood there’s a limited amount of lunging, but most of the movement is done with what I have just learned is called the ‘nav’ controller. like a lot of VR it’s weird at first but once you get the hang of it, surprisingly scratches the tennis itch fairly well. I haven’t played Switch Sports but DMT (heh) aims for a fairly realistic feel.

Tradegood

onefiftythree Very interesting! My only complaint is it looks like he’s at the baseline the whole time in that video! I’m aggressive about volleying in both irl and digital tennis haha, Most CPUs don’t know what to do when you punch it over the net.

It sounds like movement does feel at least somewhat natural even if its teleportation?

Tradegood

For any fans of Tennis and Hyper Gun Sport-style games definitely check out Paddle Mania on the SNK 40th anniversary collection! It is a very fun and silly game with a pretty unique control scheme. It’s almost more like racquetball or hockey than tennis, and you ricochet the ball off of the walls to try to get into your opponents goal. A big part of the game involves hitting your opponent in the face to knock them down, so you can swing the ball past them. It’s challenging too!

You also don’t just play tennis stars, you take on sumo wrestlers, surfers, and even….

Tradegood

I played some Virtua Tennis for Gameboy Advance, and what a game!!! I did a tournament and it was a little easy up until the finals, where it got much harder but I was able to pull it out. Gameplay feels real smooth for a 2D tennis game. But the game really shines in the World Tour mode which is chock full of some pretty funny minigames (such as building a hamburger with serves). I love that you can grow your characters like an RPG from these minigames even way back on GBA. Before this, I think I had only played Virtua Tennis 3 and 4, and now feel like I underestimated this series. Would definitely play this some more.