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.
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Played some Pocket Tennis Color for the Neo Geo Pocket Color, and itâs a great feeling 2-button top down tennis game. The speed of movement and size of the court feels a lot like Tennis for Gameboy, which I love, but matured. Given this game came out 15 years later and doesnât have much more of an ambition, the fundamentals are there. They did iterate a bit with timing fast shots which is nice.
It is sort of easy, my first exhibition I won 5 games to 1, and there doesnât seem to be any difficulty settings. The character sprites and pictures have some nice personality (plus some joke characters) and I like how the background colors on the court change during the course of the match. Itâs especially cute after a match when characters shake hands with each other. The music is nice but repetitive, not too welcoming for any more than 15 minutes in a sitting. This game is a fun one to pop into, would recommend!
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Pocket Tennis is SO STINKING GOOD! Almost all of the non-soccer NGP sports games nail the feel in a way so so few handheld sports games of that era did imo
Speaking of tennis games feeling in particular, I mentioned this in the Games Youâre Playing thread a couple months ago but itâs worth mentioning here too: the SNES Aim For The Ace! game is one of the best feeling tennis games Iâve ever played, up to and including modern 3d ones. Itâs smooth and intuitive and points feel earned but not too hard
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One of the first games I stumbled upon when I got my RetroPi was Smash Tennis and it was pretty fun. Also pretty difficult! I succesfully deployed it at two parties and even non-gamers liked it. As a SNES game itâs definitely no simulation in any way but it felt good to play.
Having just looked it up on wikipedia it seems to have only been released in Japan and Europe at the time and only got to the US in 2019 through a digital rerelease via Nintendo Switch Online.
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came here to post Tennis Elbow I see Chaz posted about it a while back. Will add that in addition to the obsessive developer thereâs now an obsessive mod community behind the game. I cant really speak for how âcorrectâ it feels because I never played tennis (working class son of toil) though
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itâs not as good as virtua tennis, but smash court for ps1 is worth a visit, if only for the lovely vibes
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I wish there were good VR tennis, volley ball and badminton game. The court would have to be shrunk down I played a lot of these games in junior high and high school. I took about half of the extra curricular activities to spend as much time as possible outside my house isolated in the country. My parents tight control over hope I spent my time and this was the loophole to get away from that control. Having the right haptics when you hit the ball/shuttlecock center of the racquet would do a lot to capture that positive reinforcement that kept me trying. Also figuring out how to keep players too close to the net so the game doesnât turn into the Wii tennis meme would probably help. Like doubled where the ai player is center or not slowing player too far into center might work. Anyway. Is a game I dream of.
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new (turn-based?) entrant in the Realistic Tennis Experience genre
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