A lot has changed in the gaming world since Mario Tennis Power Tour was released on the GBA in 2005, but one thing has remained the same: the best Tennis game made. Following the success of Mario Tennis on the N64 and Mario Power Tennis on the GameCube, there were big shoes to fill, and the content provided in Power Tour rose to the occasion. Likely still my favorite Mario game to date (sorry Mario Kart and Kingdom Battle), Power Tour gave a new element to the traditional “Mario” game that I really enjoyed; not always having Mario, more on that later. Even 10 years after I originally played through the game, I still find myself coming back to the Play Your Games tab to load up Power Tour and get some quality tennis games in.

Overall: 9.8
Power Tour deserves every bit of the 9.8 I’m giving it, and you’ll find out exactly why below. The game is exceptionally well produced and delivers all of the facets I enjoy in a game. Quality story, quality character development and interactions, as well as great cameos from the classic characters make the game well rounded and overall fun to play. The game is made for both Tennis fans and Mario fans, giving you the best of both worlds. Power Tour started me off on my non main series Mario phase, which brought me to other games I really enjoy: Kingdom Battle and Aces.

Graphics: 9
Obviously in 2023 the graphics are nothing to write home about, but for a late 2005 GBA game, the graphics were incredible. While the game uses the basic top-down camera and drawing style, the additional effects added to the world and the in-match tennis effects are simply awesome. Not only does each special move have their own character and ball animation, but the normal swing and ball movement animations are flawless as well. The overworld, while not at the same level as later GBA games, still looks nice and is enjoyable to roam around while not doing specific tennis missions.

Sound: 10
The sound for the game is very crisp and fits well with the theme. The music selection is a wide selection of upbeat songs that make you want to play tennis and give it your all. Background music gives a nice pep to the game. In match sounds fit the game, traditional tennis sounds as I’m sure you could imagine. The audio mixing is well done and doesn’t fall flat at all throughout the game. In the championship matches, the music provides an excellent stage to play a close and fun match.

Addictiveness: 10
The game is addicting, even if you aren’t a huge tennis fan, which I’m not. The gameplay, especially the tennis matches, are interactive and fun. Every match is different and once you start playing against the Mario characters, every match has their own twists and turns added on. The story mode, while not having the highest replay value, is still fun to load up and go through the ranks of the tennis academy in a different way or see how hard you can beat people. I’ve always found myself coming back to the game when I don’t have much else to do or I want to play a more relaxed sports game.

Story: 8
The story is one I personally enjoy, following your character as you and your friends climb the ranks of the island’s tennis academy. There are the obvious antagonist characters that are always being a thorn in your side, but there really aren’t any bad characters and you’ll enjoy the ride. While the story isn’t exceptionally deep or have any profound meaning, I see it more as a way to learn the game with your own character before getting to the main replay value part, which is facing off against the Mario characters in the end game.

Depth: 8
Many people will judge the depth of the game mainly based upon the depth of the story, in which case it would not get such a high score, but when looking deeper at the depth involved in the tennis matches, there is plenty to learn and play. In the tennis matches there are multiple ways to hit balls, skills to add onto your hits, and special skills each character has that makes them unique. Along with this, there are different game modes to play different types of matches with many characters. There are also included minigames that can be used to earn exp for your character which adds an additional element to work through.

Difficulty: 6
The game isn’t innately hard, and like many other older games, there are ways to exploit it and sweep every match even on the hardest difficulty, but where is the fun in that. Getting to learn the game, which easy, does take time. Not knowing all of the different moves and combinations can make even the early game tennis matches difficult, and the end game matches are no joke either. And, as with any game released in the last 30 years, there are different difficulty settings that you can use to play at your own skill level. I personally don’t think the game is too hard or too easy, I found it right in the nice spot where you can win every match if you really try, but it is still easy to drop a few here and there.

Closing Thoughts:
Mario Tennis Power Tour blew me away when I first played it in 2014, and still to this day I find it one of my top retro games, and my top tennis game all around. I was especially excited about Mario Tennis Aces when it came out because of my love for Power Tour. While Aces wasn’t quite as good, I still found it very fun to play because I could think back to how much fun Power Tour is and recognize that the framework had been improved upon for Aces. Power Tour deserves all of the praise it receives, so if you have any interest at all in Mario or Tennis, this is the game to try.