Hello Vizzed and welcome to another tgags123 review! Today I will be reviewing Mario's Tennis for the Virtual Boy. You are probably wondering "What the heck is the Virtual Boy?" The Virtual Boy is a system that used to be made by Nintendo. It failed miserably. You wear it on your head. Yep that's right. A console that you wear on your head. It was the first attempt at a 3D video game system. Apparently the failure of the Virtual Boy wasn't enough to discourage Nintendo from trying to make a 3D game system, as evident by the 3DS. Now that you have some background info, let's get to the review!

Overall (6.9)

I am not going to lie and say that this is a good game, but it is better than I expected. I was expecting it to be awful, since the system was such a failure, but it wasn't actually that bad. I wouldn't look to buy it on eBay, or even grab it if they had it at GameStop (they won't since the system wasn't very popular and they are older than the DS), but it is a somewhat decent game. It is a very simple tennis game, and I kind of feel like it was made more for the purpose of testing or experimenting than to be released as an actual game. There really isn't much to the game. I feel like Nintendo used this as a way to test out the Virtual Boy.

Graphics (4)

It is kind of hard to rate the graphics and give an accurate description since playing the game on Vizzed does not show the game in 3D. I decided to rate it a 4 for a few reasons. One reason is that it is really annoying that everything is a redish pinkish color. The reason for that is because, like I said earlier, the 3D effect doesn't work when played on this site. Another reason is that the graphics in general are just... bad. The characters look kind of weird (mainly their faces), it is really lacking in detail, the background consists only  a few hills or trees, and it just feels like the people in charge of the graphics of this game rushed through it. The 3D effects also hurt my eyes a little and give me a little headache after a while, but that probably has something to do with my awful eyesight and refusal to wear my contacts as well.

Sound (6)

There really isn't much to say about the sound. Both the music and the sound effects are filled with beeps and boops and have a very electronic sound, almost like a stereotypical robot. It is high pitched and just, well, annoying. The music reminds me more of an arcade game than a Mario game.The sound effects definitely don't fit with what they are supposed to be, and neither does the music. I expected better from Nintendo since most of their games usually have very good soundtracks.

Addictiveness (6)

This game doesn't really grab your attention or keep your interest. It is lacking that special thing that makes you want to play again. I don't think I will play this game again. It definitely isn't the most fun game in the world and there isn't a whole lot to do in it. If you do decide to try it, you probably will not play it more than once either.

Story (N/A)

There is no story. All you do in this game is play tennis with Mario characters. Wow a Mario game that doesn't involve Peach getting herself kidnapped!

Depth (5)

There is very little that you can do in this game. You can choose from only seven characters, which is a very strange number. Usually it is an even number, but whatever. You have the option to play a singles game or a doubles game with the computer as your team mate. There are only two game modes. These game modes are regular play and tournament. That is it. Really simple and basic. This game is definitely lacking in depth. At first I didn't believe how little you could do, I thought there must be more. But, sadly, there isn't. This surprised me since most Nintendo games offer a variety of different game modes and levels to choose from.

Difficulty (9)

I find this game to be really difficult. I might just suck at it, like most video games, but I think it is a pretty hard game. It is difficult to tell where you are in relation to the ball, partly because of the failed 3D effect. The timing is a little off too. It isn't too bad, but if you look really close, you can see that the ball moves at a different time than when you hit it. Your opponents are pretty difficult, even if you have the difficulty set to easy. I played a bunch of games and lost them all. Actually, I only scored twice. The controls are pretty simple and easy to learn, which is what made me drop the difficulty rating from a 10 down to a 9. Overall, it is a pretty difficult game to master.

So that's my review. I hope you liked it. I hope it was helpful and I didn't bore you to death. I wouldn't recommend playing this game, but it isn't completely terrible. Feel free to try it if you want to, but don't expect anything special. There is also something strange that I discovered while playing. This game features Donkey Kong Jr. as a character, but not Donkey Kong. That seemed a bit strange to me, so I thought I would share it. I am sorry that I couldn't make this review longer, but there isn't a whole lot to write about with this game. Anyway, thanks for reading. Just thought I should share that this is my first review that is over 1,000 words! I am very happy to finally make it over the 1K mark.  Any comments, whether they are positive or negative, would be greatly appreciated. Thanks again!

~ tgags123

You are really good reviewer. It's pretty obvious to me that you polished this thing before submitting it. I did not notice one misspelled word, grammatical error or stray thought. 

The idea of the Virtual Boy was really exciting to us kids at the time. Many of us were excited about the prospect of actually being part of a virtual video game world. When it became obvious that Nintendo could not deliver this dream the entire idea seemed to die with it. Now no one cares about this anymore. How sad.

thephantombrain : Thank you! I always re-read and spell check my reviews. When I finished this review, it was only 600 words. I really wanted it to be over 1000, so I went through the review and added stuff here or there. I did that over and over again until I reached 1000 words!

Let me just start by saying this first, you are fantastic at writing reviews. I also applaud you for reviewing such a game that has very little to talk about on a disaster of a system. You are one of the best reviewers on vizzed, and I always love reading your reviews. This review was very good I have to say! I am even surprised that you managed to make a 1000 word review of this game!

Well...wow. What can I say here? Your style was appalling, the humor was bland, and I fell asleep twice while reading! But at least you tried...

Just kidding. This was a really good review! There are two kinds of thousand word reviews: those that feel like a thousand words (or much longer) and those that feel short, and hold your attention. This review was the latter. You made it past 1k, but it didn't feel like it. Good work here, especially since this was such a difficult game to review. You made me laugh a few times, which goes a long long way in holding a reader's attention. The good grammar and spelling was nice, and I have to agree, it was obviously well polished. Great job.

Eirinn : Thank you so much! Your kind words mean a lot, and thank you for featuring it! I got scared reading the beginning of your reply lol.

Yeah, I love tormenting reviewers like that. lol I was just hoping you (or anyone else) would stop reading after that opening bit and assume I really hated it. lol

No problem. It was a good review. You deserved it! You should consider applying for staff the next time a reviewer position opens. Keep working on your reviews, and you shouldn't have any problem getting it (really, you're good enough now, but always continue improving).