| Mario Power Tennis | |
|---|---|
 North American GameCube box art | |
| Developer(s) | Camelot Software Planning |
| Publisher(s) | Nintendo |
| Director(s) | Haruki Kodera |
| Producer(s) | Shinji Hatano Hiroyuki Takahashi Shugo Takahashi |
| Designer(s) | Hiroyuki Takahashi Shugo Takahashi |
| Composer(s) | Motoi Sakuraba |
| Series | Mario Tennis |
| Platform(s) | GameCube, Wii |
| Release | GameCubeWii |
| Genre(s) | Sports |
| Mode(s) | Single-player, multiplayer |
Mario Power Tennis[a] is a sports game developed by Camelot Software Planning and published by Nintendo. The game is the sequel to the Nintendo 64 title Mario Tennis, and is the fourth game in the Mario Tennis series. Power Tennis was released for the GameCube in Japan and North America in late 2004, and in PAL regions in early 2005. The game was ported for the Wii in 2009 as part of the New Play Control! series, and was also re-released as a Nintendo Selects title in 2012. A companion handheld game, Mario Tennis: Power Tour, was also released on Game Boy Advance around the same time as the original GameCube release, bearing the same title as Power Tennis in Europe.
Power Tennis incorporates multiple characters, themes, and locations from the Mario series. The game includes standard tennis matches, but contains variants that feature different scoring formats and objectives. Other variants include "Gimmick" courts, thematic areas with components and properties that directly affect gameplay. The game has 18 playable characters, each categorised by their style of play and each with a pair of unique moves known as "Power Shots". Power Tennis was developed simultaneously with Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour, and the pair shared similar technology and concepts with each other during production. Such similarities include an emphasis on the Mario theme in characters and settings as well as alternative game modes such as "Ring Shot".
The GameCube version was positively received in general, attaining an aggregate score of 81 percent from GameRankings and 80 out of 100 from Metacritic. Critics praised the game's depth and variety, but criticised the Power Shot animations, which could not be skipped. The Wii version in contrast received a more mixed reaction, with praise for the graphics and multiplayer but criticism for its motion controls. In 2010, it was included as one of the games in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die.[1]
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- ^ Mott, Tony (2010). 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die. London: Quintessence Editions Ltd. p. 567. ISBN 978-1-74173-076-0.