Mario Tennis Aces “Swing Mode” is Really Disappointing

Mario Tennis Aces is the latest entry to the Mario Tennis series. This time around Nintendo did no wrong with their tennis series giving us an adventure mode where you move from level to level to complete a series of challenges, a fun online/offline tournament, and exciting local play. I haven’t played the Mario Tennis series since the GameCube days, but I’m having as much fun as I did back then, expect for one mode that made me hate motion controls.

During the lead up to launch I had questions about full motion controls, if they would support it for full matches? Can it be an alternative? and will it be like Wii Sports or will it have depth will in the base game? These questions were answered just a couple of days before launch and I was disappointed in how Nintendo implemented the motion controls.

Coming from the developers of Wii Sports and how well the motion controls worked with the tennis mini-game gave me hope that Nintendo could do something great with motion controls on the JoyCons. However, that wasn’t the case.

Swinging doesn’t feel responsive, I try hitting one way and the ball decides to travel way beyond the court. Charging up a shot is the only depth to “Swing Mode” (this mode can only be played using motion controls). I’m not the only one who felt like “Swing Mode” was a misstep. Polygon’s Russ Frushtick mirrored the same thought as I did in his article about Mario Tennis Aces makes us want Wii Sports. Russ goes on about how fun and assessable the normal controls are, but then he goes on about Swing Mode.

  ” Here, you no longer need to worry about character movement, and swinging a single Joy-Con controller will return shots back at your opponent. But the nature of Mario Tennis games prevents Swing Mode from feeling satisfying. Swing timing ends up feeling inconsistent and somewhat distant from the actions on screen. It also simply demands too much accuracy from casual players, who will likely be turned off by Swing Mode.”

Our thoughts on Swing Mode are almost on par, we both think it is unintuitive, and unresponsive. Coming from Wii Sports we thought Swing Mode could’ve been better.

 I hate the fact that Swing Mode is locked to a type of mode, Nintendo should be able to let players play the way they want. Not only are motion controls locked, it doesn’t have the same level of strategic thinking that the normal controls do. The only input you use are the joystick, everything else is swing.

 In Swing Mode, you can move your character with the joystick, but that leaves so much room with other actions especially with the bells and whistles that the JoyCons have. Imaging holding one of the triggers to smash, or drop, or even using a super it could’ve made the Swing Mode a mode to desire.

It’s kind of funny, Nintendo was in the for front of motion controls with the Wii and for the most part it work well, the Wii U is the same as it uses the same technology, but the Nintendo Switch was the next step of motion controls for Nintendo with no sensors and a smaller, compacted controller. The Switch has lived up to those expectations (Motion Control-wise), up until now.

Yes, Swing Mode was disappointing, and yes, it could’ve been better, but Swing Mode could benefit other players that have trouble or haven’t encountered a modern controller before. The simple movement of waving the JoyCons to swing is simplistic for any age group. The standard control scheme can be difficult for many players, but I’m glad that a form of motion control support is in the game for the players that can’t grasp a modern controller. Tennis lends itself so well for motion control, it would be a complete misdirection on Nintendo’s part if the game had no motion controls at all.

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Mario Tennis Aces if one of the deepest sports game I’ve played, and I play a lot of sports games (mainly NHL) all the different kind of shots gives me some much options to be on the offense but at the same time options to be defensive. But all that is taken away once Swing Mode is selected.

There is no depth to it, no different kinds of shots, no special shots, and no slowing down time. The only thing keeping me playing is the level of depth that Mario Tennis Aces has removing that depth it’s just another boring tennis game. I am glad that Swing Mode is in the game for the new players, or even new gamers, but it’s not the first mode I would suggest.

I was so excited to hear that Mario Tennis Aces had Swing Mode before launch, I had so much fun playing Wii Sports especially the tennis mini-game I thought Nintendo would have the same level of intuitiveness, and simplicity from Wii Sports tennis, but with the depth of the main game, sadly It didn’t. Swing Mode could’ve been the best way to play if they had implemented it with the fundamentals of Wii Sports tennis. The way the Swinging animation mimics one-to-one on the Wii felt responsive in every way the Swing Mode in Mario Tennis Aces wasn’t.