Smash Character Review: Mario Tennis Series

 MARIO TENNIS SERIES

Today, let's do another quick runthrough of all the returning characters who might receive some kind of update as a result, but probably not much. We had a few newcomers unique to this series, mainly the RPG protagonists from the handheld games and Lucien, the villain of Aces. We won't be discussing any of them here, but will touch on all of that tomorrow.

First up, we have many of the core regulars. Mario and Luigi, Princess Peach, Princess Daisy, Wario, Waluigi, Yoshi, Donkey Kong, and Toad are pretty standard regulars through basically every single game, with this series acting as the debut of Waluigi in anything. Most saw special moves in Power Tennis or Aces, though mostly its all just stuff we're used to seeing attached to them. Mario had hammers and jumping and stuff, Luigi used his poltergust at one point, Peach was a whole bunch of hearts while Daisy was the same with flowers. Yoshi used lots of eggs and rainbows, Donkey Kong used barrels and bananas, and Toad used other Toads. Wario and Waluigi were a bit more random, though Waluigi's certainly added to his rather flamboyant persona with a whole lot of ballet-style dances and such.

A few more rare ally characters we saw playable here included Rosalina and one of her Lumas, Toadette, Birdo, Pauline, Baby Mario and Baby Peach, Diddy Kong and Donkey Kong Jr., and the Sprixie Princesses. Rosalina and Luma both used star-based attacks, Pauline got to sing a bit of her famous song, and Diddy Kong swung across vines, but most of those are pretty basic.

Bowser is a constant presence in the series, most of his specials making use of his fire breath. Bowser Jr. appears a bit less frequently, but has seen specials based on his paint abilities from Sunshine and his Klown Kar in later appearances. Kamek makes one of his only playable sports appearances in anything ever here, making himself grow gigantic, and the boss characters Petey Piranha, Dry Bowser, and Boom Boom also show up as playable.

Now for our enemy characters. Boo, specifically, seemed to be a big favorite for the developers and appeared in most of the major games. I'm not sure exactly why, per se, but I'm not complaining. If I had to guess, it probably has something to do with the game tending to favor airborne characters a bit, as we frequently also saw Paratroopas and Fly Guys playable alongside their normal land-based Koopa and Shy Guy relatives. (It's kind of a shame we never saw a playable Lakitu here then). Mario Tennis Aces introduces a number of enemies we hadn't seen before in this series, including Spike, Chain Chomp, Blooper, Dry Bones, and Fire Piranha Plant, leaving only Wiggler left appearing in a different title.

Outside of that, we only really have Miis left as playable. A number of characters appear in the background as extras and audience members, but as all they do is cheer you on, I don't see too much point in really covering them at all.

Thanks for reading! Next up, we will cover the first Tennis gimmick rep, which I have dubbed Alex & Nina.