Character Sheet: Alex & Nina

ALEX & NINA

Now, we have two new characters to cover from the Tennis games, both being gimmick reps for the tennis gameplay, but also echo fighters of one another. The first represents the first RPG mode for the GBC game, the second represents the RPG mode for the Advanced game. Technically speaking, they could be merged into one character, and if you prefer to think of them that way, this is fine, but this is the way it made sense to me. They are:

1. Alex & Nina

2. Ace & Clay

Alex and Nina are the protagonists of Mario Tennis for the Game Boy Color. They are students of Peach's Royal Tennis Academy, working their way up through the rankings to become the ultimate tennis champion in the Mushroom Kingdom. At the school, they are paired up with a doubles partner, Harry for Alex and Kate for Nina, and both of them will be part of the moveset too. I think it makes sense for them to be able to swap between Singles and Doubles mode, one with just the main player character, one with a partner Ice Climbers-style. Their color swaps will be two with Alex as the lead and Nina as the partner, two with their roles flipped, two with Alex and Harry, and two with Nina and Kate.

So, for these characters, their tennis moves are pretty basic, using things like serve, lob, topspin, slice, drop shot, flat shot, and other shots that are probably very familiar terms to most who really know tennis all that well. For me, I have a basic relative knowledge of what it all means, but that's mostly from doing this blog specifically. There's a few things here that I'm pretty sure aren't real-world tennis shots, like charge shots, special shots, chance shots, trick shots, and zone shots. I imagine a lot of the real-world tennis maneuvers would make up their standard moves, with the more game specific stuff probably being tied to the specials. Either way, I think most moves should have an offensive version and a defensive version depending on if an attack is coming their way or not (so, basically tons of counters). It makes sense based on what I've seen.

Here's the moveset I came up with:

Standard B: Serve or Counter

It seems fitting that this should be the one that gets the ball in play. As an offensive move, Alex/Nina will toss a ball into the air and smack it across the stage as a projectile. It can also be charged. As a defense, it will be a basic counter.

Side B: Chance Shot or Chance Defense

This one will have a bit of a random element to it. Using it will give you a chance of smacking a ball at an opponent, but it adds a special effect to it, just as the chance shots work in game. Chance Defense will work the same but by deflecting an opponents' projectiles.

Up B: Special Shot or Special Defense

For this one, I chose the specials because many of them tend to have upward mobility to them (Waluigi's Showtime or Mario's Wall Jump, that kind of thing). It's also one plus to having these characters as echoes, is that you can have Alex & Nina perform one of the favorite specials (Waluigi's maybe), and Ace & Clay might use one of the others, thus giving more representation across the board. The defense would be a defensive version, maybe representing other moves as well.

Down B: Singles or Doubles

This move will call your doubles partner onto the stage, or send them away, depending on which mode you're currently in. The doubles partner will add a possible extra hit with every attack, though I imagine it would have to have some drawback that makes it so Doubles wouldn't just be everyone's default version for being stronger.

Final Smash: Great Fairy of Victory

The pond at the rear of the Academy will appear in the background, as Alex/Nina swings their racquet rapidly for ten seconds. The sky will darken and the fairy will rise from the pond, turning their racquet to gold and doing damage to the other characters. This new gold racquet will persist for a short time after and do more damage than normal.

Entrance: The player will come onto the stage doing warmups.

Taunts: Up, the player will toss a ball into the air and catch it. Side, the player's doubles partner will come out and rub their shoulders and give them a pep talk. Down, the character will sweep their racquet back and forth as practice.

Thanks for reading! Next up, we'll cover Ace and Clay from the Advanced game.