Tennis Fighters

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Fast Facts

Have you ever wanted to play a more hardcore version of Tennis, that features fighting game mechanics, and playing matches to the death? Well, Tennis Fighters might be the game for you.

Showing Early Scars

So this is an early access game, and I feel that kind of shows in some of the game’s graphics and visuals. There were many times when the character I was facing just straight up moved off screen and the game just flat ignored that I had only pressed a button once. However, I feel that the visuals and sound design are where this game lacks. While they are some cool character designs, and they provide you introductions, they aren’t voiced, and outside of the title screen, there’s no background music to speak of., which is realistic to a tennis environment but also doesn’t help the feeling of this game.

Learning Curve Shots

As for the gameplay itself, it plays like Virtua Tennis, you have different shots depending on what button you press, and you can charge your shots, but sometimes that doesn’t fully work, shots don’t feel consistent in this game as sometimes you can make a light press and it’s fine, and but sometimes it doesn’t even go over the net. But that’s not even the only problem for me as the game itself doesn’t feel like you can build up a flow at all, which is important in something like a tennis game for me. In addition to the sets mechanic, you also have a health meter, if you lose a point, it goes down a little, but if you lose the game, it goes down by a LOT, and it kind of makes the point of sets go away because you lose so much health after a game, and  I don’t think there’s a way to play to 6 games in this without a health meter, and combined with the control issues I mentioned before, it becomes frustrating.

Not a lot of Aces

There are also just not a lot of modes to even test you’re skills in this game, outside of the arcade ladder and single-player, there’s local multiplayer, but I feel like having minigames to get players used to the controls would benefit the game massively here, as outside of that, there’s not a mode that would keep me coming back to a game like this one.

Final Thoughts

I think that Tennis Fighters has a lot of potential honestly, because under all the problems I mentioned, there is some fun here, with good character designs, nice environment designs, and a good baseline for the tennis gameplay. However, I think the game could use some more work, as some glitches show and I think a visual overhaul if possible could really help the game stand out. While the game is cheaper than a lot of other licensed tennis games on the market, I would honestly say you’re money is better spent on those games than this one right now.

Rapid Reviews Rating

2 out of 5

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