Title: Tennis
Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo
Release Dates: 1984 (Japan), 1986 (North America)
Platform: NES
ESRB Rating: N/A
Tennis
Back in the NES's earliest days Nintendo classified all of its own games into
various Series, including the Action Series, Adventure Series, Programmable Series, and
Sports Series. The company converted many sports to the small, pixelated screen back
then, including Baseball, Soccer, Ice Hockey, and Tennis.
Gameplay, or You Were Expecting a Story from a Tennis Game in 1986?
Tennis features one or two nameless protagonists competing against various
computer opponents who vary only by their quickness and the color of their shirts.
Tennis offers single and doubles play, though a one-player game is always singles play
against the computer and a two-player game always teams the players in a double match
against two computer opponents.
The player's court is always on the bottom of the screen, and the computer's is on
the top. Matches are played in a stadium court, though the crowd is entirely
unanimated. The setting is sparse, but functional.
Tennis has five skill levels, though they really should be called "speed
levels", as the computer opponent doesn't actually play with more skill. Instead, he
gets faster, and so does the ball (and the combination of these two elements really does
make the game harder.) The highest skill levels take lots of practice to beat, since
the only really effective attack strategy at that level is to stay at the net and try to
smash the ball past the opponent when they don't lob it high over the player's head.
Matches are best-of-3 sets, and follow the standard rules of tennis. Winning one
match gives the player another match against the next highest difficulty level, and
winning that match gives the player a championship trophy and a nice payday (up to $100
,000.)
Where is This Court, Anyway?
The Tennis cartridge was made in abundance and is not particularly rare. Any
decent NES emulator should be able to play it, and the ROM is not terribly difficult to
find.
Game, Set, and Match
Overall, Tennis is a distinctly average game. There is a two-player option,
but the player who is stuck patrolling the back line won't enjoy it very much, because
the player at the next sees most of the action. The real value of Tennis is in
the historical context it provides. Nintendo's tennis efforts started with
Tennis for the NES and Vs. Tennis in arcades, but they came back to the sport
of tennis many times in subsequent years, with Tennis for Game Boy and Mario
Tennis for Nintendo 64, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, and GameCube.
All of these later games and their various wild and wacky embellishments can be traced
back to Nintendo's early efforts in the mid-1980's at putting players on the court
with just a ball, a racket, and an opponent.
Oh, and Mario is the chair umpire. Seriously.