Super Tennis on the Super Nintendo had used six buttons. When Camelot Software Planning showed its Nintendo 64 tennis game at the E3 show in 2000, it used two, plus the analogue stick, and N64 Magazine reported that it was “widely regarded as the most playable game on show”. Mario Tennis went on sale in Japan that July. It put Mario and his friends on grass, clay and hard courts, gave each of them a style of play, and brought in a new character, Waluigi, who has been part of Mario’s world ever since.
Fast facts
- Developer: Camelot Software Planning, the makers of Mario Golf (1999).
- Publisher: Nintendo.
- Released: Nintendo 64, Japan in July 2000, North America that summer, Britain in November 2000. A Game Boy Color version followed in Japan at the end of 2000.
- Players: one to four.
- Characters: 14 at the start and two to unlock, among them the new Waluigi.
- Before it: Nintendo’s Mario’s Tennis (1995) for the Virtual Boy.
- After it: Mario Power Tennis (GameCube), Mario Tennis Open (3DS, 2012) and more, still made by Camelot.
Two buttons
Camelot kept the controls small. Edge explained them: A for a strike, B for slice, A then B for a lob, B then A for a drop shot, and both together for a powerful flat shot, which Nintendo Official Magazine advised using to smash a short lob away at the net. Pressing a button early made the player stop and wind up, “unable to move, but capable of striking the ball harder than before”. Held for a second or two, N64 Magazine found, the racket “crackles with electricity”. Dives and smashes happened by themselves if the right button went in at the right moment.
The depth was in the players. N64 Magazine sorted the 14 into five types. Mario and Luigi were the all-rounders. Peach, Daisy, Toad and Waluigi were fast but hit softly. Yoshi, Baby Mario and Birdo (Catherine in the Japanese version) were agile at the net. Donkey Kong, Bowser and Wario hit “huge groundstrokes and thunderous serving” but could not run. A flying Koopa and a Boo curled the ball. Winning tournaments unlocked two more: Donkey Kong Jr. and Shy Guy.
The courts mattered too. Grass, clay and indoor and outdoor hard courts each made the ball bounce differently, and N64 Magazine noticed the grass wearing out as a match went on. Three more courts, themed on Nintendo characters, opened up as the cups were won.
Waluigi
N64 Magazine introduced him to its readers in June 2000 under the heading “Luigi’s evil cousin?!”: thinner than Luigi, “with a Wario-style red nose and spiky moustache”. He was, in its words a month later, “an evil Dick Dastardly version of Luigi”. He was the only new character in the game. Nintendo Official Magazine introduced him to British players as “Wario’s skinny brother” and “Nintendo’s new evil guy”, who stamps the floor like a big baby when he loses a point.
Beyond tennis
Besides exhibition matches and three tournament cups (Mushroom, Flower and Star), the game had three bonus modes. In one, Piranha Plants spat balls at the player like serving machines. In another, golden rings floated over the net and points were scored by hitting the ball through them, with the winner of the rally taking the lot. The third, on a tilting court in Bowser’s castle, threw in the items from Mario Kart 64, red and green shells, bananas, mushrooms, stars and lightning bolts. “A game of doubles here really is a unique experience,” N64 Magazine wrote.
Reception
Edge compared it with Sensible Soccer: Camelot had taken the same approach, “scoffing at the ultra-realism of Virtua Tennis and sucking Wimbledon into candy-coloured Mario Land”. It thought the single-player game could get repetitive, because the computer players’ simple tactics repeated themselves, and gave it eight out of ten, calling it “exactly what you’d expect from Nintendo: exuberant, addictive”. N64 Magazine gave the British release 91%, and Nintendo Official Magazine headed its review “Ball smashing brilliance”.
The speed of its making impressed too. N64 Magazine reported that Camelot had written the game in less than eight months, when Nintendo’s own teams and Rare took two to three years over a new game.
The Game Boy Color version
The handheld Mario Tennis was a different game. The player began, Hyper explained, as a junior who has just joined the Royal Tennis Academy, exploring the school, practising on its machines, taking lessons and hanging out in the café with a roommate who becomes the doubles partner. Winning matches earned experience points to spend on speed, lobbing, placement, topspin and other skills, which made it “almost like a Tennis RPG if there could ever be such a thing”. Mario and his friends were still there for exhibition matches, with mini-games for Mario, Yoshi and Bowser.
The two versions talked to each other through the N64’s Transfer Pak. N64 Magazine, reporting on the Japanese release at the end of 2000, said the link unlocked four new characters in the console game; IGN Unplugged added that they would only be as good on the N64 as the player had made them on the Game Boy. It made one of the staff top-five lists in the same issue of Hyper, whose review summed it up: “top class, and we can’t recommend it enough”.
Before and after
Mario had played tennis before. Mario’s Tennis (1995), by Nintendo’s R&D1, was a launch game for the Virtual Boy in Japan and came packed with the American machine, and Retro Gamer counts it as the first game in the Mario Tennis series.
Camelot made the sequels. Mario Power Tennis reached the GameCube in Britain in February 2005 with a special attack and a special defence for every character, which Edge thought diluted “the sport’s spirit”: “Those who loved the original will find Mario Tennis is a good work spoiled.” Mario Tennis Open for the 3DS followed in May 2012, which Edge found “a step removed from past excesses”. Camelot’s own list of its games runs on through Mario Tennis Aces on the Switch to Mario Tennis Fever, released in February 2026.
Sources
- N64 Magazine issue 42, June 2000, p. 18: first pictures; Waluigi, “Luigi’s evil cousin?!”
- N64 Magazine issue 43, July 2000, p. 10: E3, “widely regarded as the most playable game on show”; two buttons against Super Tennis’s six; the charged shot; Waluigi “an evil Dick Dastardly version of Luigi”; the grass wearing out; Transfer Pak support.
- N64 Magazine issue 46, October 2000, pp. 26–29: Special Investigation of the Japanese release; the controls; the five player types; Waluigi the only new character; the court surfaces and bonus courts; the bonus games; “less than eight months”. Issue 45, September 2000, p. 12: Camelot “wrote Mario Tennis in less than eight months”.
- N64 Magazine Christmas 2000 edition (issue 49), p. 35: Mario Tennis GB in Japan, the Transfer Pak link and four new characters, the RPG mode. Issue 50, January 2001, p. 24: UK release November 2000; issue 47 review score 91%.
- Edge issue 89, October 2000, pp. 87–88: review (¥6,400 in Japan; Strike and Slice; lob and drop shot; 16 characters; the three cups; the mini-games; eight out of ten).
- Nintendo Official Magazine issue 98, November 2000, pp. 27–30: review (“Ball smashing brilliance”; 14 players and two to unlock; the modes; Waluigi; Bowser’s court and its items).
- Hyper issue 90, April 2001, pp. 53 and 80: the Game Boy Color version reviewed by Eliot Fish (the Royal Tennis Academy, experience points, mini-games, the Transfer Pak).
- IGN Unplugged issue 7, October 2001, p. 97: unlocking characters with the Transfer Pak.
- Retro Gamer issue 102, May 2012, p. 46: Mario’s Tennis (Virtual Boy, 1995, Nintendo R&D1), Japanese launch game and American pack-in, “the first entry in the Mario Tennis series”. Nintendo Power issue 75, August 1995: Mario’s Tennis as the Virtual Boy’s pack-in game.
- Edge issue 144, February 2005, p. 92: Mario Power Tennis review (developer Camelot; UK release 25 February).
- Edge issue 241, June 2012, p. 126: Mario Tennis Open review (developer Camelot Software Planning; released in May 2012).
- Camelot Co., Ltd., list of games (web): Mario Tennis Aces and Mario Tennis Fever. https://www.camelot.co.jp/wp/product_introduction_game/
- Wikipedia, “Mario Tennis (Nintendo 64)” (web, secondary): Japanese release on 21 July 2000; the Game Boy Color version in Japan on 1 November 2000. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Tennis_(Nintendo_64)