Super Tennis is a 1991tennisvideo game for the Super NES. It released at early points in the Super Nintendo's shelf lives and utilized mode 7.
Gameplay
The game itself features three different modes: Doubles mode, World Circuit mode, and Singles mode, in which the player competes against a human or chosen computer opponent. In doubles mode, the player and a human teammate can face the CPU. Said-players can each pair with a CPU opponent, or one player can pair with a CPU opponent to face two other computer opponents. Circuit mode is the most unlike the other modes and featuring a wide range of sequential tours the player can choose to battle through each to earn ranking points, with aim to finish number one in the rankings. There are four minor tournaments and four major tournaments, each taking place on one of three surfaces that each have different effects on how the ball bounces; the tournaments are based on real-life counterparts and include nearly every world tournament in existence at that current time. All tennis players, whether playable or the opponents, are cute, short representations of the then-top world players, though their last names are left out of the game. Each playable tennis player has their own talents on the court. Multiple of the right-hand buttons of the SNES controller perform different tennis racket moves and the direction of the ball when hit is influenced by the control pad, which also moves the player around their side of the tennis court in anticipation of the ball. Super Tennis takes time to master, as the game itself neither tells the player how to play, nor gives them any knowledge on how the many different playable characters subtly differ in play style.
Reception
The version of Super Tennis released for the United Kingdom was critically acclaimed. Mean Machines magazine declared it to be "the best tennis game available " and scored all aspects of the game very highly, from sound, to gameplay, to their overall impressions. They were impressed by the attention to detail, like how ball runners get the ball off of the court whenever it gets caught in the net. Computer & Video Games' editor said that Super Tennis is "more fun than should be allowed" when a set is played against a friend. They also echoed the declaration that this was the best tennis game available up until that point. In a retrospective, Mean Machines' then editor stated that the game was both "the best representation of the sport to date" and also the most "fantastically competitive," but also said the single player was "nothing special."
