System: Switch 2
Release date: February 12, 2026
Developer: Camelot
Publisher: Nintendo
In many ways other than the obvious, Switch 2 has marked a new era of sorts for Nintendo. The Switch generation, while no doubt one of the company’s greatest, had its fair share of flaws – and one of those flaws was its lackluster sports games. Time and time again, we saw Nintendo-published sports outings launch with minimal content, receive free updates for a few months, and then fizzle out and fade from conversation. This issue reached a boiling point with Mario Strikers: Battle League, which had solid core gameplay, but next to no content to speak of. Mario sports have been pretty quiet since then, but now we’ve got another new entry in the Mario Tennis series with Mario Tennis Fever on Nintendo Switch 2. This title promises all sorts of chaotic tennis action, and it most certainly delivers on that promise. But how does it hold up in other areas?
If I had to guess, most of you will be wondering about Mario Tennis Fever’s adventure mode. It’s featured very prominently in the game’s pre-release and marketing trailers, but don’t let that trick you into thinking it’s a deep 20-hour campaign. Adventure mode only lasts somewhere within the wheelhouse of four hours, and it starts off slow and rather dull as Mario (who has been transformed into a baby) works to relearn his tennis skills at the local academy. You do eventually leave the academy, however, and this is where adventure mode is best – there are a couple of neat challenges and boss battles here and there, but overall, I don’t feel like it’s a huge selling point for the game. Mario Tennis Fever’s adventure mode winds up feeling inessential and sort of like a glorified tutorial. The minigames at the tennis academy have tougher versions you can try, but even these aren’t very difficult and won’t hold your attention for very long. Now, to be fair, I’m not sure what an amazing Mario Tennis adventure mode would really look like. Fever’s is a nice little distraction, but the bulk of your gameplay will most likely be tournaments and online matches. Thankfully, the game absolutely delivers there.
In terms of raw gameplay, Mario Tennis Fever feels extremely refined and polished. With Mario Tennis Aces, the Zone Speed mechanic felt a bit out of place to me – you’d hit the ball out of your opponent’s reach, and all of a sudden they’d zap to the other side and hit the ball back after all. It wasn’t my favorite mechanic, and it was part of the reason I fell off of Aces after only about two hours of gameplay. Mario Tennis Fever’s movement feels much more natural in comparison, and it introduces a few of its own unique mechanics. This time around, Fever Rackets are quite literally the name of the game – you can choose from any you like, and each one has a different effect. Your Fever Gauge builds up as you rally the ball back and forth, and when it’s full, you can pull off a Fever Shot. Fever Shots only go into effect if the ball actually bounces on the opponent’s court, which means they can backfire if the enemy hits the ball back to you before it bounces. So when you pick a Fever Racket, not only are you picking the ability you’re using against your opponents, but you’re also picking something that you can handle if it winds up backfiring. One kind of Fever Racket spawns Firebars, another spawns mud that damages enemies, and another creates tornadoes, for instance.
That leads us into Fever’s next new mechanic, which is that characters now have HP and can be temporarily defeated. Most Fever Rackets have effects that can damage targets in some way, and when their health is depleted, one of two things happens. If it’s doubles, the defeated character will actually leave the field for ten seconds as they recover, putting their team at a huge disadvantage. If it’s singles, the character still gets to play, but will move slower and have shorter reach. It’s very easy to score a point at the exact time an opponent is defeated, which does add a layer of strategy to Fever Rackets, Fever Shots, and choosing when’s the best time to unleash one. Even when not including Fever Rackets, the core gameplay here is pretty fun – which is odd, because it’s just hitting a ball back and forth. Everything looking and feeling so polished definitely has something to do with it.
It’s not always apparent just from screenshots, but Mario Tennis Fever looks really good. Adventure mode’s cutscenes are fluid, expressive, and generally well-animated, and the updated character models are packed full of tiny details. Donkey Kong, for example, has never looked better in a Mario spin-off title – his new design has translated incredibly well. And while we’re at it, Mario Tennis Fever has an incredibly solid character roster – unlike previous Nintendo sports titles on Switch, this game actually has a large character selection on release day, which means you won’t have to wait months and months just to get characters like Daisy and Pauline which was the case with Mario Strikers: Battle League. You’ve got all your staples here, plus characters that haven’t been playable in the Mario Tennis series before – these include Nabbit, Goomba, Piranha Plant, Baby Luigi (somehow), Baby Wario, and Baby Waluigi. Some fun picks like Luma, Kamek, Diddy Kong, Chain Chomp, Koopa Paratroopa, Petey Piranha, Boom Boom, Blooper, and Dry Bowser are also retained from previous titles. And even though every single character in the game was revealed prior to launch, a good chunk of them are unlockable. Mario Tennis Fever actually has quite a lot of unlockables, including characters, Fever Rackets, courts, and color variations for Yoshi, Shy Guy, and Koopa. Most of these unlockables are obtained simply by playing tennis matches, so there’s a decent bit of content on offer here.
I do think Mario Tennis Fever’s main appeal is still its multiplayer – if you’re only playing the game as a single player, you certainly won’t get as much enjoyment out of it. The controls are simple enough for anyone to pick up and play, but there’s also a good amount of depth with all the shot types as well as Fever Rackets and Fever Shots as mentioned before. In addition to adventure mode, you also have tournament mode, trial towers, free play, Ring Shot, Forest Court Match, Pinball Match, Racket Factory Match, Wonder Court Match, and swing mode. So there’s definitely more on offer here than previous Mario Tennis games. The main draw for longevity is going to be online play, which includes ranked ladders that include Fever Rackets and ranked ladders that ban Fever Rackets – singles and doubles divisions for both. Frustratingly, it doesn’t seem like you can team up with online friends in a ranked match, which is kind of a bummer because that was my first thought when I saw there was a doubles ladder. Still, in my experience, the online runs well enough – but expect the opponents to be really tough.
All of this has me thinking, though: what does a 10 out of 10 Mario Tennis game look like? Is it even possible for a Mario sports game to get a perfect score? Compared to recent entries in the Mario Tennis series, I think Mario Tennis Fever is an improvement. By design, sports games are going to be more social than your average game, which means it’s easier to recommend Fever if you have friends who’ll play it with you or if you plan on participating in online matches. At the same time, though, Nintendo’s new standard price of $69.99 USD for games does Mario Tennis Fever no favors – just by principle, $70 for a tennis game isn’t going to be something most people want to buy. I do appreciate that Fever has pretty much the same amount of content as post-updates Aces at launch, but $70 is still a steep asking point. It does make me wonder how long the online matches will be active for – it seems competitive players really love the nuanced yet chaotic gameplay, so they might stick around for a few months, but when this game is one or two years old? Who knows.
Giving a numbered score to Mario Tennis Fever is actually pretty challenging. Like I said earlier, a large portion of people who would potentially be interested in this game are understandably going to be put off by the $70 price point. There’s a lot of fun to be had in Mario Tennis Fever’s content, which is much more plentiful and of a higher quality than previous Mario sports titles on Nintendo Switch. The roster’s great, Fever Rackets are fun, there’s a good amount of unlockables – this game has a lot working in its favor. If you absolutely love Mario Tennis and want a new game to play when you want to zone out and chill, this is a great choice. But at the end of the day, it’s still Mario Tennis – if you’ve tried previous titles in the series and weren’t impressed, this one might not win you over. But it’s a Nintendo sports game with a good chunk of content on release day – and that’s certainly something to be applauded.
Mario Tennis Fever is now available worldwide. You can purchase the game here.
Nintendo Everything is a participant in the Amazon, Best Buy, and GameStop affiliate programs. The website may receive a partial commission through orders placed with these retailers.
Related