Wake me up before you play Super Tennis
...'cause I'm not plannin' on a-playin' solo.
I've come across a truism about sports games in my chronological journey through the libraries of several classic consoles these past few years: They are just no damn fun when you play them alone. This has been a bit of a problem for the Video Works series, since I work at home and can't press-gang someone else into helping me capture footage most of the time. It's just me an my wife here, and she's even less enthusiastic about sports (and video games) than I am.
Fortunately, during my capture session for this particular game, my nephew Andrew happened to be in town. Andrew loves video games, and he loves tennis (he plays regularly, he follows certain players, he's a huge fan of the Prince of Tennis manga, etc. etc.). So he didn't need much convincing to help me record some Super Tennis footage for Super NES Works. And, yes, unsurprisingly it turns out a game that hovers somewhere around "agonizing" when played solo is pretty entertaining against someone of approximately equal skil.
Like a lot of older sports games, you never hear much about Super Tennis these days. Nevertheless, it seems to be fairly well-regarded by many people, and any mention of it inevitably prompts a positive reply. My old boss Jaz Rignall gave it top marks back in the day, too, so I guess this qualifies as one of those under-the-radar classics. It's a shame Nintendo only published the game — it would seem they don't own the rights anymore, so Super Tennis has never been reissued to my knowledge. Well, I'm sure there have been better takes on tennis since 1991, so it's probably no great loss.
