Mario Tennis

A sports game that turns out to be a little RPG quest? That's exactly the unexpected move studio Camelot made with Mario Tennis on the Game Boy Color — and the result is far more addictive than you'd expect from tennis with a plumber in overalls.

At first glance it's a brisk arcade sports game: fast, readable, easily accessible, with characters from Mario's world racing around the court. But Camelot added something with no equal in the genre — a full-fledged RPG mode with your own created character. You start as a rookie and, match by match, raise your stats, learn new shots and slowly grow from a klutz into a star of the court. The arcade thus becomes a small adventure with a sense of progress and personal investment.

This progression changes the whole experience. Suddenly you're not just playing to win a single match; you're building your character over the long haul, watching them improve and wanting to push them just a bit further. It's the „one more match“ kind of loop that can quietly swallow a whole evening, and yet there's no complicated system behind it — just a cleverly tuned reward for persistence.

Camelot also linked the handheld version with the Nintendo 64 release, so you could carry your painstakingly built character onto the big screen. This connection between portable and home console was tempting for its time and gave playing on the small screen extra meaning — your effort wasn't lost, but traveled on.

In the end, Mario Tennis on the GBC is one of those titles that's easy to overlook and yet offers surprising depth. It combines the instant fun of arcade tennis with the pull of RPG progression into something hard to put down. Underrated, addictive and smarter than it looks — exactly the kind of game you'll fondly revisit years later.

Why play: Arcade tennis spiced with a full-fledged RPG mode, a growing character and a link to the N64 version — a surprisingly deep and addictive handheld sport.