Virtua Tennis 4: World Tour Edition

Virtua Tennis 4: World Tour Edition arrived on PlayStation Vita within the console's first days on the market and presented players with tennis in a form that's easy to understand while still offering plenty of room for improvement. The foundation is arcade-style — the player mainly handles the timing of the shot and its direction, while movement around the court is largely handled by the game itself. Still, winning requires understanding when to play long shots into the corners, when to shorten the point at the net, and how to gradually pull the opponent out of position, since points are earned through patiently building a rally.

The main content is a world tour, in which you travel across a map, plan your tournament calendar, top up your stamina, and complete inventive minigames between matches. Those minigames are among the series' traditional highlights and make use of the console's capabilities, since they involve collecting items, hitting balls at targets, or solving situations that demand quick decisions. Visually, the game looks clean and clear, player animations are smooth, and the distinct styles of individual tennis players give matches character. The sound relies on ball impacts, squeaking shoes, and understated crowd applause, which is enough to carry the atmosphere. Matches can be played in both singles and doubles, where suddenly positioning and teamwork with a partner matter more than raw power, and doubles tends to be the most enjoyable option for playing with another person.

Reviews welcomed the Vita version favorably as a well-executed port of a game already proven on the big consoles, with the reservation that it doesn't bring anything fundamentally new. What was praised, on the other hand, was the ability to play a quick set practically anywhere, and the presence of licensed players of the era. Today, Virtua Tennis 4 on Vita comes across as one of the best-aging sports titles on the platform, since its playability doesn't depend on how up to date the rosters are. A match lasts exactly as long as the player sets it to, and that's a quality anyone who plays in bits and pieces on the way home from work will appreciate on a handheld console.