Mario's Tennis

This article is about the Virtual Boy game. For the deck of playing cards, see Mario's Tennis (playing cards).

Not to be confused with Mario Tennis.

Mario's Tennis
Western box art from Nintendo Classics For alternate box art, see the related gallery.
Developer	Nintendo R&D1, TOSE
Publisher	Nintendo
Platforms	Virtual Boy, Virtual Boy - Nintendo Classics
Release dates	Virtual Boy: July 21, 1995 August 14, 1995 September 18, 1995 Virtual Boy - Nintendo Classics: March 9, 2026 March 10, 2026 March 10, 2026 March 10, 2026 March 10, 2026
Language	English
Genre	Tennis
Rating	ESRB: - Kids to Adults
Mode	Single player
Format	Nintendo Switch: Digital download Nintendo Switch 2: Digital download Virtual Boy: Game Pak
Input	Nintendo Switch: Joy-Con Nintendo Switch Pro Controller Nintendo Switch 2: Joy-Con 2 Joy-Con Nintendo Switch 2 Pro Controller Nintendo Switch Pro Controller Virtual Boy: Virtual Boy Controller
Serial code	VUE-VMTJ-JPN

Mario's Tennis is a game that was released as a launch title for the Virtual Boy in 1995. It is the first tennis-related game of the Super Mario franchise, and it would later be followed by the Mario Tennis series. All playable characters that appeared in Super Mario Kart for the SNES (with the exception of Bowser) are also playable in Mario's Tennis. While the game was planned to support multiplayer, the cable that would have been used to connect two Virtual Boy systems together was never released, and this functionality was blocked out before release.

The game was re-released for the first time on Virtual Boy - Nintendo Classics for the Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2 on March 10, 2026, for MAR10 Day.

Gameplay

Gameplay of Mario's Tennis

Mario's Tennis has two main game modes: Singles and Doubles. Each can be played as an individual match or as a tournament, and in Easy, Normal or Hard difficulties. Matches can be played with one or three sets. Players can serve by pressing or , then pressing for a hard serve or for a soft serve. During a rally, the player can position themselves around the court, being able to hit groundstrokes or lobs. Groundstrokes are strong low shots, while lobs fly high and land at the back of the court. If the ball is above the player's head when they make a groundstroke, it automatically becomes a smash shot. If the player is near the net, the groundstroke instead automatically becomes a volley, where the ball is hit before it bounces. Body shots (when the ball hits a player's body) are not possible in this game.

In a singles tournament, the player participates in a tournament with seven total characters. The tournament is structured like a regular eight-player bracket with three rounds, except the seventh player automatically passes to the second round. In a doubles tournament, players can select their partner to participate in a four teams bracket with two rounds. Since the game only features seven playable characters, the seventh player's partner is randomly chosen from the team defeated in the first round. After beating either tournament, a message is displayed informing the player to press the button sequence + + + + + at the title screen to unlock a special harder mode of both singles and doubles.

Difficulty

Each difficulty level has different properties which affect the ball, player and the opponents.

	Easy	Normal	Hard
Ball Speed	Slow	Slow	Fast
Racket contact area	Large	Large	Standard
Opponent power	Weak	Strong	Strong
Player's body obscuring the ball	No	No	Yes
Player speed	Slow	Slow	Fast

Controls

Action	Virtual Boy controller	Dual Joy-Con Nintendo Switch Pro Controller
Move Aim shot Move between menu options		/ /
Hard serve Groundstrokes, volleys or smashes
Soft serve		/
Pause
Access Adjustment screen (when paused)

Playable characters

The descriptions are taken from the game's instruction manual.

Character	Artwork	Description
Mario		He is an average player whose court speed and leg strength are solid. His racquet contact area is average, and he relies on his skillful groundstrokes, though he will approach the net occasionally.
Luigi		His skill level and court strategy are similar to Mario's. He has better court coverage, though, due to being faster than Mario.
Princess		The princess is slow, but her racquet contact area is large. She doesn't like to approach the net, preferring to instead rally from the baseline.
Yoshi		He is the fastest of all the players, but his racquet contact area is small. He plays an aggressive type of game by rushing the net at every opportunity.
Toad		Toad is quite quick on the court, but his racquet contact area is not very large. Like Yoshi, he tries to approach the net often. Though he is not strong, he has great court coverage because he can lunge at tough shots.
Koopa		Being a turtle, basically, his court speed suffers. He has a large racquet contact area, though. He likes to rally from the baseline, and he also can lunge at tough shots like Toad.
Donkey Jr.		He is slower than all the other players, and also has a smaller racquet contact area. He is, however, understandably the most powerful of all the players. His strong groundstrokes allow him to win many points from the baseline.

Court backgrounds

All matches take place on the same court, with a net featuring a heart pattern. The background of the court is dependent on which opponent the player is playing against. In doubles matches, the background depends on only one of the opponents.

• 

  Mario's background

• 

  Luigi's background

• 

  Princess Toadstool's background

• 

  Yoshi's background

• 

  Toad's background

• 

  Koopa's background

• 

  Donkey Jr.'s background

Other characters and objects

Additionally, several objects and characters can occasionally be seen flying in the background. These are also unique to the background they appear in.

• 

  Fireworks which explode in the background of Mario's court

• 

  A moon which slowly rotates as it crosses the screen in Luigi's court

• 

  An airship in Princess's court

• 

  A blimp with the letters VB in Yoshi's court

• 

  A pair of Para-Beetles in Toad's court

• 

  A pair of Boos in Koopa's court

• 

  A bird in Donkey Jr.'s court

Pre-release and unused content

Early title

Early logo

The game was initially known as Mario's Dream Tennis during development, as unveiled in Volume 73 of Nintendo Power.

Cassarin

Evidence of the scrapped character "Cassarin", through a game rip

The character list in the game's ROM features the name "CASSARIN", which, unlike the other characters, does not have any character sprites. "Cassarin" is an alternate romanization for "Catherine", Birdo's Japanese name.

Staff

Main article: List of Mario's Tennis staff

Reception

Critical reception

Mario's Tennis received generally mixed reviews from critics. A common complaint cited by reviewers was the fact that it was a tennis/sports game that lacked a multiplayer mode. 1Up.com praised the game's 3D effects but criticized the game's lack of a multiplayer mode, or much to actually accomplish in the single-player mode. Nintendo Life gave the game a 7 out of 10, calling it a "solid, if simple, tennis game" that processed "Good music and graphics combined with...excellent 3D effect", though Nintendo Life too felt the game was held back by a lack of multiplayer mode, and a lack of characters, which lead to the tournaments being too short. IGN's Patrick Kolan compared the game to Wii Sports, another one of Nintendo's pack-in games for one of its consoles, the Wii, in that it showed off the system's unique strengths but suffered in regards to non-impressive graphics and a lack of long-term game content. GamesRadar echoed these sentiments, stating "Gameplay was rudimentary, and lacked all the flash and silliness that came to define the Mario Sports series, but as a 3D showpiece it worked fairly well." Famicom Tsūshin scored the game a 26 out of 40. The Rome News-Tribune referred to Mario's Tennis as "the only decent stab of tennis" prior to the release of Sega's 2000 Dreamcast game Virtua Tennis.

Gallery

For this subject's image gallery, see Gallery:Mario's Tennis.

• 

  Cover artwork

• 

  Mario

• 

  Yoshi

References in other games

Super Mario Land 2 - 6 Golden Coins

• Mario's character selection sprite is an edited version of his sprite from this game. Luigi's sprite in the character selection also looks noticeably similar.

Names in other languages

Language	Name	Meaning	Note(s)	Ref.
Japanese	マリオズテニス Mariozu Tenisu	Mario's Tennis