Tennis 1920s

Genre: Sports (Tennis)

Players: 1, Online Leaderboards, Online Content Sharing

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Review:

WARNING: THIS GAME HEAVILY PUSHES MICROTRANSACTIONS AND WAIT MECHANICS

Tennis 1920s was originally released as World of Tennis: Roaring ’20s on mobile devices in 2018, then ported to PCs under that title in 2020, with a port to Nintendo Switch later the same year with the new name Tennis 1920s… although oddly, the icon for the game on the Nintendo Switch inexplicably has “2019” plastered on it (this game seems to be suffering a serious identity crisis). This is a Free-to-Play game that has players playing tennis in various locales, set during the 1920s.

I’m not sure if the choice of time period here is to set the game apart or help excuse the dated-looking graphics, but whatever the reason, it’s a somewhat odd and slightly distracting choice. I’m not a history buff, but I think there’s some degree of anachronism at play when you have a tournament featuring black female players competing with white male players in New York with the skyscrapers still being built in the background and period-appropriate music playing. Perhaps this game is simply depicting a more idealized version of history, which would seem to be implied by the presence of “Gatsby Yacht” as a potential court location.

Historical inaccuracies aside, the graphics here are serviceable as long as you don’t look at them too closely. At the very least they are clean. With decent resolution and framerates, and the different locations are varied and appealing. A closer look at anything however will reveal some pretty ugly low-poly expressionless character models, and courts that are so pristine they look absolutely fake. It’s not horrible, especially for a free game, but it’s not fantastic. And the music thankfully dies down during the match, although then you’re left with a lack of environmental noises that really could have given some depth to an otherwise somewhat soulless presentation.

Given that this was originally a mobile game, you’d be right to wonder how well this game controls, and the answer to that is… surprisingly not bad. This game makes use of a two-stick control scheme that has you using the left stick to move and the right stick to aim, with the area you’re targeting indicated by a circle showing where it could potentially land, allowing you to choose how much you want to risk getting close to the edge of the court. Multitasking both movement and aiming with this system is actually pretty engaging, although I was frustrated by the fact that as soon as the ball is returned to you, all movement control is taken away from you and your player automatically runs to where the ball will land. I have to suspect this is a holdover from the mobile version of the game, and while it’s technically a “helpful” mechanic, I wish the game let players “help” themselves if they decide they don’t want this movement to be automated.

I’m also happy to say that this game does allow for touchscreen controls as well, which I found to be very good. I’m not sure if I prefer them over the two-stick controls, but I appreciate that the game gives players the option for both.

Oh, and I have to point out, this game uses an odd first-to-seven points wins scoring system. Maybe I’m out of the loop… was there some point where all Tennis videogames decided to stop using traditional tennis scoring and just pick a random “first to X points” system?

This game has a bit of an odd approach to its campaign and multiplayer modes, meshing them together into a sort of online tournament… however, you never actually play others online. Instead, as you play the game records your choices and then makes a fascimile online for others to play against. In the matches I played, I honestly never really felt like those I played against felt particularly unique or “human”, so for all intents and purposes this may as well just be a single-player game, which is unfortunate.

The other question then becomes how this game handles its monetization, and the answer to that is a mix of good and bad. On the one hand, players looking to play this game completely free will have to deal with its wait mechanics, which limit how often you can play matches (though you can purchase more with in-game currency earnable in-game or buyable with real-world money). However, For $9, players can opt to buy a lifetime pass to remove this restriction, which is a nice option to have in a free-to-play game. However, even getting this option doesn’t remove the game’s other microtransactions, which to be fair are mostly aesthetic, although these do include some gameplay-focused content like AI training sessions. Mostly this is fine, but I lay it all out here for those concerned about this sort of thing.

While I’m a little frustrated by some of the control choices made here, and have mixed feelings about the microtransactions, one of my biggest frustrations with the game has to be its menus, which are frankly broken. In some places the controls fail to respond entirely, forcing you to exit out of the menu to continue. There are even some menus that are completely inaccessible, such as the Account tab in the Settings menu. Oddly, these issues only affect the game when using traditional controls – using the touchscreen, everything works fine. These sorts of issues make the game feel a bit rushed, which is odd since the game was basically shadow dropped on the Nintendo Switch.

Still, despite the control limitations, despite the buggy menus, despite the lack of polish, despite the microtransactions, and despite the odd choice of setting, Tennis 1920s is one of my favorite tennis games on the Nintendo Switch. Its unusual control scheme takes some getting used to, but when you do it’s surprisingly satisfying. And much of the frustration with microtransactions can be done away with by making a one-time $9 purchase, which is a fantastic feature for a free-to-play game. I only wish a bit more work had been put into polishing this game, and I wish the game had a proper multiplayer mode. However, with the game being free on the eShop, anyone who enjoys a good game of tennis should at least give it a look.

tl;dr – Tennis 1920s (first released on mobile devices as World of Tennis: Roaring ’20s) is a free-to-play Tennis game inexplicably set in the 1920s. The game lacks polish, has buggy menus, is missing multiplayer play, and the unusual controls take some getting used to, but once you do get used to them, this is a surprisingly enjoyable Tennis game, and you can even do away with most of the microtransactions with a one-time $9 purchase. At the very least, fans of Tennis games should definitely try it out for free to see if it’s to their liking.

Grade: B-

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2020 Game Awards:

Runner-Up: Best Sports Game, Worst Microtransactions

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