Game: Mario Tennis Fever
Genre: Sports
System: Nintendo Switch 2
Developer | Publisher: Camelot Software Planning | Nintendo
Age Rating: US Everyone | EU 7+
Price: US $69.99 | UK £58.99 | EU € 69,99
Release Date: February 12th, 2026
Review code used, with many thanks to Nintendo Europe.
As a Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive, Mario Tennis Fever promises to “serve up some chaos on the court”. Let’s see just how smashing this game is.
Tennis in the Mushroom Kingdom
After a cinematic introduction (which can be skipped), you’ll launch into a tutorial. The tutorial goes through serving, returning, and various shots before concluding with a seven-point match. It can be skipped and if needed, replayed via the How to Play section.
Mario Tennis Fever is all about the sport, but forget the quiet of Wimbledon or the drama of Flushing Meadows – this is tennis with a feverish twist!
In Mario Tennis Fever, there are three tennis-based challenge modes (Adventure, Tournament, and Trial Towers), and two more standard match modes (Free Play and Mix It Up), with additional gameplay using Joy-Cons (Swing Mode), as well as online and co-op tournaments.
There are various achievements which unlock new characters, colours, courts, rackets and difficulty levels. Some of the achievements require several matches to be played, while others could be as simple as visiting the How to Play section. The task required to unlock the achievement is given.
Let’s Go On An Adventure
Mario Tennis Fever Adventure mode is a story mode for solo players. You go on a journey to return Mario, Luigi and the rest of the gang to adults, having been transformed into their baby forms by a mysterious entity. You start at the Mushroom Tennis Academy, training to strengthen muscles and perfect tennis skills. Each completed training session earns a sticker to help you progress through the ranks. There is a lot of running between the different academy locations, and although some of the training is fun, I was eager to start what I thought was the main adventure.
Once you graduate, you board Princess Peach’s airship and head off to reclaim your former self. However, the remaining journey didn’t take that long; there are various tennis-themed challenges to complete and numerous boss battles at each location, but it was all over pretty quickly. Overall, it took a mere 3 hours to complete, with half of that time spent at the training academy.
Challenge Yourself: Tournaments & Trial Towers
The Tournament mode is a standard knockout event, with the aim to win the Mushroom, Flower and Star cups, in both singles and doubles. As you progress, you need to win more sets, but it wasn’t overly challenging, and again, it didn’t take long to win the six cups.
The Trial Towers mode is a 10-level challenge, with the added pressure of just three lives. There’s no randomisation in the challenges, so little incentive to replay once completed. There are three towers to complete, and if you have a player two, they become a shadow person, helping you to win! Again, it didn’t take too long to climb the three towers, about 30 mins each. The challenges did get harder, but I completed them on my first attempt, with only a couple of lives lost in total. Once completed, you unlock the All Trials mode, where you complete individual trials to earn stars. There are a hundred challenges, each with three stars unlock. It does add more value, even though it feels a little overwhelming, and it would have been great to see the challenges already completed as part of the Trial Towers, having stars present.
Mario Tennis Fever: Match Play
Free play is the standard Mario Tennis Fever match, although nothing is standard about this tennis game! There are over 30 characters to choose from, each with its own distinct strengths and weaknesses, and you can play in either a single or double match. However, the unique aspect of Mario Tennis Fever are the Fever Rackets (present in all modes, not just Free Play). These rackets bring peril to the court in the form of fire, mud, ice, volcanoes, thwomps and much more. In fact, there are 30 Fever Rackets to play with, each bringing a dastardly danger to the game. As well as characters and rackets, you can also select the type of court to play on, from traditional grass, clay or hard to mushroom, sand, carpet and more.
Mix It Up mode consists of special matches and high score challenges. Special matches have unique rules, like scoring points by directing the ball through the rings in Ring Shot, or constantly swapping the fever racket, by hitting the tiles in the Racket Factory, or bouncing off the bumpers in Pinball. These matches are infuriating and fun in equal measure, and it’s far too easy to get distracted by the background.
My personal favourite is the Super Mario Bros Wonder inspired Wonder Court Match, where you need to collect Wonder Seeds to win. Occasionally, a Wonder Flower appears, and when it’s hit, the court transforms with pipes, or bouncing Hoppos, or even singing Piranha Plants!
Gameplay
The controls are straightforward, although some shots require pressing two buttons sequentially. The key shot reminders are given on screen, and a quick reminder of the controls is shown at the start of each match. The joy-cons work well, and it adds a different perspective to the match play.
Mario Tennis Fever works smoothly in docked or handheld mode, and the text size is fine, even for the smaller Switch Lite screen, playing via GameShare (which works really well).
One of the cutest aspects is the talking flower commentator, luckily if it gets too much, it can be turned off for Free Play, although not the Tournament or Adventure modes. It’s possible to change racket hand and remap the buttons if required, with the How to Play section giving detailed info about the different shots and rules, settings and tips.
Conclusion
Mario Tennis Fever has lots of laughter value for a party game, and playing together, be that locally, via GameShare or online, makes for a great experience.
However, for the solo player, there isn’t enough content to make it memorable. The adventure mode, which I was really looking forward to, was short and oddly balanced, favouring academy training rather than adventuring.
Final Verdict: I Like it 
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I love playing this with my siblings
Thanks for sharing! Mario Tennis Fever is definitely better with friends and family. Enjoy!
Mario Tennis Fever works smoothly in docked or handheld mode, and the text size is fine, even for the smaller Switch Lite screen, playing via GameShare (which works really well).
Just curious how you got this to work on the switch lite! That’s interesting!
Hi Angela, thanks for visiting LadiesGamers and reading my review. Mario Tennis Fever is only a Switch 2 game, but the GameShare function of the Switch 2 allows you to share with others, without them owning the game. To play the game on either the Switch Lite or Switch, someone on the same local wireless network needs to activate GameShare from their Switch 2 game. Not all modes of Mario Tennis Fever are available, whilst playing using GameShare. Hope that helps. Lynne