World Cup Tennis has the honor of being one of the most deliberately weird games I’ve ever reviewed. Things began in the Japanese arcades innocently enough. World Cup Tennis (or Pro Tennis: World Cup as it’s called in Japan) was developed by Namco. It was inspired largely by Family Tennis for the Famicom, and it experienced moderate success. Namco then decided to port the game to the PC-Engine (or Turbografx-16 as we know it) but with some rather big changes. RPGs were all the rage at the time and they had plans to cash in on this phenomenon in some rather unusual ways. The title was localized for North American audiences as World Court Tennis, and those who have played it will never forget how strange the title is. Let’s take a look.
We’ll get to the strange stuff later. First let’s focus on what this game is, and what it’s all about. On the surface World Cup Tennis appears to be a traditional game of it’s era based on, you guessed it, Tennis. You view the action from behind the court giving you a pseudo 3D viewpoint just like you’re watching a real match of the game. In a one player game you’ll start at the bottom half of the court and then switch sides halfway through a full set. What’s nice is that you can choose from a list of different characters, and can also select which opponent you would like to face. As far as I can tell there aren’t really any differences between how they handle. This means the changes are strictly aesthetic. That’s no real bother, and I thought it nice to have the option anyway.
The Tennis engine is pretty solid, if not standard for the time. It’s pretty similar to Tennis for the NES, but in this game the ball isn’t stuck moving in specific trajectories. This makes the whole thing feel more realistic, and allows for more dynamic gameplay as well. The directional pad moves your character around the court, and you swing with either of the face buttons. You’ll get two different effects with these. One is a stronger hit, and the other is more of a lob. They’re both good situationally, but I find that the power swing results in a lot of faults when serving. While swinging the racket your character stands in place so the hard part is getting into the correct position to hit it. There’s also a dive move but it’s only useful when in dire straights.
What’s nice is the fact that you have to methods by which to play. You can do either singles or doubles, and if no second player is available your teammate will be controlled via the AI. Of course you can bring a friend along for the fun and multiplayer is a lot of fun here. I’ve always been a big fan of video game tennis especially when playing with a friend and here it just works. The mechanics are simple enough to grasp that it just comes down to reflexes. Within minutes anyone should be decent enough to be competitive against the AI. What’s nice is that you can also choose how many sets you would like each match to go for, and you have a few other small options as well.
The main modes of play are decent enough. World Court Tennis is a pretty standard sports game with functional and fun gameplay. There’s something that really sets it apart however. There’s a third mode of play which is called quest mode, and the premise behind it is like that of an RPG of this era. You begin by naming your character and choosing their gender. From here you wander through town areas getting clues from NPCs, purchasing equipment upgrades, and progressing the plot. When you leave the town areas however you’re thrust into a traditional overhead view JRPG world map. From here you travel from city to city (with landmarks in between) and are at the mercy of random encounters.
When these happen you can either try to run (which usually fails), or engage the foe. The latter whisks you away to a separate screen where you play a round of Tennis against them. Should you win you’re awarded money and can continue on from where you left off on the world map. When you lose however you’re sent back to the starting town. With each new town you reach you gain the ability to warp to that area outside of the tennis matches. You can even get one vehicle (an inner tube) that lets you travel across the water on the map. At times you’ll forget you’re playing a sports game because outside of the character design World Court Tennis could be mistaken for a traditional Dragon Quest title. I’ve never really played a tennis game quite like this one.
The only RPG element it’s lacking in is experience points. There’s no way to level up your character or to naturally become stronger. Instead you can purchase upgrades in the form of clothing and rackets from shops in each city. There’s no real explanation for these items, but I think the shoes make you move faster, the racket increases the power of your hits, and the clothes make it easier to escape from the encounters. I’m disappointed that none of these change your appearance, but I suppose it isn’t a big deal. The RPG elements are pretty light, but considering this is an optional mode thrown into an already good game I’m certainly not going to fault it.
As far as story goes there’s also barely anything here. There’s some sort of tennis king taking over the world and you have to beat him. Or something. It’s actually pretty hilarious. The towns are based on real-world cities but bear almost no resemblance to them. Chicago is seriously like five houses big. The same goes for Paris. What I think happened is this was a gimmick thrown in during localization. Otherwise it doesn’t make sense that these small villages are supposed to represent metropolitan areas, and with no famous landmarks to boot. It doesn’t dampen the experience at all, and actually, I found it comical overall.
World Court Tennis is a pretty decent looking game. The biggest problem I have with the visuals is that the boxart depicts a real photograph of an actual player. That’s hardly a good representation considering the characters in-game are heavily anime based. World Court Tennis is one of the better Turbografx-16 titles visually. The characters have very little animation but they move fluidly which makes it easier to get them in place to return the ball. The courts don’t have a lot of detail and the audiences are very small. It’s much better in this regard than most tennis games of this era however. Maybe it’s just because I like RPGs so much, but the overworld looks amazing. I love how much it looks like a classic role playing game here. The soundtrack however is pretty disappointing. There just aren’t a lot of different tracks, and they are very basic.
