This review was originally published on the Console Purist Facebook group on February 9th, 2019. It has been edited slightly for formatting.
Continuing into February, Valentine’s Day will soon be upon us.
I’ll be doing a few related reviews on PlayStation Basement starting with this
one. PlayStation Basement occurs here every Saturday with a review of an
obscure or odd game for PS1. Reviews use a nine-point scale where 9-7 is Good,
6-4 is Neutral, and 3-1 is Bad.
For this review, let’s talk about V-Tennis, an early tennis
game for the PlayStation. We’ll be starting the Valentine’s reviews here, since
everyone starts at zero, called “love”, in a tennis match. V-Tennis was
developed and published by Tonkin House in September of 1995 in Japan. It was
later released in May 1996 in North America and June 1997 in Europe, both
published by Acclaim.
The cover art for V-Tennis is adequate but nothing
particularly outstanding. The American and European versions have a woman
hitting a ball towards the camera on a court displaying the Acclaim logo. The
sky is a colorful violet of a vapor sunset. The original Japanese release
features a drawing of a blonde man about to hit the ball in a dramatic leap. It
is as if saying “this is your chance to decide the match” in comparison to the
attack on the player, a different kind of challenge, of the western releases. I
don’t think either do a great job, as the western release has such a weird
composition, and the Japanese release is really dark. I think the latter is a
bit more visually appealing though.
Graphically, V-Tennis looks like an early PlayStation game.
The character models are simple, the playfields are plain, and the menus are
bare bones. The characters move a bit stiffly, but they have some nice little
elements to them; I like the little win poses that the characters do. There are
a variety of camera angles, some dynamic and some static, some useful and some
particularly weird (most likely intended for watching a computer only match). I
like the backgrounds of the various locals, though they are stretched out in a
bad way often.
The backgrounds work well with the sounds of the game, despite
their morphing nature. The game has an electronic/city pop style to its
soundtrack that really stands out to me and makes the game fun to play. I think
that this soundtrack really makes an otherwise plain game stand out. The sound
effects all sound good as well, and I like the announcer.
V-Tennis is tennis. There’s no Mario or Mutant League here. There’s no space gravity, sci-fi blasters, or wizardly magic. This is
just tennis as it is, and that’s fine. The game plays fast and is pretty easy
to understand, though there are some more advanced elements to the controls to
boost your game as you get further in. The game is divided into exhibition
matches against computers or other players and a single-player tournament mode.
Players can select between 8 different men and 8 different women; computer
players have the addition of four computer-generated characters. The characters
are not all balanced fairly, which I don’t see as a particular weakness but
probably isn’t the best thing either. There are eight different locales, from
the twilight of New York to the roaring waters of Niagara Falls, and three (or
four for indoors) different court styles. The game allows singles or doubles
play, and the length of the game can be set as well.
V-Tennis is nothing amazing, but I do like it. There isn’t
much to say here, but it’s a fast-playing and fun tennis game that can be
picked up for cheap at the time of this review. I have never heard anyone talk
about this game, and I don’t really know why. I really enjoyed the vapory
aesthetics of it, and I think you might too, at least if you enjoy arcade-style
tennis games without any frills.
V-Tennis receives a Good (7).
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