Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash
Gameplay. Before starting a regular match, Mega Battle, players choose from 16 playable characters, and determine either competing in 1-on-1 matches or 2-on-2 matches. From there, a court option is picked; each court is themed as a different texture of ground, of which effect the ball in speed and bounce. Matches include three occurring abilities: Chance Shots are glowing spots on the ground, and upon standing over it and pressing a certain button combination, allows the player to pull off a powerful move; Jump Shots, an ability that allows the player to jump up  and hit the ball; the Mega Mushroom, a mushroom thrown onto either sides of the court that causes the player to grow in size, allowing stronger and more distant hits on the ball. The game does not require motion controls. The game has a total of 4 modes, including Mega Battle. Classic Tennis allows for creating a custom rule set, being able to remove Chance Shots, Jump Shots or the Mega Mushroom. Knockback Challenge is a single player game mode, where the player competes against opponents, increasing in difficulty after each win. Online Multiplayer supports single or multiplayer; players compete  against worldwide opponents in either Mega Battle or Classic Tennis. The game supports amiibo functionality, where the player can train the character through artificial intelligence to compete in matches similar to the player. The trained amiibo can compete as an additional competitor in online matches. Development. Camelot Software Planning, the creators of previous "Mario Tennis" games, developed "Ultra Smash". The game, upon its reveal, was announced for Holiday 2015, later being released on November 20, 2015. According to the director, Shugo Takahashi, the developers aimed to create a game that was generally simple enough to "give anyone the taste of  how tennis is interesting"; they compared their concept to "Mario Tennis" on the Nintendo 64. The Jump Shot was an idea requested by Nintendo early into development. It was implemented due to the move having multiple gateway elements that could add a layer of strategy, such as where and how to hit the ball. Mega Battle was proposed by Camelot, of which the idea was created from considering concepts that could be used with HD graphics. The idea was implemented so players could have "Mario-ish features while playing tennis". Takahashi stated that there was constant trial and error creating  larger scale models, such as being able to see the ball and creating a proper hitbox. Similar courses were created to have the sense of unity Halfway through development, Nintendo wanted the game to have amiibo functionality. They conceptualized the concept of training a character to play like the player, similar to "Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U". Camelot proceeded with the idea, due to the company being familiar with the role-playing game genre, having developed games of the genre in the past. Characters. Deciding the roster, Camelot used pre-existing characters from older franchises in  hopes that players would gravitate towards characters they recognized. Each character's skills were determined based upon their appearance. Using this, the developers found it difficult to balance the skills for each character alongside opinions of stats from the fans. They considered Mario to be the most difficult to compare and balance, due to him being the "starter character" that could not be too strong or too weak. Reception. "Ultra Smash" received "mixed" reviews, according to video game review aggregator Metacritic. IGN's Marty Sliva gave the game 4.8 out of 10, calling it "a bare-bones, lackluster addition to  Mario's sporting adventures". He also compared it unfavorably to its predecessors by stating "that "Mario Power Tennis" on the GameCube managed to include more characters, interesting modes, and varied courses a decade ago is a bit insulting." GameSpot's Scott Butterworth similarly criticized the lack of game modes and alternate ways to play and awarded the game 6 out of 10. Nintendo World Report's Daan Koopman lambasted the game for having "just one stadium, limited online options and less features than the previous 2 entries."