Tennis

Yeah these early Black Box NES sports games are... really not good. I'd argue this is the best of the 5 though. As far as tennis controls go, these are pretty serviceable for the time but considering that this concept has been refined much later, especially among Nintendo games, this sticks out as a version you'd never want to play especially not towards the long length it expects you to. At least it does not have annoying unfitting music playing the whole time though, it's got that over the likes of Soccer [サッカー].

It’s s barebones tennis game but it really have a great feel to the tennis. Also I love this and baseballs graphics like rounded fluid pixel art

Tennis didn't really set out to be much more than the port of its NES brother, and it easily accomplishes that feat, so most of what you think of Tennis GB reflects onto the base game fairly accurately.

There is only one mode in Tennis: tennis, wherein the AI difficulty can be scaled from 1 to 4. Level 1 is painfully slow, and even first time players will probably breeze through it as the opponent really struggles to volley. Upon selection of level 2, however, you'll begin to see how deep the rabbit hole goes for this game in terms of relentless volleying precision and speed. Immediately you'll be met with cutting serves, petty ass lobs, and spikes like you wouldn't believe. The AI is good, but can be outright punishing on higher difficulties.

The reason this doesn't excel, for me, is a limitation of the hardware itself: the lack of real dedicated buttons to flesh out the moveset means there is some weird no man's land stuff. FOr example, if you're far left of the incoming ball and chasing it to the right, you have to let go of the Right button on the D-Pad before you hit it or you'll return it to the right as well, which could very well go out. The cognitive dissonance between the hands and feet of the player that you can't control leads to some awkwardness.

All that said, this game is great for little playtime sessions, if you have some to spare. The rules are simple the execution is mostly there. Just... don't touch the higher difficulties without some practice.

As primitive as it seems today, Tennis' mechanical execution of the sport is rather marvelous, just as it was with Baseball. The very notion that you can do straight shots, lobs, and slams is a big testament to how flexible sports genres would just grow in the 3rd gen, and still poses a satisfying experience today. One should note, however, that the lower difficulty levels are also directly parallel to ball speed, meaning that while level 1 is super easy, it's also a super bore to play through because all the ball is so slow. And it's especially aggravating when you have to put up with three entire games(especially when you are LOSING), with an AI. I wish there were separate options to decide on ball speed, enemy AI, as well as the number of games and sets needed to win.

The perspective and scale of this game are... working, but are warped and will seem unusual nontheless. Determining the height and position of the ball is an essential component of the game, but it falls flat when this game has absolutely no sense of depth perception.

Shame it never had a bonafide 2 player vs mode. The only 2p option here is a co-op double, otherwise, Tennis is really as perfect and accessible as a sports simulation ever got until Sega's Virtua Tennis.