When it was announced that the twelfth installment in the Final Fantasy franchise was going to implement large changes to the series’ gameplay mechanics, many die-hard Final Fantasy fans were upset. However, after playing the game for a bit one can see that much of the changes are exceptional and are a great move forward for the series.
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Hot Shot Tennis brings gamers together no matter what their age or experience level.

Alright I’m going to start this review out talking about the Multi-players (Doubles.) So My Cousin and I, Played against each other in Doubles. I have to say this game is pretty easy to pickup and play. The Serving I had some problems with because the only other tennis game I had played was Virtua Tennis 3 and this game is a lot different, in a good way. This game has some fun Multi-player, pretty basic to any other tennis game, but fun.

So as you start off this game you have the choice of 2 starting characters. A male and a female one to be exact. Although farther into the game you can unlock more. I started out with the male character and just did really really bad with him, so after I had lost the first match I decided to switch to the female character. I shockingly lost again! Although I found the female character better, I’m not saying it is because it is probably in my head so don’t think she is. After I won the tennis match in Hawaii I went onto play one that you get to choose. I choose the North Academy Grounds which I can tell you I got whooped on. The nice thing about choosing the court is it tells you things such as how good the court is for bouncing, or speed. Which is nice if you don’t know much about Tennis. You can also change a couple other things such as Umpire, Handicaps, Sets, Games and Offbeat rules.

The environments are very interactive which is real cool, if you hit the ball into lets say the water in Hawaii it will have some text that pops up in a box right where it goes in that says “Splash.” Besides the Splash text box it also does “Clap” for fans who are on the sideline which I find very annoying more then anything. Although they also run out of the way of the ball if it is heading at them. Also you can hit opponents in the face, same with team members in doubles.

The coolest thing I’ve found in this game so far is the different game play styles the computer characters have. Such as Jun who is the second person I faced likes to go up on the net real close, although there are tricks to beating everyone of them. Which is really cool so every game isn’t the same and makes it more hard. Although once you figure out their weakness then it becomes a lot easier.

There is also a practice mode, where you can practice all sort of things, rack up points and get scored on how well you do. They have the following available for practice.

• General Practice
• Service Practice
• Volley Practice
• Smash Practice

The thing that is lacks is online play, which would had made it a lot more fun I think. I hope to see another Hot Shots Tennis on the PS3 with Voice and online.

I hope you all enjoyed reading about Hot Shots Tennis for the PS2, I sure enjoy playing it! If you have any questions feel free to ask them on the forums or through e-mail!

This game gets a 80 out of 100, I would had much rather seen this on the PS3 with some online play.