Virtua Tennis 4
Without fault?
Elsewhere, the only other changes Sega Japan has made to Sumo Digital's previous two games are structural, specifically to the expansive World Tour mode. Here you embark upon a series of four epic tours across different regions of the world map, which is divided up into tiles like a board game. Each city in a region is a tile, and they're linked together in a broadly linear string. You must spend 'tickets' to travel between them as you progress towards a final tournament at the end of the route.
At each city there's an activity to engage in: one of eight different mini-games; an exhibition match; a rest spot (where you recuperate your character's health); or a special event such as a fancy-dress match or a fan signing. To progress around the map you must spend move tickets, which act a little like dice throws. Each time you spend one of your three tickets you are randomly given a new one, so there are elements of luck and strategy involved as you seek to land on the cities you want to in order to participate in those events that interest you.
As you progress around the board, you earn experience points to level up different attributes of your player, earn money to spend on new gear and, most importantly, earn 'stars' that raise you up the leaderboard of world players and gain you entry to more advanced tournaments. Development of your character is primarily fuelled by engaging in a range of mini-games, the one area where Sega Japan is allowed some creative freedom to break away from the tennis template. Each mini-game is playable at five different difficulty levels, with experience rewards increasing in step with the challenge.
There are eight mini-games included in Story Mode, including Egg Collector, in which you must hatch chicks from eggs by running over them and returning them to the mother hen. Chicks trail behind you in the style of the classic Sega arcade title Flicky, but will – somewhat distressingly – drop dead if struck by one of the tennis balls being fired down the court towards you. As such, the emphasis is on speed and accurate footwork.
In 'Wind Match', meanwhile, you must try to achieve the longest possible rally on a windswept court. Burst one of the wind balloons on the court and the wind speed will pick up yet further. The mini-games are fresh and interesting and, while the basic concept has been a Virtua Tennis staple for years now, it adds welcome arcade-style variety from the play-offs in the main game.
It's a solid, workable single player 'campaign' structure, and while initially it can seem set up to arbitrarily limit your play options, in time the sense of journey and progression work together to draw you in to your avatar's career in a way previous entries to the series never quite managed.
Visually, Virtua Tennis 4 is solid but rarely beautiful. It has the bright, hard-lit ambiance of its predecessors and, while the character models are robust and well-animated, the thick white sweat that covers players' faces as a match progresses has a disturbing look. A generous range of court locations and a huge array of unlockable clothing (including fancy dress items) add another layer of distraction. There's not quite the commitment to collectables and silliness on offer in Sony's excellent Everybody's Tennis, but there's enough there to provide added interest and motivation.
A mixed success, then. The core strength of the experience ensures Virtua Tennis 4 is best in class where it matters, on the court. Likewise, a well-structured World Tour mode, while slightly anachronistic in its straight Japanese presentation, provides a sense of journey and progression that is wholly engaging. But the motion controls, core selling points for many buyers, are woefully implemented and provide little interest or value. If nothing else, it's a specific shortcoming that should keep Sega's financiers happy – providing, as it does, room for improvement in the inevitable sequel.