Virtua Tennis 4: World Tour Edition Review: A Wonderful Tennis Experience

Virtua Tennis 4: World Tour Edition Review

Virtua Tennis 4: World Tour Edition
SEGA
PlayStation Vita
Sports

Opening Statement

I’ve been a fan of the Virtua Tennis series since the days of the Sega Dreamcast. It’s great to see how far the series has come along, and to now see another great edition of Virtua Tennis on the PlayStation Vita.

About The Game

Virtua Tennis 4: World Tour Edition is a lovely Tennis game with beautiful menus to navigate through. It has a great variety of game modes to play, which include a fun World Tour mode, your basic Arcade mode, Exhibition, Practice, Mini Games, VT Apps and Network play. Every single one of those modes is a great deal of fun to play and especially so, when you are making your way through World Tour.

In World Tour you create your own player and make your way through a map of events. Each event is placed out by a number of spaces and you only get to move so many spaces per move. You also have a condition meter that you will need to be aware of. As you move from space to space your condition will start coming down. There are places of rest that you can stop at, as well as tickets that you can collect and choose for resting. If you move to much without resting and your condition falls as you come across a tournament, your play will be affected by this. It’s very important to stay well rested!

There are a lot of interesting aspects that come into play as you move throughout the map. This includes charity events which will take your money from you. Thought you where saving for a new racquet? Not going to happen when you come across a charity event and you give up most of your money. It really adds an interesting dimension to the gameplay and to the World Tour mode overall. A lot of people will enjoy the heck out of World Tour mode with plenty of events, a lot of items to purchase for your character and a ton of skill to brush up on. Also, another thing that you’ll find interesting while playing in World Tour mode is that you can choose to connect online and have custom matches against other created players that have been uploaded. You are not playing against others, just playing a match against their created player that was uploaded.

Some of the other great ways to play the game are to play in the VT Apps mode which has a VR match. It’s basically a first person way of playing the game, and you will tilt the Vita to move the camera. It takes a minute to learn but it is a lot of fun to try out and play. Another fun one is a Touch Vs. mode where you can set the Vita down the long way and play against another person by each one of you touching your half of the Vita’s touch screen. There are 10 mini games for you to play and trophies for meeting certain conditions in each one of those mini games for those who might want a little extra incentive. It really is a great deal of fun to play all of these modes, making this an awesome title to own.

Game play – Controls

The gameplay proves for another wonderful Tennis experience with smooth controls and handling of the game. The only interesting part of the gameplay is the serving, but more so when you play online. There is a slight way to manipulate the serve creating a difficult situation to handle. Hopefully, when you play online you will run into some of the guys I did that play good and have fun. I’ve had a lot of good matches, yet some people use that trick with the serve to their heavy advantage. Other than that, there are no real issues with the gameplay. You are in for another wonderful, and fun to play, Tennis experience.

Sound – Graphics

Visually the game looks very good, with beautiful looking menu’s to navigate through and great gameplay visuals that you’ll certainly like. When it comes to the audio, you have very nice gameplay sound effects including the crowd.

Online – Multiplayer

When it comes to playing Virtua Tennis 4: World Tour Edition online, it has a rather odd way of setting up ranked matches. At least it took me awhile to figure it out. As you select ranked match, it will put you in a arcade match until you find an opponent to face. I had a few times where I played pretty deep in the arcade match vs the computer before an opponent was matched up against me. If you think about that, and how it can take awhile before you are matched up with someone, it’s actually a very nice thing. You can play the game while you are waiting for an opponent compared to just sitting in a pre-game lobby. It just took a little bit of time to figure out what was going on exactly.

There are also regular Player Matches that you can set up where you create the clubhouse for people to join. The fun thing about this is that not only can you just choose to play singles or doubles matches, but you can go head to head in mini game matches. The only thing I am disappointed in is that it doesn’t seem to keep good track of stats for the online games played. It just has an overall score and ranking.

Enjoyment Level – Fun Factor – Final Notes

For those who enjoy a good game of tennis or have enjoyed a Virtua Tennis title in the past, then Virtua Tennis 4: World Tour Edition is a must own game for the PlayStation Vita. With smooth gameplay and so many types of modes for you to play in, it will certainly keep you busy for a very long time. I had a great deal of fun playing my way through all that the game has to offer in it’s many different modes. It was hard to put it down as well.

Score: 9/10

Responses

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  1. I enjoyed Virtua Tennis 3 quite a bit so I’m glad that this version has turned out well. World Tour mode sound’s like a ton of fun. I’ll be looking to pick this up when I eventually get a Vita. 😀