225. Family Tennis (Namco, Famicom, 1987)

Family Tennis is the Tennis entry in Namco's Family series of accessible Famicom titles. The game boasts 12 selectable characters including some tennis pros I'd actually heard of (Graff, McEnroe). The best part is that they're all represented in a big-head style that I love (in the menu screen at least, in game most of the characters are just palette swaps). In addition to the 12 characters, you can also select from one of 4 courts, which chance the ball physics. One is even a "cosmo" court set in space that is extra bouncy, so there are some nice cute touches.

While the AI is brutally difficult to play against, there is mercifully a watch mode where you can just watch the 2 computer-controlled players go at it. My main gripe with Family Tennis is that the timing windows for both serving and hitting the ball are very strict, and when you're playing against a nearly perfect AI, it's hard to get into a groove.

The tennis action itself is maybe a tiny bit better than game #224 World Super Tennis, but Nintendo's own Tennis from 1984 is the simplest, purest, best Tennis experience on the Famicom. The first tennis games I ever played were Mario Tennis and Virtua Tennis, and those were both just so much more accessible and fun and both had a great feel in their own way, so I think part of it is that I started playing tennis games with some heavy hitters, but it seems like one of the sports that is easiest to boil down into a fun video game.

2/5, maybe not the worst tennis game on the Famicom, but definitely not the best