Family Tennis (Game)

Family Tennis

GAME » on December 11, 1987

Arcade (Platform)Nintendo Entertainment System (Platform)Nintendo Switch (Platform)PlayStation 4 (Platform)

The first installment in the Family Tennis series. It was released for the Famicom in late 1987 by Namco and was the second tennis game for the system.

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Overview

Family Tennis released exclusively in Japan for the Nintendo Entertainment System (Platform). The fourth of Namco's lengthy "Family" series of sports games and the first to concentrate on tennis, Family Tennis plays much like its Nintendo forebear and other tennis game contemporaries. It shares the same viewpoint from behind the court and requires that the player make their way to where each shot is heading and return the ball by tapping the swing button in order to win. Family Tennis has a few notable quirks, however. First, is that the many fictional tennis players available all superficially resemble actual real-life stars of the sport. The second is "Cosmos Mode", in which the action is taken to outer space. Besides the starry background and the astronaut ballboys, there's little functional difference however. There was also four female characters, of the sixteen total, who all had a bigger racket then the men. Essentially making the women into an 'Easy Mode' In 2002 it was ported into a Mobile App.

Tennis Courts

There are four different types of courts that can be selected

Hard - Is the most average of the 4.
Lawn - Grass court, with a low bounce.
Clay - Court made of Soil, is the slowest.
Cosmo - Higher bounce due to lower gravity.

Tournaments

All four of the Grand Slam of Tennis tournaments are represented, albeit with a letter change to Wimbledon. It also had Japan's own tournament, The Japan Open, as well as The fictional Cosmos Open.

Japan Open
Australian Open
French Open
Winbledon (Wimbledon)
U.S. Open
Cosmos Open

Characters

Every character was based on someone in real life and given a name in Japanese that had a meaning or was a Japanese name, word or phrase that sounded like their real life counterpart. Every character had different grades in abilities (with the exemption of the ladies who it can be assumed are all A's).

Endoru meaning Yen-Dollar (Ivan Lindl) * Service-A, Stroke-A, Volley-C, Footwork-A
Bunbun meaning hum or buzzing like a bee (Boris Becker) * Service-A, Stroke-A, Volley-A, Footwork-A
Edo which was the former name of Tokyo, and means Bay-Entrance (Stefan Edberg) * Service-B, Stroke-B, Volley-B, Footwork-B
Niranderu is a phrase that means, you are anticipating (Mats Wilander) * Service-B, Stroke-A, Volley-C, Footwork-B
Meshiirazu is a phrase that means, no more rice (Miloslav Mecir) * Service-C, Stroke-C, Volley-B, Footwork-A
Sukoncho or Be Concho (Henri Leconte) * Service-B, Stroke-B, Volley-B, Footwork-B
Noanoa or Of Anoa, a type of small water buffalo (Yannick Noah) * Service-B, Stroke-B, Volley-C, Footwork-B
Makerou means to lose, be defeated (John McEnroe) * Service-C, Stroke-B, Volley-A, Footwork-A
Koneezu (Jimmy Conners) * Service-C, Stroke-A, Volley-B, Footwork-B
Byoru-gu (Bjorn Borg) * Service-B, Stroke-A, Volley-C, Footwork-B
Kyatchu (Pat Cash) * Service-B, Stroke-B, Volley-B, Footwork-B
Fukutaro (Tsuyoshi Fukui) * Service-D, Stroke-C, Volley-C, Footwork-C
Naburatchi literally translates to Nub Abduction (Martina Navratilova)
Ebaruto (Chris Evert)
Suteppi-i (Steffi Graf)
Sabochiini (Gabriela Sabatini)

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