Nickelodeon Extreme Tennis: Next Review (Xbox Series X|S, Switch & PC)

Nickelodeon Extreme Tennis: Next serves as a rightful successor for the Apple Arcade underdog chapter that launched back in 2022—a mobile game that, with all due respect, sadly slipped beneath the net for a lot of fans of the star-studded channel. Consequently, the team has now officially decided to make an attempt to revive the court and bring it closer to par, or deuce, in this case. With that, Old Skull Games has taken the next step forward, not with the intent to rebrand the original blueprint, but to optimize it for consoles and give it a little extra well-needed technical polish to make the jellyfish fields, well, sparkle.

In short, the scope has been broadened to wrangle a lot of fresh platforms, and with it, more characters, modes, and opportunities to tailor your players with all sorts of cosmetics and racket accessories. Oh, it’s still tennis, and it’s still in receipt of all of the familiar bits and pieces that made up the original. But in Next, you have a little extra breathing room to explore new possibilities, both on the court and away from it. Well, sort of.

Next is, above all, a souped-up version of the original game that launched on handheld devices. Only, it goes a little further than the previous, in that it introduces a fully narrated Story Mode, a Tournament Mode, and a whole host of mini-games, all of which have been designed to accommodate controller support. But other than that, what you see here is what you get: a familiar arcade tennis game that doesn’t necessarily reinvent the wheel, but rather, adds a fresh lick of elbow grease to enhance several of its predominantly palm-sized components. It’s a console port, basically. It’s best not to sugarcoat it.

Nickelodeon Extreme Tennis is exactly what you think it is: a fast-paced 1v1 arcade game in which players—SpongeBob, or Raphael, for example—duke it out on the court for points. Unlike your traditional TopSpin tennis game, however, the Nickelodeon chapter vies to be as accessible as possible, with simple flick controls, minimal difficulty spikes, and a smooth, albeit chaotic animation that allows even the most inexperienced players to hit the court and start volleying shots. And so, to that extent, it isn’t your typical tennis game. It’s a bit like Mario Tennis Fever, if anything, in the sense that almost anyone can play, but only a select few can master the fundamentals.

It’s best not to treat Nickelodeon Extreme Tennis as a perfect imitation of the sport, for it clearly lacks a lot of the basic elements. Though, that isn’t to say that it’s a bad tennis game. On the contrary, it’s a lot of fun to jump into for half an hour or so, mainly due to the fact that it’s also an incredibly easy game to learn on the fly. What’s more, as it offers hundreds of items and skins to unlock, it’s also a game that you can spend a good amount of time in and still have something to work towards, be it a new character, a special ability, or a unique mini-game.

Of course, the heart of Nickelodeon Extreme Tennis is still alive and kicking, with the usual classic matches, couch co-op split-screen mode, and simple racket controls and techniques that fleshed out the original. Next, as the refined version, simply elevates all of the above features to foster a better, cleaner, and more intuitive controller-locked experience, nothing more, nothing less.

Let it be said that, if Next was just a simple rehash of an old Apple Arcade game, then there wouldn’t be much to write home about here. And, to be honest, there isn’t a lot to write home about anyway, given that it is, in all fairness, a fairly standard emulation. However, I have to give credit where credit is due and say that, as a newly revised console port, it does hit the nail on the head and get a lot of things right. For example, the mechanics have been updated to reflect a more realistic console-based experience, and the visuals have been given a well-needed facelift to improve an otherwise small and squashable art style.

Above all, Next feels like a step in the right direction for the Nickelodeon Extreme Tennis label, and more importantly, an opportunity for Old Skull Games to broaden its offerings in the near future. It might not deliver a perfect tennis game with genre-altering gameplay facets, but it does provide an entertaining out-of-the-box experience that can be enjoyed by an audience of all ages and player types. For that reason alone, I’d say that it’s worth the asking price. Or at least, it is, provided that you have a love of simple sports games that don’t require a lot of effort to learn.

While you could argue that Next is little more than a cheap imitation of Mario Tennis Fever, it is worth pointing out that, in spite of all of its similarities, it is a charming entry-level game with a lot of original features of its own. The gameplay might be relatively similar, though it does offer its own two cents to the court with a quality roster of characters, a treasure trove of abilities, and a decently packed collection of game modes and challenges. The question is, does it make for a better tennis game?

Verdict

Nickelodeon Extreme Tennis: Next certainly bodes well as a clean entry-level arcade tennis game for players of all ages and backgrounds. That said, it isn’t quite the belle of the court, given that it lacks the fuel and power to make a quick match an effective tool for curing long-term spells of boredom. For an hour or two, absolutely. Though, for a game that doesn’t do a great deal more than what others have already done, it does reach a point where the charm wears out and its closest adversaries soon swoop in to fill in the blanks. But, that’s a sports game for you; originality isn’t its strong suit, and, chances are, every idea has been made a hundred times before. This world just happens to have SpongeBob in it.