There has been a definite lack of tennis games being released over the past few years, so when I was given the chance to check out Smoots World Cup Tennis for Xbox One recently, I jumped at the chance. I have fond memories of the Virtua Tennis series, particularly as the Vita versions kept me busy on some lengthy flights, and I’ve been known to dabble with the Mario Tennis franchise as well. Smoots World Cup Tennis seems to be based more on the later than the former, with a family-friendly arcade tennis feel, and cartoon-inspired characters and visuals.
Spanish developer Kaneda Games are behind Smoots World Cup Tennis, and though I couldn’t find reference to what a ‘Smoot’ might be (aside from a made-up unite of measurement), it seems as though these Mii-inspired character models populate a lot of Kaneda Games’ titles. They’re not a particularly attractive or visually intriguing bunch, but they are quite widely customizable, particularly when it comes to clothing and accessories. Dressing up your characters is one of the driving forces behind Smoots World Cup Tennis, as you’re frequently unlocking items of clothing or new rackets by completing challenges and tournaments.
By playing through the story mode (similar to but not as good as Virtua Tennis’ World Tour mode), you’ll be able to travel around the world and increase the skills of your characters by competing in matches and playing a series of mini-games. While the game intends to give you the impressions that you’re playing in exotic locales such as Melbourne, Doha and Chennai, the experience essentially boils down to a different type of court surface and a change in the text to indicate where you’re supposed to be playing. Thankfully, the mini-games are a little more dynamic, and go some way to teaching you valuable lessons about how Smoots World Cup Tennis is played. One of the mini-games has you returning flaming tennis balls to try and knock over zombies, which teaches you how to place your shots, and another has you lobbing fish into the mouths of waiting seals, which shows you how important varying your technique can be.
Unfortunately, the moment-to-moment gameplay of Smoots World Cup Tennis isn’t all that enjoyable, and ventures into frustrating far too often. To start, the game doesn’t do a great job of explaining how to actually play this style of tennis game, and even once I experienced the eureka moment of figuring out the beats, I still felt as though the flight of the ball was too hard to judge, especially when your character is at the far end of the tennis court, and that rallies went on for far too long, with AI characters able to recover and return a ball at a near superhuman level of ability. I reviewed a karting game on Nintendo Switch a little while ago and remarked how playing a game that isn’t Nintendo made makes you realize just how good those games are, and Smoots World Cup Tennis does the exact same thing with Mario Tennis.
There isn’t a lot to recommend about Smoots World Cup Tennis, and even though the Story mode offers up a fair bit of content, it isn’t content that’s particularly enjoyable, and there isn’t a convincing enough reward to encourage you to put up with the slog. While the minigames are more enjoyable, and the variation is welcome, they would still be the weakest part of any other tennis game, and that essentially sums up my feelings towards Smoots World Cup Tennis as a whole: this is the kind of game where even the strongest aspects would be troublesome in a better game, and therefore you would be much better off looking elsewhere. 
