At a Sony event earlier this week, I was prepared to see a lot of big name, highly anticipated triple-A titles—which I did. However, there were also some surprises, like stumbling upon Hot Shots Tennis on the PSP. I knew the game was in development, as it was announced months ago, but with only a vague 2010 release date, I didn’t think it would be far along enough to be presented just yet. Well, technically, it’s really not—the entire thing is still in Japanese, actually. Still, as a huge Hot Shots Golf fan, I couldn’t help but try out Hot Shots Tennis, even if it was in a foreign language.

One of the great things about the Hot Shots Golf series is how easily it can adapt to both consoles and handhelds. The two PSP installments were great, and even though I never played the PS2 version of Hot Shots Tennis, I expected the game to bring the same quirkiness and fun to a sport I’d never normally care about that Golf did. When I first sat down with Tennis, I found myself wandering around a tennis club of some kind, with a few NPCs to interact with. I had no idea what they were saying, but I could definitely talk to them, and my knowledge of Japanese games using the circle button to confirm, instead of X, went a long way. I eventually talked my way into an actual match—don’t ask me how—which is where I got to finally play a simple game of tennis.



Now, as a disclaimer, I should probably say that I know almost nothing about tennis. This shouldn’t matter at all, since golf bores me to tears, but that never stopped me from enjoying Hot Shots Golf. I assume—and may be correct, for all I know—that the rules are similar to ping pong (of which I am a master), but I don’t know what all the lines and sections on the court are for, or how it’s scored. Despite this, I was able to get a few good games in, hitting the ball back and forth with the touch of a button and moving freely around the court with the thumbstick. I saw the familiar bunny and turtle icons appear over my character when I swung too fast or too slow, as well as some slow-mo replays after good shots that left craters in the ground,  but those were the only real elements that made it feel like a Hot Shots game. Besides that, and the visuals, it felt as simple as an NES tennis game.

Around this time, someone from Sony appeared to explain the game to me. As it turns out, Hot Shots Tennis is not just a remake of the PS2 title, and in fact, is going in a new direction for the franchise. I was told that it would be more like an RPG, only instead of battles, there are tennis matches. That definitely made the concept more interesting to me. From what I gathered, you will be tasked with traveling around the world and becoming a tennis champion, leveling up and accessing new areas as you win games. That explained the area I had been running around in before I started the match.



Because the game was in Japanese, there wasn’t much more I could learn from it, but from my brief time playing Hot Shots Tennis, I would say that this could be another winner in the franchise. Branching out the gameplay and adding RPG elements is risky, but it could pay off. With at least six months to go before it comes out in North America, Sony certainly has time to work out the kinks.

Hot Shots Tennis will be out for the PSP in the summer of 2010.