Mario Tennis: Power Tour, known as Mario Power Tennis in Europe, is a 2005 sports game developed by Camelot Software Planning and published by Nintendo for the Game Boy Advance. It is the sequel to the Game Boy Color version of Mario Tennis. While it is the handheld companion to Mario Power Tennis, released on GameCube, with the European release sharing its title, Power Tour lacks connectivity with Power Tennis, unlike how its predecessor features connectivity with its console counterpart on Nintendo 64. Power Tour was re-released on the Wii U's Virtual Console in 2014. Gameplay The gameplay of Power Tour is similar to Mario Power Tennis’ gameplay. Players play tennis with other characters, in both doubles and singles, and there are several mechanics such as topspin, slice, and "Power Shots" (Special Shots in the Japanese version). There are both Offensive Power Shots and Defensive Power Shots which are earned further in the game. Offensive Power Shots are very powerful attacks; they power-up the ball and when they make contact with another player, they cause an effect such as being knocked back a little bit, running around dazed, etc. Defensive Power Shots can negate the secondary effects of Offensive Power Shots and they can reach balls which normally would be out of reach. There are topspin and slice, and topspin has more power than slice, while slice exchanges a tiny bit of power for more curve in the character's shot. As well as this, there is also a variety of shots, such as lobs or smashes. Characters There are several characters in Power Tour. The two main characters to choose from are Clay (Max in the European version; Norty in the Japanese version), a male power player, and Ace (Tina in the European version; Tabby in the Japanese version), a female technical player. The player can change the name of the character they choose to play as, and also choose the character's dominant hand for playing tennis (right or left). The character the player did not choose will be their doubles partner and his/her name cannot be changed. The game features a variety of characters from the Mario Tennis game for Game Boy Color, who return as coaches. One of them is Alex, the male protagonist from the first game. His varsity teammates are featured as coaches at the various levels of play. There are also the Mario gang with