World Court Tennis
TurboGrafx-16, 1989
Developer: Namco
Publisher: NEC
Despite some initial miscues, my plan to buy my way to tennis godhood had finally commenced in earnest. Dressed in my finest “D” grade Parisian sportswear, I was now a credible threat. It was time to take retribution on those tennis rapists. The rape-ee would now be the… wait. No. Forget I said that.
It was time to leave the lobotomite infested hellhole that the before-ones called Paris. But where would I go? Seeking guidance, I opened my menu, and saw that I now had the power to “warp” to Chicago. My latent tennis legend powers must have awakened upon contact with my expensive new French racket:
That’s it! I’d return to Chicago and seek guidance from “a” Tennis King! Surely he’d know what to do. You don’t become “a” Tennis King without acquiring some degree of tennis questing mastery. I quickly zapped myself back to Chicago and made my way towards “a” Tennis palace.
“A” Tennis King would undoubtedly be impressed with my progress. I was sure he’d been keeping something from me – some ancient legend, some apocryphal wisdom – for the very occasion when I could prove to him that I was worthy of the quest with which I had been tasked. It was now time for him to divulge the hidden knowledge of the ancients unto me, the prophesied one!
“Go.” Go. All he could say was “Go.” What, did I catch him having an affair with Chris Evert or something? I was beginning to understand how “a” Tennis King had lost his kingdom to his evil twin. You know, maybe if he treated his prophesied heroes a little better, he wouldn’t be in this pickle. Was he too busy cooking the city’s budget? Typical Chicago politician.
My efforts again stymied, I thought back to what I’d learned from the mentally disfigured inhabitants of post-apocalyptic (or perhaps prehsitoric – I hadn’t yet dismissed my Pangaea theory) France:
No, not him. The other guy.
Surely, this was not merely idle chatter. If this mentally infirm Frenchman wasted his last sentient thoughts conveying this information to me, I was surely meant to seek out this court. TO THE WEST!
I began my trek westward, across the scorched Atlantic, and was happy to note that my new garments were, as promised, allowing me to avoid tennis challenges.
My plan was working – it seemed that the touchy grabby brigands of Tennis Kingdom were so impressed by my “D” ranked visage, they were finally beginning to understand that “no” meant “no.”
Well, most of them, anyway. I must have passed into the ruins of a destroyed frat house, or something. But it didn’t seem to matter – with my new racket and faster shoes, I had finally started winning regularly.
THE PROPHECY WOULD BE FULFILLED (whatever it was, anyway). Finally, after hours of walking through the Atlantic wasteland and its spontaneously generated tennis courts, I happened across…
…well, another tennis court. But this one had an aire of importance about it. It was of permanent construction – presumably bound to our corporeal realm by some sort of tennis magic – and ensconced in a mystical forest glade. What mysteries awaited me here? Batting cages, I hoped. I was secretly getting tired of tennis.
Alas, I would befall no such fortune. As I stepped into the forest glade, I was approached by a menacing figure in terminator sunglasses. This was the man only known only as Sevens. I presume he was named this because he eight more than a few nines. Or maybe the Japanese tennis gods who translated this game couldn’t get a handle on the name “Sven.” Either way, this six was not afraid of Sevens. I knew not why I had to beat him, but something told me I needed a pearl. And he had one.
I dropped a close first game to Sevens, but this was clearly a contest of supreme importance – we’d be playing a full set. I smiled, knowing that my shiny new racket would help me win the day. Oh how wrong I was.
DAMN MY HUBRIS! WHY HADN’T I FORESEEN THE SIDE SWITCH? Having never played on the top half of the screen before, I was ill-prepared for this perverse distortion of perspective. My limbs failed me. I may as well have been playing with my controller upside down. Racket, I mean. Not controller. Racket. I don’t think I need to tell you how the rest of the match went.
Having hit another roadblock on my path to predestined greatness, I decided to take a rest. But that Sevens character had looked familiar… had I seen him… in… Chicago?
No. This couldn’t have been all a perverse decoy… could it have been?
NEXT TIME: THE ROAD TO RETRIBUTION!