When comparing Mercenaries Saga Chronicles vs Mario Tennis Aces, the Slant community recommends Mario Tennis Aces for most people. In the question“What are the best single-player games for the Nintendo Switch?” Mario Tennis Aces is ranked 17th while Mercenaries Saga Chronicles is ranked 19th. The most important reason people chose Mario Tennis Aces is:
Playing with a friend right beside you makes the game much more enjoyable. Reacting to each other in real-time is just better than playing against a computer opponent. There's no online co-op -- only multiplayer matches against random people -- meaning you'll have to be in the same room together to play.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Easy to jump into thanks to simple and easy to understand mechanics
The mechanics are easy to grasp within the first few minutes of gameplay. There's nothing convoluted or over complicated, and the game doesn't attempt to be anything it's not. Skills and abilities do what they say they do without a lot of fluff. For example "Throw Stone" does exactly that. Each ability also tells you exactly how much damage it's going to do before you use it.
Combat takes place on a grid based system, taking turns with the enemy as you move your units around, attack, cast spells, and heal. The distance in which you can move or attack is marked with highlighted tiles so you'll never have to guess how far each unit can move or what the range of their attacks are. It's all spelled out for you in visual format.
As in most typical RPGs, between battles, you can buy weapons, armor, and items with the gold you earned, as well as level up your characters with your experience points in a clean and simple UI.
Pro Lots of different ways to build each character
All the characters in the game initially start as one of the basic fantasy classes (fighter, thief, or caster) with a limited skill set. As you level up, you get to choose specializations at certain milestones. At level 10 you get to choose an intermediate class, followed by choosing an advanced class at level 20. Each of these class specializations have their own unique set of skills to use on the battlefield.
For example, you may start as a fighter. At level 10, you have the choice to become a mercenary or a knight. Once you hit level 20, your mercenary can now evolve into a sword master or battle master; if you chose the knight tree, you can now evolve into a paladin or general. As you progress, you keep all your skills from any classes previously chosen in the tree resulting in characters that genuinely feel more powerful and dynamic as they grow.
This end result is an exciting class system loaded with fun class advancement choices that can be used to create a bunch of different and unique combinations for each and every character on your roster.
Pro Thieves are especially fun to play due to some of their non-combat abilities
Thieves add a really fun element to play that isn't battle focused, and allows for some interesting choices where you have to choose whether or not going for the treasure chest on the edge of the map is worth more than using your thief to attack enemies. Not only can thieves unlock and disarm traps on treasure chests, they can also steal items off enemies. That means even if you go into battle low on items, strategically using your thief to pickpocket and plunder may still give you the upper hand by acquiring more during the battle itself.
Pro Starting battles with zero mana leads to more rewarding and satisfying spell casting
Unlike most tactical rpg games, Chronicles opts to start each character with zero mana at the beginning of each battle. This means you'll need to play strategically with your wizards by positioning them properly so your other characters can defend them while their mana charges. If you want to wind up that big fireball, you'll have to work towards it instead of just unleashing it right off the bat. When you finally do get that big spell off, it's much more rewarding to watch the enemy fall knowing that you set it up through skill rather than brute force openers.
Pro Good port
A lot of care went into porting the games from mobile and Nintendo 3DS. The graphics for all three games were redesigned and well optimized for the Switch.
Additionally, some of the newer gameplay features from Saga 3 such as aggro and minion summoning skills were retroactively implemented into the earlier titles, meaning even if you've played them before, you can play them again with these new features added.
Pro A chance to play Mercenary Saga 1 in English for the first time
Prior to Chronicles, the first game in the series was only available in Japanese. It's been fully translated into English for this special release, making it accessible to a wider range of players.
Pro Getting 3 games for the price of 1 is a great value
Chronicles is 3 different games released as one title. All three games are accessible from the main menu which includes Mercenaries Saga: Will Of The White Lions, Mercenaries Saga 2: Order Of The Silver Eagle, and Mercenaries Saga 3: Gray Wolves Of War.
Pro Couch co-op with a friend is tons of fun
Playing with a friend right beside you makes the game much more enjoyable. Reacting to each other in real-time is just better than playing against a computer opponent. There's no online co-op -- only multiplayer matches against random people -- meaning you'll have to be in the same room together to play.
Pro Solid roster of Nintendo characters to play as
There's a good variety of characters you can play as. If you're familiar with first party Nintendo games, then you'll see a lot of familiar faces here, like Yoshi, Bowser, Donkey Kong, Luigi, Peach, and of course Mario. Everyone has their own playing styles, with bigger characters like Bowser and Donkey Kong favoring hard-hitting power shots, and others like Yoshi and Mario that have a more balanced approach. You can go with whichever style or character you prefer, practicing with them until you master everything. Getting to see all of these characters together in one game is great for fanservice as well.
Pro You can compete against others online in multiplayer
When you run out of single-player content to enjoy, you can hop online to play against random opponents. The main game mode is the tournaments you can play, which rewards you with special characters if you score well. Online connectivity is good too, especially with the choice to drop out of matches beforehand against players who have bad connections. Playing online is a really great way to test your skills and improve your play, since anyone you get matched with is an actual player who has their own strengths and weaknesses.
Pro Intense and engaging tennis matches
Mario Tennis Aces is incredibly addicting to play. Matches are fast-paced and exciting, with one particular mechanic that keeps things unpredictable. Every time you successfully hit the tennis ball to your opponent's end of the court, you build up a power meter that you can use in a couple of different ways.
When you want to quickly finish off a match, you can slow down time and take aim at a vulnerable corner of your opponent's court for an instant win. Or, if they try to do that to you, you can instead expend some of your power meter to quickly reach the ball and hit it back. Things can get pretty tricky when you both use up your power meters at the same time, leading to some satisfying wins.
Cons
Con Difficulty spikes between battles means you'll be grinding a lot
The difficulty spikes from battle to battle are sometimes way too steep. You'll often have to grind side battles called "Free Battles" to level up your characters before you can progress the main campaign. These battles happen on the same maps you've already done, so it tends to get very boring and repetitive after a while.
Con You'll be stuck with the same perspective of each battle for the entire game
Each map battle is displayed with a 3/4th overhead view, but the camera is unable to be rotated around for various views of the board. You're out of luck if you want to view the action from a different angle.
Con The color of gear quality in the weapon shop is confusing
When you go to upgrade weapons or armor in the shop, red colored gear is an upgrade and blue colored gear is a downgrade. This is the exact opposite of most similar games, which can be confusing at times and cause you to make costly mistakes when purchasing gear if you're not paying close attention to the stats.
Con The stories are extremely generic and can be skipped without missing much
Each game in Chronicles features a different kingdom under attack, with the characters all wondering how they are going to bring peace to the land by defeating the big evil bad guys. The writing doesn't do much to leave this familiar fantasy territory that we've all seen a thousand times before, making all of it generic and able to be skipped.
Con Each game in the series is the exact same gameplay with a different story tacked on
The only difference between each game is the characters, dialogue, and the story. The battle mechanics, menu style, skills, and gameplay of each game in Chronicles is the exact same. It may start to feel repetitive if you plan on playing the 3 games back to back.
Con Very wide skill gap between experienced and inexperienced players
Mario Tennis Aces can be unwelcoming to new players. While playing co-op or online, it's tough to catch up with everyone else who knows how to time their power shots with the meter. If you don't pick up on this mechanic fairly quickly, you may feel like you're getting left behind. You don't necessarily have to use the mechanic if you and a friend agree not to, but this sadly makes matches pretty dull. Running against computer opponents is a good way to get your feet wet before moving up to other levels of play.
Con Limited gameplay options for solo players
If you're the type who prefers to game alone, then Mario Tennis Aces might not be for you. There's only one single-player mode, while the rest of the game is mostly dedicated to co-op and online play. The solo mode is also extremely short, clocking in at around four hours. Aside from that, there really isn't much else for you to do.
Con Certain characters are locked behind online tournaments
The primary way to unlock new characters is to win tournaments, but this isn't entirely fair. They're only available for a limited amount of time, with the rewards changing from tournament to tournament. Even though some of these characters are in the actual game as opponents in the single-player adventure mode, you can't get access to them unless you unlock them through these tournaments. If you don't like playing online, or if you don't have the means to pay for Nintendo's online service once it's implemented later on in 2018, then you're basically out of luck.
Con Single-player adventure mode is pretty difficult
The game's adventure mode makes up for its short length with some real difficulty. It's a rough introduction to the gameplay, as some of the matches and bosses are really hard. There's plenty of variety to things, like courts that have certain hazards in your way and uneven terrain such as tall grass, as well as inventive boss designs like a giant squid that shoots out tennis ball-shaped blobs of ink. But all of these things can get quite overwhelming, especially if you're using the single-player mode to get better at the game.