Tennis World Tour 2 tries to be more than its predecessor in terms of gameplay, but ultimately doesn't deliver an experience that even rivals its underwhelming competitor, AO Tennis. There just isn't anything on offer here that would make true tennis enthusiasts feel satisfied in the way that basketball and football fans do every single year.
Tennis World Tour 2 would be decently fun with a few minor tweaks to its control scheme, but it fails on presentation and basic graphical requirements. The game is plagued by fleeting moments of fun that are swiftly dashed by some seemingly minor issue that ruins what would otherwise have been an engaging match. During play, it's impossible not to feel like more competition in this particular market would force developers to put forth the effort.
Career Mode in Tennis World Tour 2 begins with a terribly barren character creator. The athletes crafted in this mode are recognizably human, but that's about it. It is impossible to make someone that satisfies creative players, so it's questionable why the character builder was included, beyond simply being something that happens in other sports games. This is a telling look at how the rest of the game will be presented.
The basic gameplay of Career Mode is no different from Exhibition Mode. The game guides players through a series of short matches so they can earn points to upgrade their character's attributes. There are also Skill Cards that are meant to augment how the game plays and feels moment to moment. The issue is that these changes are rarely noticeable on the court and the gameplay is no less finnicky as a result of Skill Cards. The game wants players to spend the rest of Career Mode meeting coaches, training the player character, resting, and exercising. All but Training is done in a series of menus, and pressing buttons to get XP is boring when the game could have provided a handful of fun minigames to allow players to dive into the life of a professional tennis player.
Exhibition Mode is where most players will stay. It is quick and to the point, and can be fun when a good rhythm can be reached with opponents. The control scheme is a big issue in Tennis World Tour 2, however, which limits this mode as much as any other. The same analog stick that is used to move the character is used to aim the ball before and during a hit. This means that players need to tilt the stick to the left to chase the ball and then immediately turn it to the right in the split second before pressing a button to hit the ball. Tennis World Tour 2 seems to adjust to make sure the player doesn't mess up every shot because of the poor controls. This system either ruins an aim attempt or makes the game feel like it is playing itself, and could easily be fixed by letting the player use the other stick to aim, but remapping controls is impossible, at least on consoles.
The biggest issue, though, is the Tennis World Tour 2 ball. During gameplay, the ball appears to be white and the courts are all brightly lit. The ball disappears from view on a regular basis, causing players to miss volleys. Even on the easiest possible difficulty mode, winning matches is insanely hard because of this on top of the terrible controls.
Graphically, Tennis World Tour 2 isn't ugly but feels like something that could have been much more impressive last-gen. There are replays and highlights just like similar games, however the celebrations and failure animations all look the same between plays. This, coupled with the constantly repeating audience members in the stadium, make the whole experience feel sloppy by today's standards.
Tennis World Tour 2 tries to copy the look and feel of other sports titles but ends up feeling lazy. There is no reason for its character creator, or the career mode, to be as shallow as they are. It also doesn't make sense to lock players into a single control scheme that causes problems, and the ball being hard to see in a game that is all about hitting it back and forth with accuracy is a huge misstep. This game could have been so much more, but Tennis World Tour 2 ends up being a disappointment, first and foremost.
Tennis World Tour 2 is available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, and Nintendo Switch. Screen Rant was provided with a PlayStation 4 code for the purposes of this review.