Camelot speaks about Mario Tennis Open’s glaring omission

Camelot, developers of the rather revered Mario sports titles have come out and announced that Mario Tennis Open for the 3DS will not have a roleplaying mode, despite the series tradition of having one in every game. In an interview with Nintendo Power, one half of Camelot’s founders, Hiroyuki Takahashi, has spoken out regarding the team’s decision.

Takahashi has justified that there is no mode in the game because Camelot are going for a more “console-quality” experience, including features such as online play and downloadable match play. The biggest reason though? You might want to sit down for this (if you’re not already). The inclusion of Miis!

[quote]Another reason is that the game’s cast includes Mii characters in addition to characters from the Mario family, which are difficult to work into an [RPG] scenario. It didn’t feel right to have already-existent Mii characters appear in an original storyline. But there are RPG-like elements in the form of costumes. I hope people will enjoy collecting the various costumes to customise their own characters and expand their abilities.[/quote]

Now we know why he’s so happy

Considering Camelot’s pedigree, which includes the reknowned Golden Sun series, it seems a bit flaky to assume that couldn’t have made it work somehow, but what can you do?

Mario Tennis Open will launch for the Nintendo 3DS in Australia on May 24^th.