You know, I was actually looking forward to playing Top Spin 2K25 because I may have mentioned on the site before, I was actually inspired to learn how to play tennis in real life after playing Mario Tennis on the Nintendo 64. Since then, outside of the occasional tennis match with friends, the only virtual attempt at tennis has been on the court of Mario, so I was interested to see what something more “realistic” would be like.
I’ve noticed a trend while playing Top Spin 2K25 during my three attempts to review sports games for CGM—I’ve never had fun playing these games. This isn’t meant to disparage anyone who enjoys them, but I genuinely can’t understand what’s enjoyable about these games. Moreover, I’m consistently shocked by the lack of effort put into these annual sports games in meaningful ways—but I’m getting ahead of myself.
To put it simply, Top Spin 2K25 may be a serviceable tennis game, but I couldn’t find any enjoyment in it. Honestly, I have no patience for games that are overly indulgent in their mechanics and uninviting to newcomers. What I mean by this is…
“Top Spin 2K25 may be a serviceable tennis game, but I couldn’t find any enjoyment in it.”
Do you recall how Mario Tennis Aces introduces players to the game after the intro cutscene, teaching them the basics of gameplay in a straightforward and effective manner? In contrast, Top Spin 2K25 takes a different approach. After an eclectic montage of sports clips, the game drops you into a match without any explanation or understanding of its complex gameplay mechanics. To make matters worse, instead of integrating tutorials seamlessly into the gameplay experience, you’re required to complete fifteen separate training sessions before you can even begin playing the game in earnest.
This is what I mean by “overindulgent” in its mechanics. The game is so eager to showcase its technical and specific gameplay that it prioritizes this over providing an enjoyable and engaging experience. It takes an inordinate amount of time to get started, and even then, it fails to introduce players to the game in a fun and interactive way.
I won’t delve into exhaustive detail, as these games have become formulaic and functionally identical. Suffice it to say that Top Spin 2K25 features a career mode and free-play mode, but if you’re still unsure what to expect, there are two decades’ worth of similar games to reference. My primary criticism of Top Spin 2K25 echoes my issue with MLB The Show 18: the control mechanics.
“Visually, Top Spin 2K25 is underwhelming.”
Because that’s the biggest thing in a sports game, how it controls is going to be directly correlated to how enjoyable it is to play. And I’m a firm believer that you can make a sports game that is both technical and fun. But I have yet to find a “realistic” sports game that has found a way to bridge the gap—which is why I usually tend to default to the Mario-based sports games that prioritize fun.
So much of Top Spin 2K25’s gameplay is watching a bar and trying to land a line within the green zone—like a hyperactive version of Mario Golf’s two-button gameplay—and it never feels satisfying to play. There’s a weirdness to the controls where you need to put your player in the right vicinity of the ball—close enough that they line themselves up correctly—and then hold down the button for your shot to start the bar moving and release it when it’s in the green.
At first, this felt so incredibly alien to me because you’d think in a game that’s emulating swinging a racket at a ball, you’d want to time the button press to the bar, rather than hold it. Holding it would denote powering up a swing, which isn’t always the best move in tennis since where you position your shot is crucial to the strategy.
What’s more, trying to work out the positioning is incredibly finicky—sometimes you’ll get your player close to where the ball is going to land in the hopes they’ll position themselves, and they just don’t. Other times, you’ll try to make small corrections only to have your player veer off in whatever direction and completely miss their chance at a return.
Even when you get used to the controls, they never feel satisfying, and the games are never exciting. You’re never really paying attention to the court or the atmosphere or even watching your opponent’s position to get a read on where they might try to hit the ball. You’re just looking for that X on the ground so you can move relatively close to it and then watching a bar to try and time a return. And I get to a degree that the “technicality” is part of the experience, but it’s so incredibly un-fun, why would you want it to be?
Not only that, but there’s no real distinction in how shots feel, and no matter how you try to mix up your shots to throw your opponent off balance, they all end up feeling the same. Any time I attempted a drop shot when my opponent was at the back of the court, it never seemed to fall as expected, and lobs never felt particularly effective when they were playing close. Every set devolved into a monotonous game of hitting the ball as fast as possible to the opposite side of where they were standing—it was incredibly boring.
Visually, Top Spin 2K25 is beyond unimpressive. Can we, as gamers, just agree that these games’ visuals really haven’t evolved since the days of the Xbox 360 when semi-realistic beads of sweat felt like a massive leap forward in perceived photorealism? Players’ textures are flat, and their models aren’t particularly impressive, even when they are based on real people. They all have awkward, gormless faces and certain animations don’t really play right—like when a player ran her hands through her hat as if it were hair.
“Every set devolved into a monotonous game of hitting the ball as fast as possible to the opposite side of where they were standing—it was incredibly boring.”
Furthermore, I think particular mention needs to be made for the general lack of polish I always find in these games—though I’m sure sports fans will tell me I’m crazy. This happened immediately after I made my character, and in the first “cinematic” cutaway after a set, his hair texture dropped into his head, giving him a bizarre Monk’s Cap. This would continue for the rest of my time playing, even after I had shut the game off and rebooted it hours later. This series has been dormant for 13 years, and you’d think they’d do the bare minimum to update the visuals, but I guess not.
If I can say one nice thing about Top Spin 2K25 it’s that, while playing on the PS5 version, I like how it makes decent use of the controller’s stellar mic and haptic feedback. It would’ve been cool if the controls were more satisfying and maybe worked the adaptive triggers into the mix, but we can’t all get what we want.
Furthermore, there’s a Season Pass—because, of course, there is—and there’s a virtual currency you can spend real money on. And while the game says you “can earn VC just by playing,” you earn such a pittance from “just playing” that it really feels like there’s no other option than to spend money on cosmetics and feels particularly gross after the game starts by showing you all the corporate sponsors it has including Uniqlo.
Honestly, I can’t think of a single moment I was having fun playing Top Spin 2K25 even when I was winning. Every victory felt hollow in the face of awkward controls, mindless gameplay—that somehow finds a way to be overindulgent—and outdated visuals. I know I implied that Mario Tennis prioritizes fun over technicality, but after replaying it during this review, not only is it incredibly fun, but there really is a surprising amount of nuance to not just the N64 version but newer versions like Mario Tennis Aces.
Those games are way more fun, just go play them.
