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Latest Games Reviewed: World Court Tennis

Author: GN Team - Published: 18 April 2026, 1:04 am

World Court Tennis is a sports game developed by Namco and published by Hudson Soft, released for the PC Engine and its North American equivalent, the TurboGrafx-16, in 1989. It is one of the most unusual sports games of its era — on the surface a tennis game, but underneath it hides a fully functional RPG quest mode that makes it unlike almost anything else in the genre.

The tennis gameplay itself is solid and enjoyable. Viewed from behind the court in a pseudo-3D perspective, the game supports singles and doubles matches, with a second-player option that makes multiplayer fun. You choose from a roster of characters based on real tennis players of the era — including Boris Becker, John McEnroe, and Ivan Lendl — though the differences between them are largely aesthetic rather than statistical. The controls are simple: the directional pad moves your player around the court, and two face buttons produce different shot types — a powerful drive and a higher lob. Serving can be tricky, with the power shot producing frequent faults until you learn the timing, but the ball physics feel noticeably more natural than in many console tennis games of the period, allowing for dynamic rallies and proper baseline play. Compared to Super Tennis on the SNES or Super Tennis Champs on the Amiga, World Court Tennis has a more arcade-like feel, while Final Match Tennis — also on the PC Engine — offered a somewhat more simulation-oriented alternative on the same hardware.