Every art form has a moment of greatness that defines it for a generation. Marlon Brando in Streetcar. John Coltrane's Giant Steps. Guy Fieri's Donkey Sauce. And in the Nintendo universe, the sensation of controlling Waluigi in Mario Tennis is the single greatest experience the medium has to offer.
Just before E3, Nintendo served up a demo of Mario Tennis Aces for the Nintendo Switch. The demo, a limited weekend run, allowed players to smack it out on the court and unlock new characters ahead of the game’s full release today. Once enough points had been scored, the players were given access to a handful of familiar favourites, such as Rosalina, Toad, Chain Chomp, and the purple one himself, Waluigi.
First created as a throwaway character to bulk up the roster of Mario Tennis 64, Nintendo rarely acknowledges Waluigi's existence, often reducing him to merely an unplayable trophy, a bauble. He was even snubbed from the roster for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, a game that has been marketed for including everybody.
Waluigi recently showed up on the Switch in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, but only as his upper half, occupying various go-karts and mopeds alongside more beloved Nintendo icons. In Aces, not only are we bestowed the fully articulated body of Luigi's counterpoint, but this is the first game to truly capture his full range of abilities. Developer Camelot makes this abundantly clear, meticulously texturising every last inch of his sexually ambiguous swan body.
Unlike Wario, his squat inbred not-brother, Waluigi has no purpose, no hook, no meaning. At least Wario, the greedy nemesis of Mario, is a character with a storied history of solo outings, comic book appearances, and memorable catch phrases ("I'ma Wario, and I’ma gonna win.")
Waluigi, instead, is more like the hollow absence of a character, a disembodied foil who only exists so Mario and Luigi could have opponents in doubles tennis. It's easy to imagine him, with his Salvador Dalì moustache and bright blue circles under his eyes, forever wandering the halls of the Mushroom Kingdom like a rejected Frankenstein monster, cobbled together from half-assed, bad, or otherwise meaningless ideas.
But in Mario Tennis, a game with no purpose or meaning, Waluigi feels right at home. It’s a game of dirty play, encouraging body shots and spitballs like the Deadball era of baseball. And that’s what makes the experience of playing as the character in Aces so exhilarating–on the courts of Mario Tennis, chaos is king, and in that chaos, the hell-bent Waluigi thrives.
As the longest, lankiest character in the game, he holds court like a mother bird, his full wingspan just short of occupying both alleys at once. He’s huge, but unlike fellow big boys Bowser and Donkey Kong, Waluigi can move. Aces finds him moonwalking into his backswing, tossing roses into the air, and spinning like the sweatiest uncle at your cousin’s disco-themed wedding.
Nintendo has always been known for its masterfully intuitive controls, but no character seems to play quite as fluidly in this environment. The limitations of the court giving his gangly frame a perfect canvas to paint upon, Waluigi lives up to his hollow concept–a character quite literally intended to, well, play tennis.
And even among a rich cast of familiar characters from the franchise, none of them are quite as devilishly entertaining. When he wins, he snarls and cavorts about like a disturbed rooster; in defeat, he cries in his bizarre Wahhh voice, but not without pronouncing the victor a “cheater!”
Waluigi conveys the pure enjoyment of video games to players, because he is free from the shackles of conventional storytelling. He may not be pretty, but he exists to inspire joy. And like Brando in Streetcar, his relationship to the poetic reality of Mario Tennis is such a goddamn perfect match that the experience of crushing the court in his purple overalls is as good as gaming gets.
See you on the court.
Dom Nero is a staff video editor at Esquire, where he also writes about film, television, tech, and video games.
