Mana Games

[anrox335]

Just bought topspin and tiebreak on summer sale, and omg, they are so bad. I spend more time looking at the timing meter than my player, and yet am able to win my first match in hard difficulty just by looking at the shot timer. Even if I disable the timer, the game feels like trying to match the timing rhythm than playing real tennis. It feels similar to learning how to play a specific song on a keyboard. I can even hit sliced winners with perfect timing in various situations.

Seriously, the position based controls in TE4 are vastly superior simply due to the fact that we spend more time looking at our player and his position rather than at some shot meter, while choosing one of the 11 available shots. Moreover, there is no precision aiming in topspin. It seems like timing decides our aim. And lets not forget that top spin is significantly slower than real tennis. People might say animations in top spin are better, but TE4's animation are superior in my opinion simply due to the fact that they are dynamic, and happen at a much faster pace. The fact is any animation will look smooth if it happens slowly.

And lets not get into the whole online career mode. As someone who travels frequently, this online campaign seriously does not go well.

Coming to graphical assets and the crowds, top spin feels more like a subpar AA game from early 2000s than a game from 2k sports in 2020s. Meanwhile, TE4 looks ridiculously good on my OLED TV with the all mods, especially in the night mode. Lastly, the PC version of topspin seems to only have high and low settings, which is extremely bad for a PC port.

The only thing TopSpin 2k25 got better than TE4 is that we cab hit the top spin shot at different depths, which is kinda expected given its name. Even here, TE4 has the top spin shot with added sidespin(banana shot) which TopSpin 2k25 lacks.

[manutoo]

Hello,

I'll add that the tutorial and thus the controls are noticeably more complicated than in TE4. It's only easier to learn because it offers the same control scheme as most other tennis games of the past 40 years.

Also, in TE4, the short strike can be seen as a short top strike : it has a lot of spin, especially when your player has a high topspin skill. The same goes for the short acceleration. And you can also shorten your topspin strike by slightly hitting it off-center, but you lose some spin and some speed, but it can be quite good in some situations, especially when doing a passing shot.

[anrox335]

I'll add that the tutorial and thus the controls are noticeably more complicated than in TE4. It's only easier to learn because it offers the same control scheme as most other tennis games of the past 40 years.

Tbh, there isn't much to learn in that game. It's just timing, and two shot types(power/control). And both of them require the same timing. And a flat control shot taking less energy than a powered slice makes no sense. And the positioning requirements are minimal, its like even easier than the arcade mode in TE4. I just have to move the player towards the ball's bouncing point and just time it. The fact is I beat the hard CPU on my first try, by just looking at the timing meter.

The only good part were the inside out controls, which make sense to me that a player who anticipated a potential inside out shot must get some bonus speed.

Also, in TE4, the short strike can be seen as a short top strike : it has a lot of spin, especially when your player has a high topspin skill. The same goes for the short acceleration. And you can also shorten your topspin strike by slightly hitting it off-center, but you lose some spin and some speed, but it can be quite good in some situations, especially when doing a passing shot.

The side spin shot(secret shot) kinda makes that up for it for me. It pushes the opponent towards the same difficult position. It would be great if the top spin shot could be separated to normal depth and short depth like the acceleration and standard shots some day. Although, what I'd really like to see is a deep, not so fast, but high spin high risk shot at the center of opponents court, especially for returns. It's basically a muscle memory shot(sort of a mishit) the player can hit when he is in troubled situation like a facing fast wide serve or a high power wide forehand.