Champion Tennis is an upcoming quirky little 3D sports sim with one big problem

• Champion Tennis is out now on Android, offering a quirky arcade sports sim
• Make your way through tennis cups with Balatro-like progression
• Unlock new skill cards and wield everything from ice to fire shots!

If you've been looking for a new tennis-based sports sim to play, then you're not exactly spoilt for choice. Football and baseball get plenty of attention, but tennis? Not so much. That is, unless you hop into Champion Tennis, the new game from Mnshine studio, now available to purchase on Google Play, with a free demo on the Chinese platform TapTap!

Champion Tennis is a surprisingly quirky arcade tennis sim that has you making your way through individual cups while gathering absurd upgrades. You'll gather skill cards offering various upgrades and moves to help you out, even letting you hurl lightning, ice and meteor shots at your opponent. And with a huge number of cups, AI opponents and other content, it seems almost perfect.

My A-I on you

So, what's the problem? Seems to be something relatively harmless, right? Well, unfortunately, as with many things nowadays, Champion Tennis has that spectre of AI hanging over it. And while it doesn't permeate every element of the game, it's very notable where it does.

Which is a shame, because conceptually the idea of a cutesy, arcade-style tennis sim that occasionally dips into more absurd mechanics is one I think most of us would really like. But the bizarre static backgrounds and slightly terrifying, wide-eyed player characters make it a difficult one to truly stick with.

The roguelite progression and cards all suggest that there are a lot of elements that could make Champion Chess stand out amongst the crop of other sports sims out there. But, for the moment, it really just blurs into the background, so here's hoping we'll see it distinguish itself soon with other design elements.

If you're looking for other great sports sims to play on mobile, meanwhile, why not check out our list of the best football games on iOS to see which we think offer a great way to get into the beautiful game digitally.