Sampras Tennis 96 is one of those classic Sega Genesis sports games that somehow nails the fast, arcade-y feel of tennis without overcomplicating things. You pick Pete Sampras (obviously) or one of the other pros, and right away you’re slamming serves and scrambling for drop shots. The controls are simple—just a couple of buttons—but timing matters way more than you’d think at first.

Matches move quick, and the AI actually puts up a decent fight if you crank up the difficulty. The pixelated courts and players look exactly like you’d expect from a mid-90s sports game—chunky, colorful, and weirdly charming. And yeah, the J-Cart version means you can plug in two controllers without that weird multitap adapter, which was kind of a big deal back then.

It’s not the deepest tennis sim, but if you miss that era when sports games were more about pick-up-and-play fun than realism, this one holds up surprisingly well. Just try not to rage when the CPU pulls off some ridiculous cross-court winner.