Nintendo Switch Sports review
In 2006, Nintendo released the original Wii Sports for the Wii as a pack-in title, with the simplistic gameplay functioning as a kind of tech demo for the new motion control technology. Wii Sports helped sell millions of Wii consoles, became a trend in and of itself, and spawned its own series. Nintendo followed it up with Wii Sports Resort, which focused on the new Motion Plus accessory, while Wii Sports U brought the series to Wii U. Nintendo Switch Sports is the latest installment, but unfortunately, it’s the worst game in the series in now. . Nintendo Switch Sports has the same concept as its predecessors. It’s basically a mini-game compilation with each mini-game based on a real-world sport. Instead of traditional button inputs, each sport is played with motion controls using the Switch Joy-Con controllers. There are a variety of sports for Nintendo Switch Sports players to try out, including some returning fan favorites as well as some new ones. The three returning sports in Nintendo Switch Sports are bowling, tennis, and chambara, aka swordfighting. Each sport works pretty close to how they did in previous installments, although bowling requires players to hold the trigger longer than they need to in Wii Sports. There’s no new tech on display here, so the novelty of Nintendo Switch Sports will wear off quickly. Anyone who’s played Wii Sports a lot will likely tire of the returning sports before long, even if they’re fun enough when played with the right group of friends.
The three new sports in Nintendo Switch Sports are badminton, volleyball, and soccer. Badminton scratches a similar itch as tennis, but it’s still good enough in terms of its gameplay that it doesn’t feel like a wasted slot. Badminton in Nintendo Switch Sports requires players to be more mindful of how hard they swing the controller, as mis-swinging a big swing can result in one falling to the ground, leaving one defenseless when their opponent returned the birdie. Volleyball is a bit more involved than some of the other sports on deck, requiring more different motion control inputs besides simply swinging the controller back and forth. In volleyball, Nintendo Switch Sports players have to perform various moves to hit, set, and spike the ball. Volleyball is still simple enough that players can safely skip the tutorial, but there’s enough variety that it clearly stands out from most other sports. And finally, soccer is the highlight of the Nintendo Switch Sports experience, being the only sport where players directly control their character. Players are free to move their character around the field, with different swings of the Joy-Con controllers resulting in different types of kicks.
Soccer in Nintendo Switch Sports is the most fleshed-out sport on offer, but it gets old before too long. All of the sports are shallow, and with three of the sports being repeats from previous games, it’s likely that most Nintendo Switch Sports players will have their fill after just a few hours of play. Nintendo Switch Sports is fun to pick up and play from time to time, but the game won’t have the same kind of staying power that Wii Sports did back in the day. Aside from the shallowness of the sport, Nintendo Switch Sports doesn’t have a strong reason for players to return to it often. Wii Fitness Age from the original Wii Sports is gone, giving players no reason to log in regularly. The replay value is supposed to come from the cosmetics that players unlock to customize their Mii characters and Sportsmates, but there’s a big problem with how that works. For some strange reason, unlocking cosmetic options is locked behind online play, which itself is limited to two players on a single console. The appeal of a game like Nintendo Switch Sports is to play it with friends, so this limitation is a headache. It would be one thing if Nintendo wanted to make sure that unlocks and the like only come from competitive matches against real online players, but it’s no secret that the game sometimes matches players with bots .
Limiting unlockables to online play is problematic for another reason, and that is that everyone must have a Nintendo Switch Online subscription to play with others. Let’s say player 1 has a Nintendo Switch Online subscription and they want to team up with their friend to play online tennis with others. The second player must also have a Nintendo Switch Online subscription, otherwise they will be paired with bots. Unlockable content is still obtainable, but it’s a strange restriction that greatly detracts from the fun of the game. It’s puzzling why Nintendo decided to restrict unlockables to the game’s online mode, which in turn hurts the experience for those playing with more than two people on a console, which many sports are designed to do anyway. Combine this with the lack of Wii Fitness Age and the shallowness of the sports, and one can find little reason to keep playing Nintendo Switch Sports beyond a few hours. It’s possible Nintendo will improve Nintendo Switch Sports with future updates, but that remains to be seen. Nintendo Switch Sports is known to be adding golf in a future update, but otherwise Nintendo’s post-launch plans for the game remain a mystery. There’s a lot of work to be done to make Nintendo Switch Sports more fun than its predecessors, and as it stands right now, it’s a game that Switch owners can safely skip. Nintendo Switch Sports is out now, exclusively for Nintendo Switch.