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After almost 16 years, the Wii Sports series has finally received a new iteration, arriving with six activities at launch, both old and new, to get you swinging, kicking, swiping, and jabbing your trusty Joy-Con. Does Nintendo Switch Sports recapture the joy of motion controls once again, or does the limited number of modes and a \u00a330+ price tag feel more like a con? Let\u2019s find out.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Note: Before we get started with the main review, it\u2019s worth noting that this is a review in progress due to the online portions of the game not being available before launch. For now, I will focus on the single-player and local multiplayer features of Nintendo Switch Sports. Please check back for my final thoughts once the online functionality has been tested.<\/em><\/p>\n

Nintendo\u2019s focus on motion controls has somewhat waned over the years when compared to the Wii era, but one of the unique initial selling points of the Nintendo Switch Joy-Con was the improved, yet familiar, ability to use real-life movements to control stuff on-screen. That\u2019s not to say it\u2019s been completely forgotten though, far from it; Ring Fit Adventure made exercise fun with the awesome and effective Ring-Con peripheral, ARMS created an innovative new fighting game experience, 1-2-Switch got everyone hilariously pretending to milk cows, Splatoon 2 brought back gyro-aiming, and there are a fair few third party games available to get players off the couch as well. Nintendo deciding to release Nintendo Switch Sports this late into the Switch\u2019s life cycle remains a bit of a mystery though. Remembering that Wii Sports was bundled in with almost every Wii console, and after now spending quite a few hours with this Switch spiritual successor, I\u2019m sadly left thinking it should probably have also been a pack-in title.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Nintendo Switch Sports does little in the way of providing players with much content to play with. Sure, Nintendo is planning to release Golf later in the year as free DLC, but what\u2019s on offer straight out of the box is all too familiar; Bowling plays similarly to what\u2019s found in Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics and Tennis is, well, very much how you remember it was. In addition, each sport has an extremely limited list of modes available to play, meaning that offline solo players in particular can blast through every activity within a couple of hours on all three CPU difficulties. There\u2019s no way of tracking your progress, and nothing is recorded apart from Bowling high scores, plus, there\u2019s no leaderboard in sight. Admittedly, the CPU can offer a tough challenge when you crank it up to the max difficulty, yet there\u2019s no reward for beating them. Even in multiplayer, you can\u2019t keep track of who is the sporting champion in the same household. This is not to say that Nintendo Switch Sports isn\u2019t a tonne of fun to play, it\u2019s just that there\u2019s simply not enough of it.<\/p>\n

Something that is sure to divide players is the new character customisation features. Each player can opt to either import their own Mii head or to make a unique customisable avatar. While I can only comment on the small number of options available pre-launch due to the lack of online functionality, and therefore inability to earn more gear and accessories, you\u2019re able to dress your sportsperson in different coloured clothing, change their hairstyle, eye colour, eyebrows, skin tone, and tweak their age thanks to a nifty, easy-to-use menu. Another cool inclusion is the ability to choose a nickname by selecting phrases and names from a pre-set list. Netting points via online play also grants the player access to even more pre-set nicknames; I scored enough points in a simple minigame on the credit screen which added another selection, for example, so be on the lookout for that easy win!\u00a0<\/p>\n

When importing a Mii saved to your Nintendo Switch system, you\u2019ll be greeted with a questionable bobblehead-looking avatar. I also tried importing a Mii by scanning an amiibo and, sure enough, one that I made years ago sprung up on-screen. Though the Mii characters can look horribly out of place, I\u2019m oddly looking forward to going up against people\u2019s horrid and warped creations. The new avatar designs won\u2019t be to everyone\u2019s taste either, but at least there are multiple options.<\/p>\n

While the sunny location of Spocco Square looks like it\u2019s been pulled straight from a holiday brochure in the Splatoon universe, you\u2019re unfortunately not able to interact with the setting. The sun-drenched city acts only as a hub for you to cycle through menus to select the activities; it would have been nice to have something a little more interactive. Broadly speaking though, the aesthetic of Nintendo Switch Sports is clean, sharp, and what you\u2019d expect from a first-party Nintendo game. Gaming novices won\u2019t have any trouble navigating through the activity and character customisation screens, meaning just about anyone can play, as getting into a game is done quickly with minimal fuss. The punchy sound effects of rackets meeting shuttlecocks, and the rumbling of bowling balls before a loud clatter of pins with a Strike, also help to make the experience more immersive. Then there\u2019s the familiar yet unique theme tune which you\u2019ll without a doubt be humming or whistling when you\u2019re going about your daily business.<\/p>\n

For the most part, each sport is easy to master. However, much like Wii Sports Resort, not every<\/em> sport is as enjoyable as the others. Take Badminton, for example, which was a standout sport from the preview session, and my thoughts on this remain unchanged. The strength and timings of your swings feel impactful, which is more evident when you land a power shot and slam the shuttlecock to your opponent while they\u2019re picking themselves up from the floor after an early return hit. Squeeze ZR and you\u2019ll return a drop shot, granting you extra court space to smash the shuttlecock back to your opponent as they scramble to defend. You don\u2019t actually control your avatar directly, but rather the focus is on timing your swings just right so your character isn\u2019t jumping all over the court. You\u2019ll need to get used to consistently recalibrating your Joy-Con, and thankfully, this is done with a quick press of X while you\u2019re pointing the controller at the screen. It\u2019s a small annoyance \u2013 it comes with the motion-control territory \u2013 but most players won\u2019t bear a grudge with having to do this necessity now and then.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s Volleyball, which is a newcomer to the Sports series. In my preview, I mentioned that I felt it would take more time to get accustomed to the mechanics. Well, with more time spent with it, this is arguably the weakest of the bunch. Initially just more confusing to play, Volleyball rarely offered a good time due to its cluttered, clumsy, and slower action. On more than a few occasions, it was difficult to tell what side the ball was, so I found myself blindly reenacting one of the three Joy-Con actions the tutorial taught me in hopes to keep the opposing team from scoring a point. Between bumping, setting, and spiking, it never felt that any of the actions made much of a difference to how the match played out, as it involved just holding the controller up or swinging it in an upwards motion to pass the ball to my teammate. Again, you have little to no control over where you are on the court, so you\u2019re just left thrusting your arms up hoping to connect with the ball.<\/p>\n

Tennis, on the other hand, felt better than ever. Playing with four players in the same room, the action quickly got frantic and downright hilarious. The fine-tuned precision of the Joy-Con meant that returning the opponent\u2019s shots was easy. With my muscle memory reawakened from the Wii Sports era, I was soon timing my swings almost perfectly, and, in single-player, you\u2019re in control of both the front and back players, which gives you the option to exercise your sneaky backhand tactics once again. Keeping your opponent on their toes by twisting your wrist at the last second allows for a quick topspin or slice, which adds a little more variety to the already familiar gameplay. The main drawback here is the omission of a singles option. You have no choice but to play doubles, which may be a blow to some players.<\/p>\n