In 2006, Nintendo released the originalWii Sportsfor the Wii as a pack-in title, with its simplistic gameplay functioning as a tech demo of sorts for the new motion control technology.Wii Sportshelped sell millions of Wii consoles, becoming a fad in and of itself, and spawning a series of its own. Nintendo followed it up withWii Sports Resort, which focused on the new Motion Plus accessory, whileWii Sports Ubrought the series to the Wii U.Nintendo Switch Sportsis the latest installment, but unfortunately, it’s the worst game in the series so far.
Nintendo Switch Sportsis 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 forNintendo Switch Sportsplayers to try, with some returning fan favorites as well as some new ones.
The three returning sports inNintendo Switch Sportsare bowling, tennis, and chambara, aka swordfighting. Each sport functions pretty close to how they did in the previous installments, though bowling requires players keep the trigger held in longer than they had to inWii Sports. There’s no new tech being showcased here, and so the novelty ofNintendo Switch Sportsruns out quick. Anyone that has playedWii Sportsextensively will likely grow bored of the returning sports before too long, though they are still fun enough when played with the right group of friends.
Thethree new sports inNintendo Switch Sportsare badminton, volleyball, and soccer. Badminton scratches a similar itch as tennis, but it’s still different enough in terms of how it’s played that it doesn’t feel like a wasted slot. Badminton inNintendo Switch Sportsrequires players to be more mindful of how hard they are swinging the controller, as mistiming a big swing can result in one falling on the ground, leaving them defenseless when their opponent returns the birdie.
Volleyball is a bit more involved than some of the other sports on deck, requiring a greater variety of motion control inputs besides simply swinging the controller back and forth. In volleyball,Nintendo Switch Sportsplayers have to perform different motions to bump, 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 of the other sports.
And finally, soccer is the highlight of theNintendo Switch Sportsexperience, with it being the only sport that players take direct control of their character. Players are free to move their character around the field, with differentswings of the Joy-Con controllersresulting in different kinds of kicks.
Soccer inNintendo Switch Sportsis 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 mostNintendo Switch Sportsplayerswill have their fill after only a few hours of play.Nintendo Switch Sportsis fun to pick up and play every once in a while, but the game is not going to have the same kind of staying power asWii Sportsdid back in the day.
Besides the shallowness of the sports,Nintendo Switch Sportssimply does not have a compelling reason for players to return to it frequently. The Wii Fitness Age from the originalWii Sportsis gone, which doesn’t give players any reasons to log in regularly. The replay value is supposed to come from the cosmetics that players unlock to customize theirMii characters and Sportsmates, but there is a big problem with how that works.
For some bizarre reason, unlocking cosmetic options is locked behind online play, which itself is restricted to two players on a single console. The appeal of a game likeNintendo Switch Sportsis to play it with friends, so this limitation is head-scratching. It would be one thing if Nintendo wanted to make sure that unlockables and the like were only coming from competitive matches with real online players, but it’s no secret that the game sometimes matches players with bots.
Limiting the unlockables to online play is problematic for another reason, and that is everyone must have aNintendo Switch Online subscriptionto 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 others in online tennis. The second player also needs to have a Nintendo Switch Online subscription, otherwise they’re going to get paired up with bots. The unlockable content can still be earned, but this is nevertheless a bizarre restriction that severely undercuts the game’s fun.
It’s baffling why Nintendo decided to restrict unlockables to the game’s online mode, in turn hurting the experience for those who play with more than two people on one console, which many of the sports are designed to do anyway. Combine this with the lack of Wii Fitness Age and the shallowness of the sports, and one will find little reason to keep playingNintendo Switch Sportsbeyond a few hours.
It’s possible that Nintendo will improveNintendo Switch Sportswith future updates, but that remains to be seen. It’s known thatNintendo Switch Sportsis 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 makeNintendo Switch Sportseven half as fun as its predecessors, and as it stands now, it’s a game that Switch owners can safely skip.
Nintendo Switch Sports
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Nintendo Switch Sports was released in 2022 and is the latest entry in the Wii Sports sub-series, despite not having “Wii” in the title.
