Review cover Nintendo Switch Sports (Nintendo Switch)
Official GBAtemp Review

Product Information:

  • Release Date (NA): April 29, 2022
  • Release Date (EU): April 29, 2022
  • Publisher: Nintendo
  • Developer: Nintendo
  • Genres: Party, Sports

Game Features:

Single player
Local Multiplayer
Online Multiplayer
Co-operative
The latest entry to Nintendo’s beloved sporting series, does Switch Sports live up to the reputation of its predecessors?

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Wii Sports was an instant classic that needed no real explanation. It was an intuitive showcase of what the Wii’s new hardware was capable of and was packed to the brim with the spirit of Nintendo gaming. Fun and frantic couch co-op with a sprinkling of weirdness. When Nintendo launched their Motion Plus accessory we saw another sporting title in Wii Sports Resort, again here as a surprisingly content-packed tech demo to show the value of their newest toys. Since then, it’s been a bit quiet. Sure we saw the Wii U release of Wii Sports Club, but who really remembers that? You were back to the five classic Wii Sports games with additional online multiplayer, albeit originally releasing with an incredibly awkward payment model. While it tried to use the Wii U’s gamepad in interesting ways as Nintendo had previously done with the original Wiimote and Wii Motion Plus, there were already better titles out there that had already filled this role, and with both Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort still perfectly playable on a Wii U, the game had a lot to live up to, and somewhat fell flat.

Roll on the Switch’s launch in 2017. After Wii Sports for the Wiimote, Wii Sports Resort for the Wii Motion Plus, and Nintendoland showing what the Wii U’s gamepad could do in an incredibly fun assortment of games, Nintendo surely had something similar lined up for their brand new Joy Cons. Right? 1-2-Switch just wasn’t it. It was fun for five minutes and left in a drawer, and after seeing just how much variety and replayability Nintendo can stuff into a game like this with Wii Sports Resort, it felt like a kick in the teeth for those who went out and bought this for the full £39.99 retail price. What we wanted and what we needed was a Switch Sports, and even if we had to wait five years for it, it is here. And it’s still not as good as Wii Sports Resort.

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So after the wait, just how much are you getting in this modern sporting package? Six sports: two returning in tennis and bowling, and four new in chambara, volleyball, badminton, and football (soccer for the non-UK folk among us). This is one more than the original Wii Sports, which is nice, but falls so vastly short of Wii Sports Resort’s 12. Each of these individual games do feel great to play and keep the spirit of the series alive. They also all come with online play, including a ranked league and a few interesting modes. Bowling has a really cool knockout mode where the bottom few players get eliminated every few rounds for a genuinely cool finale that feels like it has higher stakes than it really should. What keeps you coming back to the game is a loop of playing online, ranking up, and getting new stuff to customise your character with. While you’re doing these things it is genuinely quite engaging, but there is a key word in the previous sentence: online. Any and all progression is locked to playing online, and that really isn’t a great thing.

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To clarify, you can play everything the game has to offer offline. You can play alone against computer opponents, or you can play with friends on the same console. It’s just as fun in isolation, but once you’ve done your one or two games, there’s nothing to keep you coming back. In Wii Sports Resort you had challenges associated with every game, and a number of interesting game modes to experience. Even in some of the returning games you’re missing content and challenges you previously had. There’s no 100 pin bowling, and there’s nothing that compares to Sword Showdown for chambara despite it being a brilliantly natural evolution of its predecessor’s sword-fighting game. Even the original Wii Sports had a number of medals you could win by perfecting certain practice games, and some were ridiculously difficult to keep you coming back and improve your scores. If you don’t have Switch Online, or even don’t have the most stable internet connection, I cannot in good faith recommend Switch Sports to you. Without an online connection, you’re looking at a Nintendo sports title with the same replayability as 1-2 Switch.

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But let’s look past that for now; let’s assume you’re going into this with a NSO subscription and want to collect some accessories for your nice character and engage in the gameplay loop. Are the individual games good? For me some are great, and others fall flat. The game I was most looking forward to was bowling, as silly as that sounds. It’s simple and it’s been a staple of Nintendo sports titles. It’s always felt fun and surprisingly challenging to master. This iteration let me down in ways I struggle to express. It feels devoid of fun, and after five minutes of playing I found myself hitting strike after strike by just lining up a simple shot and throwing it at full speed. There’s no intricacy and the charm of its predecessors is nowhere to be seen here. You can't even throw the ball backwards. What's up with that? The knockout “battle royale” mode I mentioned earlier is a genuinely cool idea, but it needs more to it if it wants to be fulfilling.

Most of the other sports suffer from the opposite issue. Chambara feels great to play, as do volleyball, tennis, and badminton. But none of these modes have anything to do outside of their basic game. Tennis, badminton, and volleyball could all have challenge modes for holding rallies, aiming, or even weirder things like playing with a larger ball or having the net move. It feels like the smallest amount of effort could have been put in to add a significant amount of replayability and variety to games that really do feel great to play. In large, this is a game that suffers from the same major issue Mario Tennis games have faced for more than 15 years now; there’s so much in the way of refinement, but nothing to do with the polished blade of a game they’ve crafted.

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Football deserves a special mention for using the leg strap in a neat way, and allowing you to actually kick the ball for one of its modes. For its more standard gameplay, I found myself really enjoying it for how wacky and out of control it felt. It’s like Rocket League if all the cars broke down. Again it would’ve really shined if there were some kind of challenge mode to go with it. An obstacle course or target practice would’ve been a great fit here.

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There is still fun to be had. If you just want a game you can pick up with friends once every so often you’ll get your money’s worth eventually, even if you are sticking to what’s available offline. Switch Sports’ biggest issue is the shadow it finds itself living in and the expectations that have been setup that have just not been met. We’ve had confirmation that an additional sport, golf, will be coming in a free update later in the year. This is great, but the game really would benefit more from making the most of what’s already there. I can only hope we get this in an update too.

Verdict

What We Liked ...
  • Sports themselves feel great to play
  • More content coming via free updates down the line
What We Didn't Like ...
  • Bowling feels joyless
  • Very limited content
  • No progression of any kind if not playing online
7
Gameplay
Though I didn't get on with bowling, the rest of the games felt great to play for me and I did have a blast with them. Though this is repeated in the lasting appeal box below, there just needs to be more to do. With Nintendo's recent trend of releasing a decent enough core experience and building on it later with free updates, we could have here a series best by this time next year. As it stands now though, we're just not there.
7
Presentation
Visually speaking the game looks fine. It's nothing to write home about, but it has all the charm and colour you'd want in a Nintendo sports game. It's vibrant and fun, and it does everything it needs to.
4
Lasting Appeal
There just isn't enough here for me to keep coming back to the game. There are no challenges, there's no progression or meaningful reason to keep engaging unless I want to go online and grind for items to customise my character. The sports feel great to play, but all that effort feels somewhat moot if nothing else is done with these base experiences.
6.8
out of 10

Overall

Switch Sports is a fine game and generally does feel great to play. Where I find issue with it is in the lack of replayability and variety for its sports, especially in an offline setting. It's fine, but after seeing the gold standard of this series in Wii Sports Resort, it could have, and really should have, been so much more.
Despite lukewarm reviews on the internet, this game is actually fun and addictive - IF you play online.

If you play this on hacked Switch or emulator - it won't be any fun without online ranking for Pro leagues.

People who thinks the Wii Sports Resort is better, it's only because of more sports. Nintendo is adding more sports in the future - data mining has revealed basketball and dodgeball, golf is also coming.

In Wii Sports you can wiggle your controller when playing Tennis and the game will play itself. You can't do that in Switch Sports, if you don't play properly you can't win. That already is a winning point for this game over Resort.
 
Despite lukewarm reviews on the internet, this game is actually fun and addictive - IF you play online.

If you play this on hacked Switch or emulator - it won't be any fun without online ranking for Pro leagues.

People who thinks the Wii Sports Resort is better, it's only because of more sports. Nintendo is adding more sports in the future - data mining has revealed basketball and dodgeball, golf is also coming.

In Wii Sports you can wiggle your controller when playing Tennis and the game will play itself. You can't do that in Switch Sports, if you don't play properly you can't win. That already is a winning point for this game over Resort.
The people who don't have online:
-_-

Resort had gamemodes galore, and imo had nicer motion controls that only needed a little calibration if you used them right.
Unless they add the variety and a ton more sports, it feels like a wasted effort.
 
i kinda wish this had an option for handheld mode... still i saw the online bolwing it looks neat but...
 
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Not impressed at all here bought it for the kids & even they didn't like it but absolutely loved Wii Sports the original... Just isn't that fun any more
 
Despite lukewarm reviews on the internet, this game is actually fun and addictive - IF you play online.

If you play this on hacked Switch or emulator - it won't be any fun without online ranking for Pro leagues.

People who thinks the Wii Sports Resort is better, it's only because of more sports. Nintendo is adding more sports in the future - data mining has revealed basketball and dodgeball, golf is also coming.

In Wii Sports you can wiggle your controller when playing Tennis and the game will play itself. You can't do that in Switch Sports, if you don't play properly you can't win. That already is a winning point for this game over Resort.
what WG said, the motion controls felt better on resort, plus resort has matt, and I doubt they'll bring all the good stuff from resort, specifically table tennis and cycling.
 
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My kids played this once and then switched it off. It hasn't been played again since.
Buuuuut they have played WSR many times since that... Go figure :)

Switch Sports being online only for any progression kinda screwed with the original games core aim imo, which was getting people playing together, AGAINST EACH OTHER IN THE SAME ROOM... Even to this day my family continue to try and beat each others ranks/scores etc on WSR. Unless you pay for online this game is dead.

WSR is a game that has stood the test of time.
 
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My kids played this once and then switched it off. It hasn't been played again since.
Buuuuut they have played WSR many times since that... Go figure :)

Switch Sports being online only for any progression kinda screwed with the original games core aim imo, which was getting people playing together, AGAINST EACH OTHER IN THE SAME ROOM... Even to this day my family continue to try and beat each others ranks/scores etc on WSR. Unless you pay for online this game is dead.

WSR is a game that has stood the test of time.
I think it's for piracy reason that Nintendo is moving many of their game's content online. Without a legitimate online subscription you won't get the full enjoyment of their games.

One thing I can say about their online implementation for Switch Sport - it is excellent! It is so good that many players thought they were playing with bots. The connection is flawless unlike older Nintendo games like Mario Tennis, Smash Bros, etc. Even with my 4G wifi connection it is smooth.

Unlike other online games, you can see movement from your motion controller - when you are holding a racket or sword, even tiny movements. It's what makes this game feels organic - when you play online, you see other players and they can wave to you with their racket.
 
I think it's for piracy reason that Nintendo is moving many of their game's content online. Without a legitimate online subscription you won't get the full enjoyment of their games.

One thing I can say about their online implementation for Switch Sport - it is excellent! It is so good that many players thought they were playing with bots. The connection is flawless unlike older Nintendo games like Mario Tennis, Smash Bros, etc. Even with my 4G wifi connection it is smooth.

Unlike other online games, you can see movement from your motion controller - when you are holding a racket or sword, even tiny movements. It's what makes this game feels organic - when you play online, you see other players and they can wave to you with their racket.
I get the online only to beat piracy, but if they were better a designing a secure console then that wouldn't be a problem.... Either way, in a few years time no one will be able to play it at all when they shut the servers. Yet another reason WSR will outlast this.
 
the online progression focus is annoying, i got this game for local play. badmitton and tennis feel basically the same but are responsive and accurate, bowling is limited and control quirks have to be learned, soccer has some sketchy responses to a few controls, and chambara's angles seem a bit haphazard. volleyball is weird but fine, feels like a variation on badmitton and tennis tbh.

I haven't played online, but the local play put me off from playing anything else. I'll try again in a year or two when they've released a full game.
 
For me, switch sports is the fail successor of wii sport club.
Wii sport resorts is still the best. I always wish that i can live in wuhu island
 
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Tried out the game sometime ago with my best bud, and... meh, the previous games were/felt better.
The best sport so far was volleyball, just felt real fun to play compared to the other sports, bowling was messed up some but still kinda works, while dunno y'all but tennis was unplayable for us, just, the swings were super delayed compared to our motions, and this happened only on tennis, no idea why.
The rest of the sports are... fine, but yeah like others have pointed out, there was much more stuff to do on resort, and for what the game currently offers now, it ain't worth the purchase. Should've just, y'know, perhaps delay the game and release it with all they're planning to add on it at launch rather than this stupid "release a barebone games and add stuff to it at a glacial pace".

Also, like, guess small nitpick: While Miis look simple enough that you can make both a young and old Mii and they look fine, on these generic avatars here, the "old" one just are so stupid-looking, as if they drew on some young dude's face to try make them look older... It just looks dumb, imo.
 
PSA you can put your Mii's head on the body of your SS character. Unsettling to say the least and the Mii editor on the Switch is way less elaborate than the Wii so it's pretty sad.

My problems with this game:
Lack of alternative games like 100-pin
Tennis still doesn't track any real movement. Just as the original and resort, you can flick the controller while sitting down to swing in game, and it's literally just timing based, there's no benefit to swinging harder or with correct form. The timing of getting the most powerful serve is also way different than the originals. Table tennis from old and badminton seem to track motion and you end up swinging just as wildly there so I don't know why there isn't at least the ability to do forehand vs backhand or chop shots like you can apply in badminton...
Volleyball is terrible with its prompts, my timing was terrible no matter what I tried. My 5 y/o would literally windmill with a joy con in her hand and get every timing prompt down. The gameplay also gets stale as hell very quickly. Serve, wait for return, bump, set, spike, rotate, fall asleep, lose just because.
Bowling is awful just for the fact that your alignment and aim are way off to the side and you have to redo your alignment after every frame. Also, if you're playing multiplayer, one person is going to be stuck with the left joy con as a right-handed person - not comfortable. It wouldn't be so bad if they let you apply a setting to just swing without needing to press any buttons to throw the ball (also way easier for small children who might not be strong enough or good at multiple motor functions at once). Also, why can't we just connect Motion Plus Wii remotes for this or any other game?

All in all, the only saving grace of this game is that my kid loves it and can get going with it all by herself. I'm sure the story would be different if she'd played the older sports games, though. It's not so great for teaching her friends and cousins that come over how to play, nor does it have the same appeal and novelty as the originals.
 
Tennis still doesn't track any real movement. Just as the original and resort, you can flick the controller while sitting down to swing in game, and it's literally just timing based, there's no benefit to swinging harder or with correct form. The timing of getting the most powerful serve is also way different than the originals.

This shows that you don't know how to play tennis. I have seen many reviews on Youtube with the same comment like yours. If you think playing tennis is just hitting the ball back with timing - you will never get pass D rank online.

Learn backspin, topspin, sidespin and lob. It's how you curve your hand when you hit the ball - there's a lot of strategy involved. All the best players online are trying to outdo each other with their spin. If you hit a ball and it strangely went in the wrong direction and flew out - it's because your opponent spins the ball at you.
 
Despite lukewarm reviews on the internet, this game is actually fun and addictive - IF you play online.

If you play this on hacked Switch or emulator - it won't be any fun without online ranking for Pro leagues.

People who thinks the Wii Sports Resort is better, it's only because of more sports. Nintendo is adding more sports in the future - data mining has revealed basketball and dodgeball, golf is also coming.

In Wii Sports you can wiggle your controller when playing Tennis and the game will play itself. You can't do that in Switch Sports, if you don't play properly you can't win. That already is a winning point for this game over Resort.
The game will still have the issue of costing like $40 and only having 8 or 9 games, assuming they're not added as paid DLC. $40 for the 6 included minigames is a total rip.
 
The overall rating by OP is 6.8/10. This shows different weightings of the three results as (7+7+4)/30 rates precisely to 6/10 (18/30). Just saying...
 
The game will still have the issue of costing like $40 and only having 8 or 9 games, assuming they're not added as paid DLC. $40 for the 6 included minigames is a total rip.
Having more game selections doesn't necessarily made it a better game. Currently I only play tennis - trying to get A rank. I only play other games for amusement once in a while, but tennis is the only game I am serious about. Wii Sports Resorts has a lot more games but many of them are dumb and you only play it once or twice and never touch it again.

For me, if there is even just one game that get me hooked - I don't mind it. It's better than paying full price for many AAA games and I played only 2 hrs of it.
 
The original "Wii Sports" was much better than the new one and it didn't cost a single penny.
Nintendo was extremly motivated and ambitious in the past.
 
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Having more game selections doesn't necessarily made it a better game. Currently I only play tennis - trying to get A rank. I only play other games for amusement once in a while, but tennis is the only game I am serious about. Wii Sports Resorts has a lot more games but many of them are dumb and you only play it once or twice and never touch it again.

For me, if there is even just one game that get me hooked - I don't mind it. It's better than paying full price for many AAA games and I played only 2 hrs of it.
No, but I'd rather have 8 or 9 mediocre minigames than 6. Especially when stuff like the bowling is pretty much the same as it was on Wii, and Wii Sports was a free pack in.
The original "Wii Sports" was much better than the new one and it didn't cost a single penny.
Nintendo was extremly motivated and ambitious in the past.
Yeah, better games on a free game included with the console. I really liked the boxing.
 
Really shows where Nintendo is cutting corners lately.
Just doesn't have the same amount of soul Resort had.
Almost feels like an extended demo or f2p online only version to a much larger game we'll never get.
At least they lowered the price but dang it, Nintendo used to really care about it's offline modes and day one content.
Guess we'll see if there's half a game waiting us in updates as "free" content or they'll cut and run after golf is used as a hook to make us think there's more coming.

For now we can play as a pink squirrel with no color variations options.
The bushy tail physics are a tiny bit interesting, if ya pay attention to it anyway.

Can't say I like the FOMO style item unlocks either.
Kinda forcing NSO a bit too forcibly to get content we technically paid for already.
Maybe shoulda been f2p like this.
 
Review cover
Product Information:
  • Release Date (NA): April 29, 2022
  • Release Date (EU): April 29, 2022
  • Publisher: Nintendo
  • Developer: Nintendo
  • Genres: Party, Sports
Game Features:
Single player
Local Multiplayer
Online Multiplayer
Co-operative

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