Gloria Holmes
The soccer in “Nintendo Switch Sports” is almost reminiscent of “Rocket League” and offers more demanding games on higher difficulty levels.
Fun for the whole family – now online too
“Nintendo Switch Sports” takes you to Spocco Square – the location of the six majors available at launch. You can choose between football, tennis, bowling, badminton, volleyball and chanbara. Golf will be added as the seventh sport in fall 2022. You tackle all disciplines alone or with friends on a split screen.
However, in the local multiplayer mode, the number of players is limited to two (eg in football) or four participants (eg in bowling). More participants require either too many Joy-Cons or too much space in front of the TV. Important: The multiplayer options only work in TV mode, not in manual mode. Moreover, “Nintendo Switch Sports” offers online support so you can compete with friends or strangers from all over the world.
In Chanbara, you strike your opponent with a wooden sword and push your opponent away from the platform into the water.
Old magic in a new look
The game remains faithful to the principle of the likeness of its predecessor: thanks to its intuitive movement control, all sports can be learned quickly. Smaller tutorials and help texts explain the basic functions. With a little practice, all disciplines can be quickly mastered. However, some inaccuracies when querying movements remain noticeable and in sports such as volleyball the distances on the court are not always clearly recognizable due to the camera perspective.
The simple and charming graphic style perfectly fits this claim. However, this time you won’t necessarily have to play with your old Mii avatar, but rather create and dress up your gym buddy.
In “Nintendo Switch Sports” you play tennis in doubles only. In the single mode, you can take control of both characters. But this is not a problem.
A colorful mix of specialties
In volleyball, the camera’s perspective often makes it difficult to get shots at exactly the right time.
You only play tennis in doubles. As a solo player, you get to deal with both characters, which works surprisingly well. Other than that, the system offers fun ball sports in which the excitement arises, especially in the multiplayer mode, thanks to the different types of shots. Badminton is similar, but less versatile and therefore a bit boring. Volleyball isn’t perfect either. Here the game shows you the required movement, so the right timing is very important. However, the camera’s perspective is not always optimal for correctly estimating the position of the ball.
Chanbara replaces chests from Wii Sports. Here you hit your opponent with a colored bat and try to push him away from a platform in the water. Battles are more strategic than initially thought due to the countermechanisms. Very nice: with double blade and energy, variety plays thanks to special attacks.
Of course, you can dress up your character to match.
Bowling is still a classic and plays just like it did in Wii Sports. By tilting the Joy-Con when you pull back, you cut the ball. In multiplayer mode, you can use split screen, so all players can clear pins at the same time or with a simple interval. In special mode, pass the ball away from the moving obstacles. More coordination and good timing are required here.
Release: “Nintendo Switch Sports” was released on April 29, 2022 for the Nintendo Switch.
