Welcome to Spocco Square!  It’s a big sporting facility where you’ll play all the Nintendo Switch Sports!  Seems like a neat place to visit, if you like playing sports I suppose, but it ain’t no Wuhu Island!  It kind of reminds me of those touristy sporting goods stores that have been popping up around near where I live lately, like Scheel’s.  Anyway, come with me on a tour as we take a look at all the games you can play in this game.

But before we do that, I thought we’d take a trip down memory lane and look at the other games in the Wii Sports series, since this is kind of a sequel to those.  It all started with Wii Sports.  To say this game was a big deal is an understatement.  It was the pack-in game for the Wii and introduced everyone to motion controls.  I think it’s considered one of the highest selling games of all time.  Granted I think that has a lot to do with it being a pack-in game, but it was still really good.  In fact, it was so good that it dethroned my long-running favorite sports game, which before that was Super Dodge Ball on the NES.  You could play simple sports like bowling, tennis, baseball, boxing, golf, and more!  I have a lot of good memories of waiting in line to buy the Wii, and then going to a friend’s house right after it so we could play Wii Sports together.

Just as Wii Sports introduced the world to motion controls, Wii Sports Resort introduced everybody to one-to-one motion controls, which were added to the Wii a couple of years down the line.  Favorites like Bowling and Golf returned here, as well as many new sports.  You played these sports on a fictional resort island for your Miis called Wuhu Island.  One of the highlights of Wii Sports Resort was getting to fly a plane and explore the island.  In fact, they used that idea again when they released Pilotwings on the 3DS, since that also took place on Wuhu Island.  That same island appeared in other games, too, like Mario Kart 7 and Super Smash Bros.!  I wish they’d revisit that island again in another game.

When the Wii U came out, Nintendo released Wii Sports Club.  It was basically a port of the first game, with some added online functionality and uses for the separate screen on the controller.  You could also choose to buy the whole game or each sport separately, which was kind of dumb.  It’s probably my least favorite of the series, but it’s still a good game.

Which brings us to Nintendo Switch Sports.  Some old favorites return, as well as new ones.  You can make a new avatar or use your old Mii.  You can play online globally, with local players, or with online friends only.  One of the problems I have with this is that you can only unlock stuff for your avatar by playing online globally, and they don’t have a lot for you to choose from on the outset, which is why I used my Mii.  But anyway, let’s take a look at the sports you can play here.

Bowling

This is a crowd favorite, and it’s my favorite, too.  Online you can play with 16 others in elimination rounds until a winner is crowned.  The neat thing is that nearly every time I’ve played this one online, I’ve won!  In single player you can do regular lanes or ones with obstacles on them, so that’s kind of neat.

Tennis

This is another returning one from Wii Sports.  I’ve never been big into video game tennis because most of the time it feels like glorified Pong.  Online I’ve won a little over half the time.  It seems like you can only play doubles online, but you control both characters, as one is a clone of your Mii, which is weird.  Or maybe I haven’t figured out how to change the options yet.  In single player mode you can choose to play singles or doubles and the difficulty of the CPU players.  You can choose the difficulty of CPU players in the other sports, too, just so you know.

Badminton

OK, I know that Badminton and Tennis are totally different sports and play differently in real life.  But on a video game gameplay scale, aren’t they about the same thing?  This one plays a bit faster than the tennis game, though.  And it’s always singles, no doubles.

Chambara

This is the sword fighting game from Wii Sports Resort.  I guess they changed the name to make it sound less violent.  You smack each other with foam swords and you’ll win if you can knock the other player off the pedestal and into the water.  It kind of reminds me of that one event from American Gladiators.  If that show were still popular I bet we’d have a motion controlled video game of it on the Wii or Switch.  You hold down a button to block, and if you are successful, you can stun the other player and have an opening to attack.  Anyway you can play the game in one of three ways.  Just regular with one sword, a charged sword mode where you can block to charge up a powerful blow, or fight with two swords (using two JoyCons).  I’ve probably won the least amount of times with this online.

Volleyball

This one takes a bit more finesse because you must flip the JoyCon up to bump the ball, as well as jump and block.  But you must flip the JoyCon down to spike it.  Once you get that down, the game is pretty fun.  But it’s still not as good as Beach Spikers on the GameCube.  That one was neat.  And you could unlock an outfit to make your player look like Ulala from Space Channel 5, and any game with her in it can’t be all bad, right?

Soccer

Hey it’s Rocket League without the cars!  Ha ha!  With as popular as this sport is internationally, I’m surprised it hasn’t been on Wii Sports before!  You kick an oversized ball into a large goal and play on teams of four.  Teamwork plays a key here, because you want to usually position yourself for someone to pass the ball to you instead of having everyone chase the ball.  But it’s hard since communication is limited online.  Some versions of this game come with a leg strap just like the one in Ring Fit Adventures.  I’m guessing you’re supposed to put the JoyCon in that to simulate kicking, but you don’t have to if you don’t want to.  I would imagine that would cause more accidents by kicking the TV or others anyway!

Golf

So golf isn’t actually in the game yet, but according to the last Nintendo Direct, they said they’d add it in the fall.  Not sure why they couldn’t put it in now to make the game feel like more of a complete package.  So I don’t know how it’ll play yet as of this writing, but I think it would be cool if they reused the same courses from Wii Sports and Resort since those were based on classic Nintendo golf games!

And that’s all of Nintendo Switch Sports.  I’d say it’s better than Wii Sports Club, but not as good as the first two games.  But I still enjoyed it.  One thing I like about the Wii Sports series, as well as other casual games in the group like Wii Play and Wii Music (yes I even liked that one), is how inviting the games are.  Nothing feels intimidating and when you play, you’ll always say, “I can do this!” And that’s a good feeling to have!

Kid Factor:

Nintendo Switch Sports is rated E-10 with an ESRB descriptor of Mild Violence.  It’s no more violent than the sports they are based on, but you do smack around cartoony people with foam swords and knock them into the water.  I’d say parental supervision is recommended for online interactions as well.  People can get around filters and make their names a bit off color, and sometimes in the sword fights, I saw people point the sword toward their mouth area and move it back and forth and it looked like something else that I won’t go into here.  But other than that it’s mostly safe.

Tags: Game Reviews