Nintendo’s knockabout sports series returns for its most refined outing yet; charming, wonderfully considered, and it doesn’t require a room full of friends to be fun.
One of my very favourite things to do in Switch Sports Resort isn’t, technically, a sport at all. I can’t get enough of Prop Plane’s free-play mode, taking to the skies, and watching Wuhu Island do its thing below. Swing past the art museum or the shopping precinct and you’ll see all sorts of little people milling around; take a wrong-way dive into a tunnel and here come the cars whizzing on by. Out on the water, racers whip and twirl; on the archipelago’s sandiest beaches, holidayers recline in the tropical sun. Fly over the stadiums and sports arenas and you’ll see matches in progress – furious bouts of tennis, concentrated swings on golfing greens, or the pin-toppling bustle of bowling – crowds going wild in tandem. And if it’s quieter contemplation I want, I can explore the subterranean depths of a volcano, or chart a gently winding path along the river banks, or admire the lighthouse perched on the hill.
It’s all so extra; a big, characterful backdrop full of lovely little flourishes that bleed into the games themselves. From the crowds milling lazily along the beach behind the table tennis arena as boats drift on by, to the lovable daftness of it all, as players make hyperkinetic slapstick dashes across tennis courts or glower with teeth-gritted fury in between boxing match rounds. It’s just very Nintendo; packed with endlessly delightful incidental touches that help massively elevate what is, in essence, a relatively straightforward and largely familiar collection of sports-themed mini-games. And fundamentally Switch Sports Resort really is more of the same; albeit a further evolution of the hugely influential Wii Sports formula that here, fourth time around, is perhaps at its most refined.
Switch Sports Resort brings together a total of 12 activities (13 if you count the rope-jump “warm-up”), and, shorn of its predecessors’ filler, it’s a strong line-up. You’ve got four bona fide classics in returning Wii Sports favourites Tennis, Golf, Bowling, and Boxing; five from 2009’s Wii Sports Resort (Archery, Basketball, Table Tennis, Power Cruising, and Prop Plane), plus three new additions in Thumb Wrestling, Volleyball, and Skateboarding; all intuitively adapted for Switch 2‘s responsive motion controls. And the balance between accessibility and depth feels right. This is a game that favours quickfire arcade-y immediacy over fussy simulation, but still manages to capture the essence of each sport. And as easy to learn as most games are, there’s enough subtlety beneath the slapstick silliness to create space for skill, and they adapt equally well to impromptu family chaos and more focused play.
The Big Four – Bowling, Boxing, Golf, and Tennis – are, of course, classics for a reason, and they’re still winners here. Tennis and Bowling remain the gold standard; the kind of games you can shove into anyone’s hand and they’ll have a good time, instinctively picking up the nuances of each, the curves and the angles, as they go along (Table Tennis is similarly approachable, although its comparative restraint – trading the giddying arm flails of its bigger brother for subtler wrist action – is a slightly harder sell). Golf and Boxing are a touch more involved – boxing with its upper and lower cuts, its dodge timings and stamina management; golf with its reliance on an on-screen power meter that requires splitting your focus in two – but those hurdles are easily surmountable. And Golf, in particular, with its le isurely pace and less frenetic competition remains a unique sort of low-key thrill.
Archery, too, is a blast; its two controller set-up – one for the bow, the other the string – wonderfully mimicking the act of launching an arrow as you pull back, take aim, and fire. Thumb Wrestling is perhaps the dark horse of the bunch; a deceptively simple game of pin-the-digit that quickly descends into psychological warfare as you embark on an increasingly desperate succession of frantic shake-offs and sneaky feints. As for the final two competitive sports on the roster, Basketball and Volleyball, I’m not so keen. Break them down to their constituent parts, and the moment-by-moment movements – the shooting, the dribbling, the jumps, and the bumps – translate well to motion controls. It’s just that in trying to adapt both games into something manageably quickfire, it all feels a little awkward – each defensive and offensive phase requiring its own moves you’ll switch between when told like a game of Simon Says. There’s no real sense of fluidity and momentum, nor are they easy to explain for casual play.
But actually, it doesn’t really matter. Basketball and Volleyball, like most games in the pack, come with some properly enjoyable variants, spinning the core of the sport into something new. Basketball’s frantic single-player hoop-shooting variant is a brilliantly breathless dash against the clock, for instance, while Volleyball gets a rhythm-action twist, requiring players to bop balls on beat, listening for tricksy musical cues that gets increasingly chaotic as things go on. Bowling, meanwhile, offers the classic 100-pin variant and a fun mini-golf-like spin that challenges players to hit pins while navigating shifting obstacles, massive gaps, and bizarrely undulating lanes. And I particularly adore Archery’s special rules. Here, players score points by landing an arrow on a shared target; hit a competitor’s area instead of your own, however, and they get the points. More points are earned closer to the bullseye where all quadrants converge, making for some nailbiting risk and reward. Another twist: the better you do, the smaller your quadrant gets, and then come the moving targets and high winds. It’s a load of fun.
Not every sport and every variant supports four players on a single console (Nintendo, incidentally, has done a decent job of streamlining controller requirements, so you’ll generally only need one pair of Joy-Cons for two players, and two sets for four), and not everything is playable online. But online play – from the admittedly small amount of time I’ve had to muck around with it – feels robust, and a fine way to expand Switch Sports Resort’s longevity and appeal. Up to eight people can join an online friend lobby, with two players supported per console. Up to two players can also join random matchmaking online, and here, you’ve got options: ranked play is limited to the standard sports rules and gradually adjusts your grade as you win or lose matches, influencing who you’re paired with next. Casual play, meanwhile, pairs you with randoms for an unranked free-for-all. You can toggle the sports you want to get involved in, and it’s here you might stumble across online versions of those special rules.
Actually, probably the biggest surprise of Switch Sports Resort – given the series’ party game legacy – is just how much I’ve enjoyed playing solo. Online play might not have the same chaotic allure as playing in person, but it still offers a compellingly competitive thrill. GameChat is supported for friends list communication, while a cute sticker system lets you furiously emote with strangers (my personal favourite: sad dinosaur). And there are loose progression systems pulling you onward too. Island Crown mode, for instance, pits you against 20 increasingly challenging opponents in each sport without needing to go online. And there’s a big long list of achievements for specific activities, alongside more general, esoteric ones. The implementation of achievements is a touch awkward, mind – in order to claim the cosmetic rewards and points associated with them, you’ll have to squirrel around in submenus – but it’s still an enjoyable bit of something extra for completionists to work toward. And yes, points.
Pretty much everything you do – from simply participating in a game to performing some specific in-match feat – earns you points, both on- and offline. Points, in turn, can be spent in the shop, unlocking cosmetics that range from avatar clothing and nameplate backgrounds to alternate bits of sports equipment and stickers. And there’s some cool stuff! Right now I’m rocking those dinosaur emojis and a spooky werebear hat. I don’t love the FOMO tricks on display here (there are daily log-in bonuses, weekly and monthly cosmetic set refreshes, and Gacha-style random drops), but it’s hardly egregious. Points are generously doled out, sets are easy to complete, and there’s no real-world money involved. And if this keeps players engaged and the online community healthy, then I guess okay – I certainly wouldn’t have put in so much online time if I wasn’t so desperate for those dinosaur stickers!
It’s just a shame the vast majority of cosmetic clothing only works with Nintendo’s Sportsmates avatars, leaving (the thankfully still supported) Miis a poor second. The cosmetics are great, but the Sportsmates still look off to me; weirdly soulless creations, with limited facial customisation options, that feel like they’ve just stumbled in from some lesser Wii-era party game.
There are, of course, three sports I haven’t yet talked about, all falling under the umbrella of what Nintendo calls “leisure” games. These are the ones that best showcase Wuhu Island’s open-world design and they’re brilliant things. Skateboarding is the clear standout, and might well be my favourite of the entire package. It’s played using Switch 2’s mouse mode configuration, Joy-Con flat on a surface, as you pull back to gather speed, flick to jump, and tilt to steer. I LOVE it. It’s wonderfully responsive and surprisingly invigorating as you careen around Wuhu Island, the haptic rumble of wheels-on-tarmac perfectly completing the illusion.
As with Switch Sports Resort’s other two leisure offerings, you can skateboard in a number of ways. There’s an enjoyably relaxed free-play mode, setting you loose on the island with no time limit in search of photo spots and other craftily hidden knick-knacks to tick off your missions list, as well as a competitive variant that sees players scrambling to secure the most collectibles before the timer hits zero. There’s also an enormously entertaining set of curated tracks that can either be played as competitive races or solo time trials.
Power Cruising offers the similar amusements, albeit shifted to the water. And while its controls are likely to be divisive – its tilt-your-body set-up feels just a bit too much for these old bones – its Wave-Race-style frollicking is still a fun time. And then, of course, there’s Prop Plane, where you intuitively tilt your controller like a paper aircraft as you glide serenely through the skies. Poor old Prop Plane, though, doesn’t get any racing – not even a couple of Pilotwings-style fly-through-the-rings challenges – and is instead lumbered with a rather half-arsed competitive balloon-collecting mode. And, honestly, as enjoyable as the open-world stuff frequently is, it’s hard not to feel a touch disappointed too. For starters, you can’t play leisure sports online outside of friend lobbies, but more than that, Wuhu Island is such an engaging space to tootle around, it’s a shame not to see Nintendo make more of it – even 2009’s Wii Sports Resort had multiple aeronautical activities that would have been welcome additions here.
Grumbles aside, though, Switch Sports Resort is a bit of a gem. It’s perhaps the series’ most refined entry yet; bundling up a bunch of genuine crowd-pleasers in a charmingly sunkissed, wonderfully considered package that’s equally suited to online and solo play. It’s perfectly timed to become a family mainstay as the festivities set in, but the biggest surprise for me is how easily it’s slipped into my own rotation; how often I’ve found myself firing it up for a quick blast of casual online chaos between other things, or to hit the golfing green when I’m in a more laidback frame of mind. And as I’m inevitably drawn to the skies once more – Wuhu Island’s swaying palms, sandy beaches, and tropical waters stretching out before me – it really does feel like a jolly holiday compared to the grim wintery greyness beyond my rain-spattered window.
A copy of Nintendo Switch Sports Resort was provided for this review by Nintendo.