It isn't much of an exaggeration to say that Wii Sports changed the world. It may have been a fairly basic game with simple, often inaccurate controls and laughable graphics, but when Nintendo bundled the title with the Wii back in 2006 (in part as a tech showcase for the Wiimote) it swiftly became a global phenomenon. Long before mobile games reached their stride, Wii Sports established the idea of casual gaming, fulfilling the Wii's promise to bring families together, as kids and their grandparents lurched about, exchanging volleys in tennis or sliding across the living room in pursuit of a ten pin strike.
It has been 16 years since that game's debut and, bar 2008's Wii Sports Resort and an underwhelming Wii U remake, what was once considered among Nintendo's most promising franchises has been left fallow. Until now, that is. Nintendo Switch Sports has now arrived to pick up that mantle, aiming to re-coronate the franchise as the king of local multiplayer.
The good news is, Nintendo's efforts have been largely successful. Dropping players into the bright and sunny sport arena of Spocco Square, Switch Sports serves up a menu of three returning activities — bowling, chambara (sword-fighting), and tennis — and three newcomers — badminton, football, and volleyball. With Golf having been announced as a future free update. It's a minor upgrade from Wii Sports' selection of five (though a far cry from Wii Sports Resort's 12) and brings with it enough variety to cater to most sporting tastes.
Happily, the gyroscopic sensors of the Switch's JoyCons are a significant step up from the rather unpredictable behaviour of the Wiimote/nunchuck combo that came before. Gone are the matches where your inputs would be misinterpreted or, worse, ignored entirely, leaving you having dived halfway across the sofa and banged your shin on the coffee table with nothing to show for it. Instead, inputs are tactile, precise and immensely satisfying, whether you're curling a bowling ball down the alley, hammering home a shuttlecock or bludgeoning your opponent from the Shambara platform to watch them plummet into the water below. The Graphics, as you'd hope, are also a major improvement, supplementing the rather bland Mii aesthetic with more detailed (and customisable) 'Sportsman' avatars. Make no mistake, Switch Sports is unlikely to trouble the likes of Astral Chain in the graphics department, but the new characters, combined with a vibrant palette and neon lighting effects, make the experience feel far more polished than you might expect.
As with its predecessor, this is a party game through and through
As for the games themselves, they're a little hit and miss, with a few obvious standouts likely to command the bulk of your time. Go-to classics bowling and tennis remain as addictive as ever, the former one of the easiest to pick up but, thanks to an alternate mode that hurls obstacles into the lane, taking quite an investment to master. Badminton, though, feels disappointingly similar to tennis (albeit far simpler to play) and volleyball is both frustrating and unexciting, likely to have you cursing your AI teammate more than anything else. Shambara, however, makes for frenetic play, a dance of parries and frantic counter-attacks that will very likely impact your ability to maintain both friends and intact room ornaments.
Arguably the most involved game is football, which takes the form of a slightly simplified Rocket League, letting you run around the pitch with the analogue stick while managing your sprint meter and trying desperately to land one in the net by swinging your arms. The physical copy of the game also comes with a leg-strap, allowing you to attach the JoyCon and put a bit of actual welly behind shots, but this is reserved for the game's penalty-based Shoot Out mode.
Online multiplayer is available (and actively encouraged) but that's not where Nintendo Switch Sports shines nor where its core strengths lie. As with its predecessor, this is a party game through and through. It is unarguably at its best when you and a group of friends/relatives/children are all crowded around the same television, taking turns to duel each other with pinwheeling arms, violently flinging yourselves over the furniture in pursuit of victory. It may not have the depth of modern AAA games, but as a casual, joyously social group experience, it's a hard one to beat.