April 29th will mark the release of Nintendo Switch Sports, a spiritual sequel to the popular Wii Sports series. The big kicker here is that it’s pushing the online side more, even in pre-release. As I’d noted in the reveal article, there was a trial weekend, but Nintendo required participants and press to keep mum… until now. So with the game coming out this week, we figured it should be safe to discuss what we saw during the test, so it’ll be easier to discuss what’s released in the coming days. I admit I’ve already pre-ordered the game, and while it may not be massively multiplayer, it certainly feels bigger than I was expecting.
During the test weekend, we had access to Chambara (1v1 sword fighting), Tennis (up to 4 players, with teams needing to be local multiplayer), and Bowling (up to 16 players). As with Wii Sports, though, you’re not really using a traditional control set up but motion controls. That being said, despite a Joycon update, the controllers actually initially felt less responsive than the original Wii Remote did in the first Wii Sports game.
While the Joycons didn’t fail on me like the Wii Remotes used to, they also didn’t pick up small motions well, such as when I twisted my wrist the way the Wii Remote picked up in various games. Chambara (sword fighting) felt like all arms and worked well enough, but my initial impressions with tennis made me feel as if using my arms was too slow and inaccurate, and my wrist flicks (not twists) mostly were just ensuring that I hit the ball. The game noted that timing was key for tennis, but the fact that directionality didn’t seem like a factor felt wrong for a motion control game.
I enjoyed tennis in Wii Sports, but the Switch Sports version felt like a reaction game, except you flick your wrist at the right time – forget about full-on swings. While that did make the game feel more like tennis, I missed the ball more often than not with arm swings. In fact, tennis felt easier if I just sat down and flicked my wrist when the ball came near one of my characters, as a single player controls two characters instead of one. This isn’t all bad, though, as I tried all the sports in both standing situations where I tried to simulate sports movement and sitting in my room with a limited amount of space trying to min-max my movements to get an idea of the controllers’ performance.
The game is playable in cramped areas going off a wireless connection, but I simply can’t imagine trying to play Switch Sports on the go except maybe someplace outdoors with a solid connection. The arm movements I used in anything but bowling felt too big to safely play next to another person while cramped up to see the tiny screen, unlike in ARMS, which I found to be a decent on-the-go title if you can find someone who wants to give it a whirl.
I bring up ARMS because, as I had said in that review, the Joycons at the time didn’t seem totally accurate. Despite the update they receive whenever you play with a new set of controllers in Switch Sports, they still don’t feel right, and a couple of people I asked this to during the test weekend felt similarly, particularly about tennis, even after a calibration period was introduced. It’s still fun, no doubt, but bowling and chambara stole the show.
— Den (@Dengarsw) April 20, 2022
Chambara, the sword fighting, felt kind of like a simplified version of For Honor with motion controllers, but I mean that in the best way possible. There’s no walking, just guessing how your opponent will attack or block and responding correctly. The controls weren’t perfect, but did feel more solid than tennis. Maybe it’s also because it’s smaller and personal, but the matches felt a bit more tense, especially when the tie-breaker causes most of the terrain to drop. Of course, this being a Nintendo title means it’s all for fun, and the loser simply falls into a pool of water.
The dual swords were fun and flexible but lack power. I was able to get in a lot of hits and blocks, but my hits felt like nothing compared to the damage done to me by the default swords. The charge sword, which gets stronger as you block with it, felt like a liability, but they may do best in an expert’s hands, probably when going against weaker opponents. Everyone seemed to agree that default swords were the way to go, but dual swords did feel like more of a workout, if that’s what you want. It certainly felt like the favorite of the bunch, even by my younger sister. (Lord help her husband.)
To note, there were bots in at least one of my matches, but I only noticed them during my very first Chambara match during the very first test, so it may have been the time or the fact that Chambara is probably the most complicated game tested during the weekend. Speaking of online play, though, disconnects did happen, and there didn’t seem to be a reconnect option. For test, that’s not bad, but we know there will be ranked matches, so the inability to reconnect could be an issue at release.
Finally, bowling with 16 people at a time was not exactly “massive” in the terms we usually think about, but for bowling, it felt huge. It’s basically normally bowling but no waiting for turns, just the next frame. Having everyone take their turn at the same time really sped things up, though the timer did feel a little short for people who want to look at pin placement and move their character into just the right position. Seeing how you’re doing compared to so many other people between frames helped bring a kind of scope I wasn’t expecting from bowling of all things.
The “elimination” line on the scoreboard even worked as a good motivator to not only do better but do my best. It also gave me an opportunity to root for people if I finished early. No, there are no typed messages, but the simple emote icons could convey a lot, especially as they stay present for however long you hold down the button. They’re also mostly positive, so while some people made it obvious they were poor losers by constantly holding down the Cry face, many people used the tool the brighten the mood.
While winning against 15 other bowlers was nice, it was a bit disheartening to be eliminated and forced to watch other players continue in that “I lost the battle royale match” manner, but at least during the test, we could skip the rest of the match and requeue to play again.
The low queue times might have partially been thanks to CPUs, which the game notifies you is a thing, but aside from my very first chambara match that included a tutorial, it never really felt obvious if the other people were AI, except again for Chambara. Even then, it may have been an older woman based on the character name.
Sadly, the test phase didn’t allow for character customization. Yes, Miis will be making a comeback, but look a bit odd on their new bodies. We also didn’t get any of the outfit customization or rewards with ranking up that are supposed to come in the live version, and one of the game tips notes that new stuff will supposedly be added weekly.
I’m a guy who has admittedly been spoiled by free drip content, so that could keep me coming back for more, especially as we’ve been told there will be bigger updates in summer to add soccer and fall for golf. Soccer is particularly promising, as I imagine it may be more on the “massive” side of online play, as even mini-versions have as few as five people per side. However, we’re still waiting for release when we can try other sports not included in the test phase, like Volleyball and Badminton, the former showing that Nintendo does shrink teams by quite a bit. We’ll just wait and see how those go first.
