Nintendo Switch Sports Resort is out now, and it features a wealth of content to dig into. It features 12 main sports, and many of them come with different modes. Combine that with a smart approach to a single-player “campaign” and some lovely open-island exploration, and you’ve got the series’ best collection of motion-controlled minigames yet.
I’ve been playing non-stop for the past week, and in that time, I’ve developed some strong opinions about which games rock and which ones don’t totally stick the landing. In the spirit of healthy competition, here’s where I would rank them, from worst to best. Let it be a guide for anyone who feels overwhelmed by all the options on offer and wants to stick to the classics.
You won’t want to sleep on the less popular minigames. Generally speaking, the more involved a sport is, the harder it is to translate it to a motion-controlled minigame. Basketball is a shining example of that.
It takes a game that’s built on motion and reduces it to a clumsy Simon Says, where you need to hit cues to shoot, block, and pass. Free-throwing is fine, but the standard multiplayer matches are just too complicated for their own good. Everything I just said about Basketball also applies to Volleyball.
It has all of the same problems, with its reliance on telegraphed maneuvers that break up the fluidity of a match. Volleyball works just a bit better since there’s not quite as much movement involved, but it comes off feeling like an inferior Tennis. It really speaks to how impressive Switch Sports Resort is as a package that Wii Sports’ best game is a weak link here.
It’s not so much that Tennis is bad, though the motion controls do feel shakier than usual this time; it’s just that it’s outclassed by the tighter Table Tennis. (I’ll get to that later.) It’s still novel fun, but there are much more creative games in the collection. The worst thing you can really say about Golf is that it’s reliable. It hasn’t changed much over the past two decades, and it’s still as fun as ever to whack a ball across the green.
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