Nintendo Switch Sports offers us six different activities: volleyball, badminton, bowling, football, chambara (saber combat) and tennis. An ill -informed player could consider that the menu is particularly generous, and consider himself lucky to be able to acquire six games for the price of 1. But in reality we are rather dealing with a sports game limited to only six mini-games, which is immediately much less exciting. It’s always better than the five choices of the ancestor Wii Sports, but there is still not enough to jump on the ceiling. Also warned that your pro controller will have to stay in the closet. Switch Sports is imperatively played with the Detached Joy-Con, the recognition of movements being the only type of support supported. If this radicalism could be catastrophic in another type of game, it goes here very well. The six activities are above all a pretext to have fun and move a little in front of its screen, and this “motion gaming” aspect is rather successful overall. The precision of the positioning of the Chambara sabers is for example quite impressive, while receptions, passes, counters and smashs are carried out without too much trouble in volleyball. In all cases, simplicity and accessibility are systematically there. A few small, fast and effective tutorials are present to explain the rare subtleties, while intuition is enough for example to type correctly with the tennis or badminton racket. Football is symptomatic of this consumer philosophy, since it is played with a giant balloon and therefore abandons realism to get closer to the Rocket League spirit. The bowling alley has the good taste of declining in two variants, the special standing out for the classic by the presence of small obstacles on the track. Finally, tennis certainly constitutes the most pleasant activity despite its classicism. For example, we have particularly appreciated the possibility of leaving the simultaneous control of the net player and that in the background to a single player. It must be said that in tennis, as in volleyball and badminton, all trips are automated.
Beauty without charisma
The choice between the different mini-games, completely disconnected from each other, is made on a screen presenting the Spocco Square district. Urban and green, this environment sets the tone for everything related to graphics. Very clean, the latter offer detailed playgrounds, some convincing reflections, and hardly suffer from aliasing, unlike many other Switch games. The other good visual news concerns the abandonment of the MII of yesteryear. These awful men are replaced by much more credible and pleasant cartoon avatars. May nostalgic and masochists reassure themselves, they will still be able to replace the face of their sportsman with a Mii head if they wish. If graphic coating is not lacking in qualities, it must still be recognized that the very smooth artistic direction (literally and figuratively) lacks a bit of personality. We feel that Nintendo sought above all to please everyone, or more exactly to displease any1. Fortunately, it is possible to unlock many accessories and outfits in order to give our characters a little more character. The personalization elements bring together different smileys, stickers, hairstyles, make -up, balloons, snowshoes, caps, female or male clothes, and “words” allowing to create a title for our avatar (which is decked up by default of a sad “beginner “). Online, some players have fun diverting this system to display very incorrect nicknames…
Prohibited to players without friend
However, it is not advisable to desert the servers to take refuge on the local game, because two important sides of the experience are not available. They are above all the personalization elements that we have just mentioned. They are grouped in different collections, accessible only thanks to the points won in online matches and regularly renewed. Disconnected players will therefore have to be satisfied with meager basic accessories. They will also be deprived of the pro leagues, which is already much more understandable since this ranking system makes it possible to progress in a global classification. However, it is allowed to have fun up to four locally, while online game is limited to two participants. And if solitary players will always be able to face adversaries led by AI, absolutely nothing else is planned for them. Neither the sports games nor the party games are really intended for them, certainly, but we would not have spit on a small adventure allowing us to test the different activities in a slightly scripted context. Taking risk, audacity and generosity are therefore not really the strengths of Nintendo Switch Sports, which perfectly fulfills its contract in terms of immediate fun and effective motion gaming.
The Dailymotion Player is in charge…