With 6 games in the initial collection and a winter resort collection to follow, things look promising for the console. The Switch Sports bundle is the first attempt at bringing the Wii experience to the current-gen Nintendo console. With there is light, there must be darkness around. Do the Nintendo Switch Sports do justice to all the hype it brings to the table or is the bare-bones package just too little to shoulder all the excitement from the fans?
6 Loved: Better Graphics
It would have probably been the first point on a list comparing games from an older console to the current gen. Unsurprisingly, Switch Sports delivers better graphics and smooth animations, bringing the Wii aura to present-day gaming.
The character designs, the playgrounds, and the avatars have all had a major revamp, and it is very much evident with 4K and 60FPS goodness (but point later in the list). The switch sports is the perfect sequel to a decade-old console in this regard.
5 Didn’t: Frame Rates
One of the first things you would note in any games that require a four-way split-screen is that the game cuts shorts on the frame rate to compensate for all things happening in it. Games such as Tennis and Bowling that support split screens drop to 30FPS regardless of the resolution of the monitor
The frames don’t stutter or take away the experience, but the drop in the frame right might be running at the back of their minds while playing the game. An update for the FPS boost in the future might fix it, but until then, the players would have to roll with the flow.
4 Loved: Better Response With The Joycons
Another considerable upgrade in the motion control gaming in the Nintendo house is how the Switch’s joy-cons have been adaptive to the gameplay. The joycons are lighter, more responsive, easy to maneuver, and efficient to work with, in comparison to the older joystick controllers from the previous console.
However, that has not stopped the players from breaking their TV screens. Twitch streamers have seen losing control over their joycons and launching them straight at their displays. Such instances highlight the importance of the hand bands even more.
3 Didn’t: Limited Gaming Modes
Wii sports had multiple gaming modes that gave the games a replay value, but the same cannot be said of the Switch Sports. Apart from Bowling having a special lane mode where the player would need to roll through hurdles on the lane, the other games are pretty straightforward and deliver what they were set out to do.
The games may not dull down on this note. Unfortunately, it hampers the game’s ability to cater to different kinds of audiences is shunned, thus making it fall into a generic circle.
2 Loved: Lag-Free Online Gaming
The online multiplayer has been slick on the Switch Sports. Despite the heap of registered entrants competing in the online mode, the experience has been smooth and lag-free. A perfect example would be the online mode in Bowling, where one can take on up to 56 players in a single game.
However, it is still early, and players have pointed out that most online matches include CPU bots playing when there aren’t enough players around. Not much of a hassle, but it is a point worth noting. All good things come to a dire end, but not all bad things are worse. There are a few things that could have worked well.
1 Didn’t: Left Out Games
Games such as baseball, golf, and boxing are left out from the initial roster (at least for now), and that has provided a reason for a certain faction of the Wii players to grieve. Understandably, the Switch Sports package is a penetrative bare-bones collection, but either of the two similar games - badminton or tennis could have paved way for one of the old school classics or something even better.
With all that mentioned above, one should also take into consideration that the gaming bundle is a recently launched entity. One should look forward to the promised updates of new games coming in for the Switch Sports, and could only hope that new games match up to the variety in expectations of the fans and players. The resort bundle promises to bring even more games to the Switch Sports, and many more updates and DLCs have been making rounds on official pages. It is also worth mentioning that golf is touted to be added soon to the sports bundle, and games like basketball and boxing are rumored to make a comeback as well. But before we jump the gun and expect a dystopian gaming future, let us take a moment to enjoy what we have at hand!
Nintendo Switch Sports is available now exclusively for Nintendo Switch.
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