Nintendo Switch Sports offers us six different activities: volleyball, badminton, bowling, football, chambara (sword fighting) and tennis. An uninformed player might consider the menu to be particularly rich, and consider themselves lucky to be able to acquire six games for the price of one. But in reality we are dealing more with a sports party game limited to only six mini-games, which is immediately much less exciting. It's still better than the five choices of the ancestor Wii Sports, but it's still not enough to jump to the ceiling. Also be warned that your Pro controllers will have to stay in the closet. Switch Sports must be played with the Joy-Con detached, motion recognition being the only type of control supported. If this radicality could be catastrophic in another type of game, it works very well here. The six activities are above all an excuse to have fun and move a little in front of your screen, and this “motion gaming” aspect is rather successful overall. The precision of the positioning of the chambara's swords is for example quite impressive, while receptions, passes, counters and smashes are done without too much difficulty in volleyball. In all cases, simplicity and accessibility are always at the rendezvous. Some small, quick 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 general public philosophy, since it is played with a giant ball and therefore abandons realism to get closer to the spirit of Rocket League. The bowling has the good taste to come in two variants, the special differing from the classic by the presence of small obstacles on the track. Finally, tennis is certainly the most pleasant activity despite its classicism. For example, we particularly appreciated the possibility of leaving the simultaneous control of the player at the net and that of the baseline to a single player. It must be said that in tennis, as in volleyball and badminton, all movements are automated.
BEAUTY WITHOUT CHARISMA
The choice between the different mini-games, totally disconnected from each other, is made on a screen showing us the Spocco Square district. Urban and vegetated, this environment sets the tone for everything related to graphics. Very clean, these offer detailed playing fields, some convincing reflections, and hardly suffer from aliasing, unlike many other Switch games. The other good visual news concerns the abandonment of the Miis of yesteryear. These awful fellows are replaced by much more believable and pleasant cartoon avatars. Nostalgics and masochists can rest assured, they can still replace their athlete's face with a Mii head if they wish. If the graphic coating does not lack 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 precisely to displease no one. Fortunately, it is possible to unlock many accessories and outfits to give a little more character to our characters. The personalization elements include different smileys, stickers, hairstyles, make-up, balls, rackets, caps, female or male clothing, and "words" allowing us to create a title for our avatar (which is decked out by default with a sad "beginner "). Online, some players have fun hijacking this system to display very incorrect nicknames...
FORBIDDEN TO PLAYERS WITHOUT FRIEND
However, it is not advisable to desert the servers to take refuge on the local game, because two important parts of the experience are only available online. These are above all the personalization elements that we have just mentioned. They are grouped into different collections, accessible only through points earned in online matches and renewed regularly. Disconnected players will therefore have to make do with the meager basic accessories. They will also be deprived of the Pro leagues, which is already much more understandable since this ranking system allows you to progress in a world ranking. On the other hand, it is allowed to have fun up to four locally, while the online game is limited to two participants. And while solo players will still be able to take on AI-driven opponents, absolutely nothing else is planned for them. Neither sports games nor party games are really intended for them at the base, of course, but we would not have spat on a little adventure allowing us to test the different activities in a lightly scripted context. Risk-taking, audacity and generosity are therefore not really the strong points of Nintendo Switch Sports, which on the other hand perfectly fulfills its contract in terms of immediate fun and effective motion gaming.
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