Okay so watched the latest Nintendo Direct (honestly a lot of peak content announced, yay for Splatoon Raiders and OoT remake!), and I have... mixed feelings about Nintendo Switch Sports Resort.
To get it out of the way first, I get it why they didn't go for the Miis in the forefront for this subseries. I watched a good breakdown of what happens behind the scenes at Nintendo for this (shout out to Thomas Game Docs, you guys should really watch her videos to get a better look at what happens in the game development part of Nintendo) and I can see that the Miis are now used when the developing team wants them. And for Nintendo Switch Sports, they decided to make new avatars to give it a fresh look to the series, and that’s all. I think I mentioned in detail why I didn’t quite like the Sportsmates as much as the Miis in my sister blog Game On Comics, so I'm not going over that point in detail again. TLDR: I think the Sportsmates have cartoonishly weird proportions and leaning into the kawai samey face that is just not my cup of tea personally, and I'm sticking by this point of view still today.
What brings me mixed feelings aside from the Sportsmates are two things: bringing back a major setting from a Mii centric series, and the sports.
I love the fact that Wuhu Island gets to be back, and gets somewhat redesigned to fit in the new sports. But uh, with how I'm not too pleased about the Sportmates, putting them in the one place that was the main home for the Miis feels... off. I know some mutuals who are big Mii fans aren't too happy either, to the point they're hcing that this Wuhu Island is a separate universe from the Mii Wuhu Island. And I'm unfortunately on that same sentiment, although I think Nintendo themselves are slightly treating it as a separate version? Idk, all I do know is that I hc that the Mii world and the Sportmates world are not one and the same. With how the Wii U Miis are still to this day used as promotional material, I'm more inclined to keep both types of characters in separate "worlds" for lack of better word. Also the fact that the Sportsmates in Switch Sports have all the names of the Wii Miis, this feels like the Miis made their own avatars OR this is a different universe version of them. Looking at the trailer again, I do see they changed the island quite a bit too (the islands are more connected for different sports I presume) so I'm still quite curious with what they're cooking here.
As for the sports, here's what I think of each of them:
Boxing: I mean, I see why they added it in, but damn I wish we got swordplay here instead of what we had in Switch Sports haha. But hey, we'll have to see how it goes for ourselves.
Table Tennis: 10/10 SPORT, HELL YEAH IT'S BACK! I hope that it controls well
Archery: Oh it's back too, huh. I've always been eh about this one, but cool to see!
Tennis: Good sport, but... why is it back a second time? 😅 still ig they're using those two blue courts fr now...
Volleyball: Sure this place would be a better setting for this sport, but the gameplay is super dull in Switch Sports, and I'm not seeing any changes in the trailer here -_-
Bowling: It'll always come up in this series, so I'm not surprised XD. Also it's still really good in Switch Sports, so cool
Basketball: ... they should've made it 3v3 like in Wii Resort, and the new version of the gameplay is extremely stilted. Still no changes to the gameplay in sight tho -_-
Golf: best sport of the Switch Sports is back baby! And not surprised it's back lol
Thumb wrestling: ... excuse me???? On Wuhu Island??? You could've made this for the previous game, ngl, Spocco Square would be a better setting for a sport that's very stationary >:/ (also just why in general, but I digress)
Skateboarding: okay I know they wanted to use the new mouse controls somewhere, but if it's gonna be like Wii Fit's Cycling, I'm all for it! Please, PLEASE Nintendo, give us a free roaming mode for this!
Power Cruising: NOOOOO NOT THE WORST SPORT OF WII RESORT! 😭😭😭 for the love of fuck, please make this more controllable, then we might like this a bit more TwT
Prop Plane: ISLAND FLYOVER IS BACK?! HELL YEAH!!! I'll be very mad if they don't let us fly around the island fully... considering that one of the critiques of Spocco Square is that we don’t get to explore the beautiful place, I hope Nintendo took this to heart.
Jump rope: they did say this was a side practice thing, so yeah not expecting much, but I genuinely hope there's gonna be a couple more things like that to actually see the life on the island :0
I half hope they'd bring back some of the sports like Wakeboarding, Frisbee and Cycling, or get more modes that get us exploring the island rather than keep things in a single location (this was one of the many reasons I much prefer Wii Resort's Swordplay compared to Switch Sports' Chambara, there was no modes for a single player going against a hoarde of enemies like in Showdown TwT). But in any case, I'm not gonna be able to get it anytime soon due to not having a Switch 2 ^^'. So Ig I'll be relying on reviews of the game before ever getting my hands on it.
