Every Sport in Nintendo Switch Sports Resort, Ranked From Worst to Best

How do Skateboarding and Thumb Wrestling stack up with the classics?

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. Trust me.

12 Basketball

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.

11 Volleyball

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.

10 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.

9 Golf

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. It’s just held back here by very imprecise motion controls that make it hard to consistently hit a shot the way you want it — and putting is especially challenging.

8 Boxing

Can Boxing be a little sloppy? Absolutely. Sometimes the motion controls make it hard to properly land uppercuts and hooks while dodging and blocking. But frankly, that doesn’t matter all too much. It’s still just a lot of fun to unload rapid-fire punches on a Sportsmates’ head. This is as good an audition as any for a Punch-Out!! reboot.

7 Thumb Wrestling

As a new addition to the series, Thumb Wrestling is a bit brilliant. It’s a great one-handed game that doesn’t require huge gestures to play. There’s some deceptive strategy to it, as you bait your opponent into putting their thumb down, while also making sure they don’t keep it pressed long enough to power it up. Though it’s a little shallow, it’s a sharply-designed adaptation that I keep coming back to.

6 Power Cruising

Switch Sports Resort contains three leisure activities that let you drive around Wuhu Island, open-world style. All three of them are great to excellent, and Power Cruising is on the “great” side of the spectrum. It’s a little ingenious to have players hold the Joy-Cons like handlebars, twisting them back to boost. It’s a tactile delight, though water exploration is a little more limited compared to Prop Plane and Skateboarding.

5 Table Tennis

Table Tennis is simply a better version of Tennis, plain and simple. With big movement taken out of the equation, you’re left with a tighter version of Pong that allows you to focus on shot timing above all else. There’s nothing more satisfying than spiking a lobbed ball after a sweaty 50-hit rally against a well-matched opponent.

4 Archery

As far as two-controller games go, Archery is as elegant as they come. Holding two hands up and pulling one back to draw your bow while aiming with motion controls is a satisfying representation of the real sport. With wind and direction from the target to account for, there’s just enough nuance to each round to make for tense games where every point matters.

3 Skateboarding

Skateboarding might just be the best sales pitch yet for the Switch 2’s mouse controls. To play the leisure sport, you place your Joy-Con down on a table and drag it backwards to push. You can turn by tilting back and forth, and jump by lifting it off the table. All of this works remarkably well, allowing for some smooth skating. The inclusion of jumps and grind rails around Wuhu Island is a nice touch too, making the island feel like a natural skate park.