Nintendo Switch Sports Resort review – the Wii Sports legacy lives on

A staggering 17 years after Nintendo debuted Wii Sports Resort, it’s time to set sail once more for Wuhu Island and its eclectic collection of sporting minigames.

If you want to feel really old it’s a full 20 years since the original Wii Sports, the game that helped save Nintendo from irrelevancy and pioneered their blue ocean strategy of attracting non-gamers to gaming. The concept only lasted for a surprisingly short number of years, especially in terms of home consoles, but the legacy does still continue on Switch – primarily through the Nintendo Switch Sports games.

For the uninitiated, that means partaking in the most eccentric collection of activities ever brought together under one banner, at the newly christened Spocco Resort; for old hands, it means getting unreasonably heated after a game of competitive table tennis.

This time, as is evident in the title, we’re several consoles down the line. So this game has been designed specifically for the Switch 2 and boasts controls miles ahead of anything those poor Wii remotes could ever offer.

Many of the original Wii Sports Resort’s games have also been improved on. Tennis is back, as is archery, boxing, golf, and basketball; the aerial dogfight has been swapped out for the far more neutral ‘prop plane’ option, and wakeboarding for jet skis. Swordplay, alas, has been axed.

There are also some interesting new additions. Or perhaps a better word would be perplexing: anybody for a game of thumb wrestling or skateboarding?

Unlike the original game, Switch Sports Resort can be played both locally – with a group of up to four people sharing a Joy-Con at home – or online.

All the games come with exhaustive tutorials that aim to showcase the full range of the Joy-Con’s abilities. They’re not perfect – tennis shots still have a habit of going haywire, no matter how enthusiastically the Joy-Con is wiggled – but there’s a responsiveness to the controllers that makes it possible to do everything from dribble a basketball to fly a plane.

Games like golf, meanwhile, have been upgraded with elements like a tracking camera and a terrain map, which allow you to putt those balls with greater accuracy than ever before.

It’s also varied. Skateboarding involves scooting the Joy-Con along a flat surface, to mimic the movement of the board. Meanwhile, archery uses both Joy-Cons, with one serving as the bow and one as the string, to be drawn back and released at the target.

Unsurprisingly, the graphics have also been given a lick of paint. The egg-faced Miis are gone, replaced by Disney-style cute human faces, customisable outfits that can be unlocked as more games are played and records broken, and a variety of emotable reactions that can be expressed via a series of buttons.

For seasoned Sports Resort veterans, the developers have also retained the Mii customisation option, allowing you to recreate your avatar of years gone by. They look extra terrifying in comparison with the polished visuals seen everywhere else, but for some people (me) that’s no doubt appealing.

Even the backgrounds boast intricate, if rather bland, details: it’s possible to see a library through the glass windows of the tennis court, while the golf courses boast ducks floating in impressively rendered ponds, complete with lapping water.

There is a little more structure to the experience now too. It’s possible to earn medals and there’s an Island Crown section that lets you compete in matches with the aim of rising through the ranks of different sports. Once you reach number one, a face-off with an Island Champion awaits, Pokémon Gym Leader style.

Doing well in a certain sport also means accumulating points, which can in turn be spent on customising your avatar – by investing in a lucky dip purchase from a series of themed collections. Want a new, Hawaii-themed skateboard design? Or, indeed, a new sports outfit with which to bedeck your avatar? You might get them! On the other hand, you might also get a neon table tennis bat; it’s impossible to say.

While it’s all perfectly serviceable fun, and the game feels as high-end as anything you could hope for given the premise, it is also impossible to escape the nagging feeling that something is missing from Sports Resort.

Perhaps it’s the pleasing weirdness of the original game, whose blank-faced Miis and over-the-top commentary were a neverending source of comic amusement.

Perhaps it’s the persistent hand-holding present in this one, where hardly a golf shot can be made without the in-game tutorial stepping in to explain how it should be done. And for all its polish, it’s impossible to ignore the blandness of the surrounding world, which feels built by a corporate AI. Although, to be fair, Wuhu Island was always like that.

The games, too, feel like they lack ambition. It’s possible to jump and grind with your skateboard, but this element never really feels like it’s used to its full potential. The same goes for the jet ski: the joy of wakeboarding, back in the original game, was the sick aerial tricks you could do, to the enthusiastic sound of the commentator cheering you on.

Here, the jet ski glides limply over the waves, with nary a ‘Nice!’ to be heard. Considering Wave Race 64 is 30 years old this year, it all seems a bit underwhelming, and symptomatic of the whole enterprise: a perfectly fun way to spend a few hours with family at Christmas, but nothing you or they will be in a hurry to go back to afterwards.

Formats: Nintendo Switch 2
Price: £41.99
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo EPD
Release Date: 22nd November 2026
Age Rating: 7

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