Switch Sports Resort Adalah Liburan yang Terlalu Akrab

It's hard to overstate the impact of Wii Sports on Nintendo's fortunes. A simple motion-controlled game concept became a cultural phenomenon and arguably pulled the company back from the brink of a flagging game business. Switch Sports Resort is now the fifth game in the franchise, and while it still finds some depth in surprising places, the novelty is also wearing thin.

I got an extended hands-on with Switch Sports Resort, trying out a total of eight sports and activities from the selection, and giving me a good sampling of how this next sports game includes both competitive sporting events and free-roaming exploration around Wuhu Island. About half of the events were returning from previous Sports titles, and the others were new for this incarnation. So while there was a good sampling of new activities, my brief time with them prevented me from answering my biggest question: How much mileage will they all have collectively?

Three of the events we tried were focused on exploring Wuhu in a mostly freeform fashion with a time limit: Skateboarding, Prop Plane, and Power Cruising (aka jet skiing). All of these used the Joy-Con controllers in novel ways that reminded me of the early days of the Wii, when the controller was being used sort of like an oddball blend of video game and toy. That means it's potentially fun party fodder as players experiment with strange new control schemes, but also it's hard to see how much longevity they could have.

Skateboarding was the oddest of the bunch, a strange blend of mouse and motion controls. We were instructed to turn the Joy-Con on its side to use as a mouse, but that was simply for sliding across a surface (in this case, my pant leg) to emulate pushing off on your skateboard to build speed. The rest of the mechanics were tied to motion-control, including tilting the controller left or right to steer, or flicking it for mid-air tricks. My random wrist-flicks consistently pulled off tricks, but I didn't get a sense for how much skill there was in choosing which tricks you're doing, or chaining them together. Wuhu Island is littered with landmarks to find and photo spots to grab, so my partner and I simply roamed around finding things until the time limit ran out. You can separate from your partner and explore in different directions with split-screen support, and afterwards it will show you the paths you traveled similar to the Hero's Path screen in the recent Zelda games.

Power Cruising was similar, but obviously set in the water. Rather than hold your Joy-Con like a mouse, you would hold them horizontally in each hand to imitate the feel of handlebars of a jet ski. (They aren't connected, of course, so this sensation is a little floaty and you have to use your imagination.) Then you can twist the right Joy-Con to rev up the engines, and tilt the two Joy-Con to steer. Again, we were simply allowed to free roam for a few minutes to grab little collectibles and photo icons of tourist spots around the island. There were a few boost ramps for little stunts like jumping over a bridge, but this event was clearly meant more to be a relaxing tour than an extreme sports event.

The best of the free-roaming events was Prop Plane, which had you hold the Joy-Con like a toy airplane. If you ever held up a plane as a kid and made "neee-yowwwww" sounds as you ran around the living room, it's like that, but you get to actually control the plane around Wuhu Island. Like the others, this event was about roaming around, collecting doodads and photo icons, but it had a little more skill and finesse, and there was more room to make your own fun. Upon noticing the volcano in the middle of Wuhu Island, I made it my mission to bee-line straight for it and see if I could nosedive inside. I was rewarded for my curiosity with a tricky obstacle course to steer through that took me underneath a significant part of the island and out through a grotto.

As you explore in these modes, you can unlock more starting spots, so even within the brief time limit, you'll be able to go further and see more as you pick a location to begin exploring from. A Nintendo rep also told me that Skateboarding and Power Cruising would have a free roam function without a timer or collectibles, but Prop Plane wouldn't. I don't know why the best event has to be the only one without the ability to explore freely.

Two events return from Wii Sports Resort, with mixed results. Boxing has you use the Joy-Cons to throw punches or move your hands into defensive positions, or "lean" by tilting them to dodge shots. Maybe it was simply that we only played one match against the easiest opponent on the ladder, but this was easy to cheese by just pummeling the opponent mercilessly. (Granted, the sheer cruelty of beating the absolute crap out of a poor hapless Mii was the biggest laugh I had during the preview session.) The full event may add more complexity as you go against higher ranked opponents, but if that's the case, the short demo didn't show that well.

Archery has gotten a nice upgrade from its Wii Sports Resort incarnation, as a competitive event with solid motion controls that emulate pulling back on the bow string to release a shot. What makes it stand out is the ability to score points for your opponents if you miss, as well as a final round that slices the target up like a pie chart, with thinner slices for the current score leaders.

Bizarrely, the killer app of the bunch may be Thumb Wrestling. Wait, hear me out! This event was very silly, and I'm not sure how much longevity it would have, but there actually is a bit more depth than you would expect. You hold the Joy-Con vertically with a thumb on the trigger button, and you press and hold it to push your thumb down, and tilt the controller to shift your maneuvering. You can pin your opponent, and they can shake their own remote to break out of your hold.

But you can also power up your thumb by briefly holding it down, giving the whole thing a tense risk-reward element. Putting your thumb down risks your opponent pinning you, but if you do it just long enough, your thumb grows bigger and more powerful, and it will be easier for you to pin your opponent. So in my brief match, both my opponent and I were constantly trying to quickly put ourselves into a vulnerable position to muscle up our thumbs, dodge one another's attempts to exploit our respective momentary vulnerability, pin one another, and shake free. The game fits nicely into that easy-to-play, hard-to-master element that makes a great party experience.

Finally, we tried two more events returning from the original Wii Sports: Table Tennis and Bowling. In my limited experience, both of those were exactly as you'd expect from the originals, and after a little practice, my bowling skills came back from 2006. There may be more twists and more variety of challenges, but as far as I saw, they're both faithful recreations of those original events that helped Wii Sports become such a breakout success.

Switch Sports Resort looks to be very much a part of the continuity of Wii Sports and its successors, for better and worse. Like the rest in the series, it's built around minigames that are enjoyable and toy-like, if a bit shallow, and it will be best if you have some friends to play it with. My main concern is whether it has enough depth to sustain yet another trip to Wuhu Island, or if this is one vacation you can safely skip.