I don’t know about you, but I recently played Nintendo Switch Sports with friends and had a lot of fun online. In his review, Alex described the game as one of the “most fun games of the year” and I have to agree. The only thing the Switch Sports lacks is more sports.
In a recent “Ask the Developer,” Nintendo talked about previous character concepts they researched before settling on a more stylized Mii character, and exactly why Switch Sports took so long to come to fruition.
When asked about the new characters introduced in Switch Sports, the evolution of the classic Mii, Junji Morii shared: “Even before we decided to start over, we had come up with different types of character illustrations. Early on, we came up with A round character without arms and legs, similar to the Mii character in Wii Sports. We also created this college student character with the theme of intercollegiate sports.
Takayuki Shimamura then added, “I remember we had the weirdest characters that looked like robots.” Those robot characters must be… something. Most of them have too many similarities with Hammond from Overwatch, which I love. Plus, these robots are definitely too big to run around playing football or clearing bowling pins. However, there’s no denying that it will be interesting to see Switch Sports introduce these characters.
After mentioning the robot, Morai continued, “The player is inside the robot, but when you wave the Joy-Con controller, the robot moves. The robot is the bowler.” When the team put the prototype together, it quickly Just to find that it didn’t work, they went back to the idea of human characters. Then, Sportsmates was formed.
Now, we have an evolved comic that we can customize to our heart’s content. Often, bowling feels like a fashion show because we have cute makeup to unlock our sport.
When asked how long it took Nintendo to develop the game, Yoshikazu Yamashita said “the project started some time after the Nintendo Switch system was released,” meaning the game could be developed as early as 2017 start. Yamashita went on to say “one might wonder why it took so long,” and they were right. Why did it take so long?
“With the Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort games, we came up with as many ideas as we could…most of which were implemented and implemented in the game, so we felt like we did our best. My impression was that at that time if If we are going to make a sequel in the future, it will still be quite difficult. So, when this Nintendo Switch Sports project started, I honestly felt that there was no more sports to add.”
Yamashita’s perfectly valid reasoning, but I think for many Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort fans, we just want to see beloved Wii games playable on Switch. “During the prototyping process, we realized we wanted to create something that looked new and different from the past. But we were so aware of it that we ended up with gameplay that didn’t require shaking the Joy-Con controller.”
Can you imagine? Switch Sports games that don’t require shaking the controller just feel wrong, and luckily, Nintendo realizes that. Yamashita went on to explain what happened as a result, “We were very conscious of creating something new…however, in the end it didn’t go well. We lost our way and were on the verge of losing our charm. Wii Sports. When we admitted we were wrong Several years have passed since the direction was set.
Yamashita realized something wasn’t right, “You can’t just pick up and say ‘let’s play together’ when someone’s at your house.”
Then they noticed that one of the most important features of Switch Sports is its ease of access and anyone can play the game. “I feel very sorry for all the staff who have been working halfway through the game, but I told them our goal should be to create ‘the most inviting action-based game in the world’.”
Needless to say, while it took a long time to see the light of day, Nintendo hit the nail on the head with Switch Sports. Although, I wouldn’t mind seeing golf return.
