Volleyball is a 1-4 player team sport that is all about timing, Similar to how tennis plays. You swing your Joy-Cons up and down to mimic hitting around the ball while making sure you keep track of whether you’re spiking or setting up for your teammate. It feels a little odd though, because the game will slow time down for you in preparation to spike the ball. It’s supposed to give you a bit of time to prepare yourself, but in practice, it just confuses the timing.

Bowling is a classic from the original game, and it remains a crowd-pleaser in Switch Sports. This can be played with up to 4 players, but if you’re playing online you’ll be playing in a group of a whopping 16. You can still throw curveballs by twisting the Joy-Con in our hands to try to get those tricky shots, though doing so feels different from the original. It takes some getting used to, but soon you’ll be throwing curveballs left and right.

As a response to folks accidentally impaling their TVs with their Wiimotes when releasing Z to throw the ball, now you must keep the ZR button firmly pressed for the entire throw. It’s a small change, but it breaks the emersion a little since it feels strange not to let go of the button like you’d let go of a real bowling ball. It’s easy to get used to though, and soon you’ll forget all about it.

Bowling has an extra mode that will place various obstacles down the bowling lane, which is a fun variant. It comes in different difficulties and the obstacles are randomised, so it’s a bit different every time you play.

Badminton is a 1-2 player game, and a newcomer to Switch Sports. It’s largely similar to tennis, but the focus is on the speed and angle of your swing rather than timing. It’s less involved than Tennis,  but it’s fun if you want a fast-paced match against a single opponent. Matches can get very high speed, as opposed to Tennis, which is slowed by the bouncing of the ball and teamwork.

With that being said, given that Sports only features 6 games at launch, having one of the new games play so similar to one of the returning games seems like a wasted opportunity.

Tennis is a returning game from Wii Sports, and can be played by 1-4 people. despite this, there’s no option for a singles match: even if you’re playing 2-player, the game will assign you 2 CPUs. I suppose that’s what badminton is for, but again, badminton feels a little too similar to tennis in a game with only 6 games.

In tennis, you need to pay attention to the timing and direction of your swing to avoid hitting an out. You can also get away with swinging your Joy-Con wildly if that’s your playstyle.

Chambara is a 1-2 player game that in Wii Sports Resort was called Swordplay. Amusingly, you can choose to wield duel swords by using two Joy-Cons instead of one, leading to the best kind of chaotic energy. Otherwise, it’s largely unchanged from the original game. It’s short and sweet, and it is a good break between the sports that take longer. It’s also perhaps the sport that best demonstrates how the motion technology has improved from the days of the Wii, as your sporting equipment holds steadier and controls even more effortlessly.

Football/Soccer is the only game that uses the new optional leg strap accessory, which attaches the Joy-Con to your thigh so you can kick goals using motion controls. Right now, the accessory only works in the goal-shooting extra mode, but the game will be updated in a season or two so we can play a full game of soccer with the strap.

Soccer utilises the control stick to move around and motion controls to kick the comically oversized ball, which feels intuitive and responds well to the direction you swing in. The field is surprisingly large and can take a while to run from one end to the other, so it’s the only game that really requires any strategy between teammates in terms of who defends and who attacks. This makes it perhaps the most engaging game of the lot, especially when playing online. It has the same energy as Rocket League, with a lot of the same fun.