[NES Classics Reviews] Nintendo Sports Series
The collection of NES games on Nintendo Switch's Online service includes a bunch of Sports games. They're simple video games so instead of writing a review on each one of them I decided to talk about all of them in one article.
While NES service offers many other sports games, the ones I'm going to review are the games labeled "Sports Series" are currently five of them: Soccer, Tennis, Volleyball, Baseball and Pro Wrestling.
I played at least one match of each game, only in single-player mode. I've got to say that all of them are fun to play if not too basic. Some of the sports feel lacking since NES has only two buttons for actions.
As I only played in Single Player mode, (being on Switch Lite and all,) I don't know how the games would work in multiplayer, though I assume they'll be more fun. I wish I had someone to play Tennis online with.
One weak point of these games is the lack of diversity. The teams in Soccer, Volleyball and Baseball are based on real-life countries but they play the same. Players look identical except for different colors for different teams. The problem is present even in Tennis and Pro Wrestling but it's not so apparent in the latter for its quirky style.
Video game creators who develop games based on real-life sport realized at some point that they could sell games more if they included real-life players. That idea succeeded! But Nintendo Sports Series released before that time and as such the games don't represent a snapshot of what Soccer/Baseball/Volleyball teams were like back then.
Tennis is my favorite game of the bunch so I'll start with it. It's the simplest game too. You control one player against one opponent. You hit the ball to move it to your opponent's side of the field, and the opponent gets points if you couldn't return the ball and it reaches past you.
I don't play sports in real life, but I like this Tennis game for how simple it is. I'm someone who plays Pong which is basically a Tennis game.
Soccer is what you expect from Soccer game. Two teams of eleven players each try to shoot the game into the other team's goal. There isn't much to say about this game though I remember playing a game like it on my mother's MSX computer as a child. Not sure, it's a distant memory...
Volleyball plays like a mixture of Soccer and Volleyball, directional buttons move all five players at the same time, (so you're essentially controlling one character.) 'A' button controls the player who's the closest to the ball to try and hit it. Now I've got to mention that I like the animation used for jumping in this game.
Baseball... I admit I still don't know the rules of this sport as it's not played in my country. I know some of the basics though, I just don't understand how 'base' works or the win/lose conditions. Maybe I should research the game's rules sometime...
Anyway, the game has a more lively background compared to the games above and when you hit the ball the screen shows the field from afar, I like it.
Finally, Pro Wrestling is the most different game out of them. There are 5 different wrestlers, each with very different colors and some of them don't appear to be human. The goal is to hit your opponent very hard and then restrain him for 3 seconds, or throw him out of the ring and keep him from entering for 20 seconds.
The game is clunky and the limited move-set while all the characters are re-skins of each other. Pro Wrestling feels repetitive by the second fight. It's the most ambitious out of the bunch in my opinion, but if I'm gonna fight in the ring on NES I'll play Punch Out.
Fun fact: All the games above use the same sound effect for the spectators' cheers, I found that something worth mentioning.
Despite being fun, the games are very dated and repetitive. I don't think they're phenomenal even by the standards of the third gaming generation in the 1980s, but it's good that they were actually made for the console. Still, I won't choose any of them over a game based on the same sport that was released later, unless the other option is broken shovelware.
I'm glad that these games were re-released on NES classics. Doing this for older games preserves the history of gaming, and makes people appreciate how far we improved in simulating real-life sports into video games.
What do you think?
What are your thoughts on these old sports games? Do you agree that making real games using real-life players/teams was better? If you enjoyed reading this, you might like my other #NintendoClassics articles, (I'll write more if God wills.)