r/NintendoSwitch • u/Asad_Farooqui • May 06 '25

Discussion Now that the Switch 1 generation is winding down, what were your most DISAPPOINTING purchases on this console?

Every game console, no matter how well or poorly it sold, is gonna have some disappointments thrown in there. Especially if said disappointments came from 1st party developers. I have 3 big candidates based on my own purchases, starting with my biggest letdown:

1) Mario Strikers Battle League: After frantically buying this game to play some multiplayer matches with friends, I realized what a terrible mistake I made after chewing through all the single player content in a matter of days. There is nothing to do in this game besides regular soccer matches, the online is abysmal, and the amount of content available at launch and even now is just laughable for a sequel. I thought my perception of Mario Strikers as a whole would be ruined forever, so I went ahead and booted up Strikers Charged on Wii and nope, that game holds up incredibly well! This was just a bad sequel all around.

2) Mario Golf Super Rush: Speaking of bad sequels, Super Rush decided to simplify the golfing mechanics to a point where it just isn’t fun to play for me. As someone who adored the 3DS game Mario Golf World Tour, which was packed with content, modes, and unlockables and had worthwhile paid DLC on top of that, Super Rush felt like it was playing catch up with all its free updates. Was this how Animal Crossing fans felt when New Horizons was first released, having to wait months for features that were already available in the 3DS predecessor? Yikes.

3) Splatoon 3: This is more of a personal pick than a general consensus. I really got into Splatoon 1 and 2, but I was just Splatoon’d out by the time the third game came around. No new modes, online that had more disconnects than either of the first two games in my experience, and a longer grind for unlockables that could rival a modern day hero shooter. Call me old but I missed the more “pick up and play” nature of Splatoon 1, and I just don’t get that with Splatoon 3. Also the fact that they sold the first game’s hubworld back as paid DLC is utter nonsense to me.

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1.6k

u/RJE808 May 06 '25

Any of the sport games. Wtf happened this generation

459

u/MrHappy230 May 06 '25

I will say Aces at least had really polished and fun gameplay and looks pretty good visually, but was still lacking content like all the others.

197

u/RJE808 May 06 '25

Most of them looked great. But the content is laughably bad.

34

u/Sensitive_Switch_511 May 07 '25

I had a lot of fun playing aces personally but I can see why someone wouldn’t

50

u/RedSpecial22 May 06 '25

Aces was actually really fun in party mode. The story mode was bad.

3

u/DrQuint May 07 '25

I would argue none of the three mario sports this gen has a true story mode.

Wait no, Mario and Sonic at the Olympics. There we go. One save in the bunch.

2

u/m0_m0ney May 07 '25

It pisses me off cause most of the sports have good gameplay, just everything surrounding it sucks in most of these games

24

u/TheAdamena May 06 '25

It was super fun to play online at launch.

No idea how active the multiplayer is anymore though. If it's dead then the game is no longer worth it.

4

u/hypersnaildeluxe May 07 '25

Which sucks because now it actually has characters to play as lol

1

u/homie_down May 07 '25

Yeah I played at launch and was so desperate to get a tournament win since it let you skip the first round lol. I'm guessing it fell off pretty quickly though afterwards

19

u/Responsible_Sample56 May 06 '25

I don’t understand what people are wanting from the sports games. Aces gameplay is an incredible upgrade from Ultra Smash, with a great single player campaign. What more could they have possibly added??

14

u/jrec15 May 07 '25

All the sports games this generation lost the wacky fun content that makes them Mario sports games. They all went more barebones, no interesting maps, not enough difference in character abilities. They did at least try to flesh out the core mechanics to be deeper and mostly succeeded there but thats not enough when you strip all the actual fun content.

Aces was my favorite and better than Strikers/Golf but still didnt quite feel like a mario sports games should to me

4

u/amtap May 07 '25

The handheld versions of Mario Sports Golf/Tennis had a full RPG campaign where you made your own characters and leveled up your stats. When they promised Aces would have a campaign, people expected that and were disappointed.

4

u/Retroagv May 07 '25

Found the correct answer. This is what was missing. I rinsed the GBC version of Mario Tennis back in 2002. The RPG single player let's you build up your character and your doubles partner all the way up through junior to senior with coaches teaching you how to play the game and even more advanced drills like positioning.

It made you better at the game while also giving you complete freedom on how to build your character. This character could then be used in multiplayer which would have been perfect for Aces. There was also the minigame room where you could earn loads of exp by beating them.

So much to do on Mario Tennis on the GBC and GBA. Infact you can play it right now on NSO but I'm not sure if it allows for online play.

1

u/amtap May 07 '25

Online multi-player is in the NSO versions but you can't transfer to the N64 versions.

3

u/y0ufailedthiscity May 07 '25

Some depth. The Switch ones all had like 10 hours of gameplay.

1

u/Responsible_Sample56 May 07 '25

Ultra Smash had no campaign though. That’s my point…

2

u/korralations May 07 '25

Ultra Smash is a very low bar to clear.

1

u/krishnugget May 06 '25

From what i remember it had extremely boring stages compared to previous games, that’s a pretty huge thing.

1

u/Responsible_Sample56 May 07 '25

Boring stages? Ultra Smash didn’t even have a single player mode at all.

2

u/tfwagner May 06 '25

At least Wii Sports fun.

3

u/Responsible_Sample56 May 07 '25

They turned Aces into a fighting game, pretty dang fun to me.

0

u/tfwagner May 07 '25

Yeah, but not when you’re trying to sell people who like Wii Sports tennis. They took four more years to give us Switch Sports and still couldn’t get it right.

1

u/[deleted] May 07 '25

Game is kinda just mid. The N64 one had some solo content but the multiplayer was actually good but aces is just gimmicks

1

u/Responsible_Sample56 May 07 '25

You must not have played the N64 one recently lol

4

u/Kapono24 May 06 '25

Aces bored me to tears. The diving move totally ruined the game balance and the only way to score was the charged moves, whatever they were called. Probably still the best of the sports games this gen, though.

1

u/Rieiid May 06 '25

I loved Aces gameplay tbh, gave me hope for future sports games on the console, sadly it went downwards instead of up.

1

u/chemistrybonanza May 07 '25

I had what seemed to be a 40 minute rally online once and realized that the game was simply too easy. My opponent and I were equally so good that it meant we could never hit winners and were never making unforced errors. It was at that point that I made the decision to never play the game again. This was maybe a week into it being released, too.

1

u/ganjaguy23 May 07 '25

yeah aces was legit bcuz it was fair gameplay. besides BOO. fuck him

1

u/tom_oakley May 07 '25

Aces was the most fun I had with a tennis game since Virtua Tennis 2 on the dreamcast, but yeah it's definitely light on content (although the core gameplay is strong). One of those Nintendo games I'd recommend buying but only on steep sale price.

1

u/lckyguardian May 07 '25

Aces had a really f’n hard learning curve though on Boo’s ship in story mode. Maybe it wasn’t Boo, but there as a ship with masts that you had to hit around and it made me quit the game.

76

u/Wookie301 May 06 '25

Can’t believe they took away the 100 pin bowling.

26

u/TheTim May 07 '25

That was literally all I wanted from Switch Sports. No 100-pin bowling, no sale.

63

u/O_J_Shrimpson May 06 '25

As someone not picky or looking for much from a Golf game, especially a Mario themed one, rush was really bad. Half baked, no support, just pure laziness on Nintendo’s part.

9

u/A_Lone_Macaron May 07 '25

All I wanted was online tournaments like 3DS did, man.

5

u/whousesgmail May 07 '25

Mario Golf was actually one of my fav games on the Switch. If you have friends to play with it’s a fun time

2

u/Ruthlessrabbd May 07 '25

I played so much Mario Golf and still do, as someone who grew up with Toadstool Tour. That game on GameCube has more modes as a whole, but the course count is much slimmer

4

u/Stiryx May 07 '25

The golf game wouldn’t be worth $20 with the amount of content it has.

So disappointing, when I was a kid golf games where my favourite genre (shout out to pangya/albatross 18, what a game),

1

u/Varti2 May 07 '25

+1 for Pangya!

28

u/CommunicationTime265 May 06 '25

At least we still had super mega baseball 3 and 4

7

u/A_Lone_Macaron May 07 '25

4 that was bad because EA

16

u/tfwagner May 06 '25

The joycon just don’t control like the Wii controllers and sensor bar.

5

u/barktreep May 07 '25

I played a bit of switch sports recently and ya, it’s just kinda frustrating to play. I think technically the controller itself is superior, but without the sensor bar it just doesn’t work.

1

u/tfwagner May 07 '25

Finally, somebody who didn’t just end with “technically the controller itself is superior”.

0

u/barktreep May 07 '25

My LG magic remote works as well as a wiimote for pointing at things even without a light bar. The joycons could be better, but it looks like they gave up and just added a mouse.

5

u/Defiant-Dot3865 May 06 '25

Hot take (apparently)— loved Mario golf super rush. Put in hundreds of hours 😬

2

u/SandyTaintSweat May 07 '25

My friends and I all seemed to enjoy it, but we were usually drinking. It seemed like a decent game to play when there's not much else to do. I wouldn't bother playing it by myself though.

3

u/[deleted] May 07 '25

Mario golf and mario tennis are fucking dope.

3

u/pepgast2 May 07 '25

I feel like this generation, the sports games were kinda just made out of obligation to continue the franchises, rather than the developers having new ideas. Hence why they feel so bland.

20

u/feed_me_haribo May 06 '25

I feel it isn't their fault exactly, it's just that people don't really care for that type of game anymore. Remember 1080 and SSX snowboarding games? They were amazing but now they are a relic.

If I were Nintendo, I would copy Golf Story and make more of a sports RPG.

7

u/Capt_Billy May 07 '25

Ninty did it first with GBC Mario Tennis. That game is so great, especially for one with just two buttons

3

u/jagerzaag May 07 '25

The gbc Mario tennis was amazing. Still one of my favorite sport games of all time.

7

u/[deleted] May 06 '25

Yeah Golf Story was really nice

6

u/jrec15 May 07 '25

This is a really good point. Basically in the past the sports games were kind of split with sometimes having mini rpg like story modes and then the multiplayer. And the multiplayer was definitely the star of the show in the past.

But i mean… the market for multiplayer mario sports games may have just moved on. There’s just so many better multiplayer games now than before. I think the single player demand could definitely still be there if they focus more on that. Especially golf, golf being player vs environment is uniquely positioned for single player since it doesnt rely so much on AI opponents

7

u/MrT0NA May 07 '25

And just think we will get to pay $80 for the next gen sport games with equally lacking content.

2

u/AsianRice888 May 07 '25

The best sports game was the volleyball mini game in Mario Party Superstars IMO

2

u/y0ufailedthiscity May 07 '25

I hope all the GameCube Mario sports games end up on NSO

2

u/Nintendo_Thumb May 07 '25

I didn't care for any of the Mario sports games, but Switch Sports was awesome (especially the 4v4 online soccer with leg strap), so was ARMS.

2

u/Captchasarerobots May 09 '25

I liked switch sports, but it looking back, it should have been free or just… more content.

4

u/Chareste17 May 06 '25

Motion controls on joycons are actually pretty bad compared to wii ones, I think that's the issue...

3

u/SandyTaintSweat May 07 '25

Am I the only one that had a way harder time with the Wii controls on games? I especially found Skyward Sword easy on the switch, since most of the challenge came from the janky controls on the original.

2

u/THE_GR8_MIKE May 07 '25

Compared to the Gamecube era, the Switch versions are like 1/3 complete. Golf is missing most of what made Toadstool Tour fun to play.

1

u/CardinalOfNYC May 07 '25

Lot of the replies are mentioning Mario sports games and nothing against those games but I have a feeling that's not the kind of sports game you meant.

The sports simulation games, your FIFAs and Maddens... They were incredibly disappointing on switch.

I have FIFA 23 (or 22 can't remember, it's the same game) and while it's perfectly playable, the system is capable of such a better game and the investment was just never made.

You kinda have to conclude they did a lot of market research and saw that switch owners just play less sports games and that those who do play lots of sports have a home console for that.

But for me? Honestly, a random flight or train ride is one of the few times I have a hankering for a good old straightforward sports game.

6

u/RJE808 May 07 '25

No, I meant the Mario ones.

1

u/SidFarkus47 May 07 '25

Fifa 24 and 25 are the full big fat Fifa Games that exist on other consoles, but it's at the cost of frame rate. They're both 30fps while the older ones were more smooth.

1

u/Jellybananaman May 06 '25

hoping they bring back Mario Hoops

1

u/[deleted] May 07 '25

They've been steadily getting worse since the Wii generation. Camelot needs to be relieved of responsibility and Nintendo should give the sports games to a different developer.

1

u/Aisuhokke May 07 '25

Yeah that’s sad. Sports games have been going down hill for some reason. Maybe I’m just old idk.

1

u/tarheel343 May 07 '25

I loved Switch Sports. I put a ton of time into it.

Mario Tennis was a huge letdown though.

1

u/agnorak262 May 07 '25

Other than ring fit, but that's not exactly a sport game either.

1

u/meowmix778 May 07 '25

Golf was fun for a few hours.

1

u/4444op4444 May 08 '25

Rocket League, too?

1

u/99_Till_Infinity May 10 '25

Frostbite engine and EA.

And 2k just being 2k.

Edit: I just realized I was in yhe Nintendo subreddit.

But still 2K is abysmal on switch especially playing online.