{"id":35664,"date":"2018-07-26T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-07-26T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/reviews\/nintendo-switch\/go_vacation"},"modified":"2018-07-26T13:00:00","modified_gmt":"2018-07-26T13:00:00","slug":"review-go-vacation-switch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2018\/07\/26\/review-go-vacation-switch\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Go Vacation (Switch)"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/reviews\/nintendo-switch\/go_vacation\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/reviews\/nintendo-switch\/go_vacation\/small.jpg\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n<div id=\"\">\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Go Vacation Review - Screenshot 1 of 4\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/91390\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/91390\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Go Vacation Review - Screenshot 1 of 4\" \/><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>Everything from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/nintendo-switch\/go_vacation\"><strong>Go Vacation<\/strong><\/a>\u2019s appearance, style, gameplay, and pure existence hark back to those strangely repetitive days of the Wii, where everyone and their cat was releasing a party-type sports game for Nintendo\u2019s remote-waggling sensation. There\u2019s good reason for that, too, as the game is an HD port of the original <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/wii\/go_vacation\"><strong>Go Vacation<\/strong><\/a> from that very system, bringing both the good and bad points from that release to a brand new audience in 2018.<\/p>\n<p>When we say that Go Vacation still has the appearance of a Wii game, we <em>really<\/em> mean it; while there\u2019s been a bit of a touch up to suit the resolution requirements of modern displays, the character models, fuzzy edges, and use of overly-excited Mii characters made us question whether or not we\u2019d accidentally stumbled into a wormhole and been transported back in time. There\u2019s a cheery summer vibe present throughout the game, as you\u2019d expect from a holiday resort, but its slightly out-dated look will likely leave you feeling a little cold.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Go Vacation Review - Screenshot 2 of 4\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/91400\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/91400\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Go Vacation Review - Screenshot 2 of 4\" \/><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>The game itself is a bit of a mixed bag, too. There are four main areas with different themes\u00a0\u2013 Marine, City, Snow, and Mountain \u2013 and each one contains a generous supply of sporty minigames to enjoy either alone\u00a0or with up to three friends. Your typical sports are there, such as tennis, racing, and baseball, but there are also a few slightly out-there options like water gun fights, pie throwing, and a glass harp game where you make music by rubbing drinking glasses.<\/p>\n<p>To give credit where credit\u2019s due, with over 50 different activities to choose from, Bandai Namco has ensured that there\u2019ll <em>definitely<\/em> be something for everyone here; even four hours into the game we still hadn\u2019t tried out every single activity. Unfortunately, though, this was more to do with the game\u2019s pacing than the number of activities on offer, as Go Vacation forces you to explore all four areas to manually find each individual sport before you can choose them from a menu. Expect to spend your first handful of hours trekking back and forth over and over again as you desperately try to find that air hockey game you wanted to play the first moment you loaded up Go Vacation.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Go Vacation Review - Screenshot 3 of 4\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/91391\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/91391\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Go Vacation Review - Screenshot 3 of 4\" \/><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>The activities themselves turn out to be the biggest let-down, however, with each one feeling like an undercooked version of things we\u2019ve seen countless times before. Most games can be played with either a single button\u00a0or very close to it, aiming to prioritise simplicity over depth for accessibility\u2019s sake. While this is a nice idea on paper, it simply results in a set of games that get rather dull all too quickly, lacking the control and excitement you\u2019d expect and hope for.<\/p>\n<p>You can choose to play the games with either standard controls (using button presses and sticks) or motion controls for that full Wii experience, but we found ourselves sticking with the standard setup for the most part. Being on Switch, this port ditches the faff of dragging out the Wii\u2019s many accessory add-ons like Nunchuks and the Balance Board, and the HD Rumble feels great in places, but the motion never feels as precise as what we tend to experience in first-party titles, noticeably causing errors that simply aren\u2019t an issue when playing with buttons.<\/p>\n<p>Despite criticising it just moments ago, we must say that the exploration of the four areas eventually becomes the game\u2019s saving grace, to an extent. At first, endlessly running back and forth feels like a drag, but once you\u2019ve unlocked all of the games you can start to truly take in the world that Go Vacation presents \u2013 and there\u2019s an awful lot to do.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Go Vacation Review - Screenshot 4 of 4\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/91403\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/91403\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Go Vacation Review - Screenshot 4 of 4\" \/><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>Each area has hidden secrets to find, animals to photograph for your collection, people to speak to, and areas to earn extra experience points that can work towards levelling up your character. This, in turn, presents you with cosmetic rewards such as different clothing styles for your Mii, or even keys that can be used to unlock furniture for your own little villa that can be accessorised <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/3ds\/animal_crossing_new_leaf\"><strong>Animal Crossing<\/strong><\/a>-style.<\/p>\n<p>Each loading screen has the chance of giving you a new hint, too, which can give you a helping hand in locating one of each area\u2019s secrets. Once you decide on a location to explore, you can set off on all manner of vehicles like ATKs, horseback, surfboards, skateboards, and more to get around, doing little tricks for extra points along the way.<\/p>\n<p>The world itself feels quite ambitious, and definitely provides much more in the way of extra content than the majority of sport-based minigame titles, but the main activities don\u2019t do enough to support this. It\u2019s quite sad really, as the main selling point of this game is its weakest feature; if the minigames lived up to the standards set by the exploration and customisation options we would have had a great little multiplayer party game on our hands.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"conclusion\">\n<h2 class=\"heading\">Conclusion<\/h2>\n<p>Go Vacation presents a world full of games and activities that feel consistently average, with common flaws across the board making each game similarly dull, tiresome, and not worth the asking price. The game\u2019s setting itself provides a welcome break from this, though, with an impressive amount of things to see and do at your own leisure injecting a much-needed dose of fun into the proceedings. Strangely, this is a multiplayer sports game that probably suits those looking for decent single-player exploration the most.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Everything from Go Vacation\u2019s appearance, style, gameplay, and pure existence hark back to those strangely repetitive days of the Wii, where everyone and their cat was releasing a party-type sports game for Nintendo\u2019s remote-waggling sensation. There\u2019s good reason for that, too, as the game is an HD port of the original Go Vacation from that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nintendo-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35664\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}