Sports Story review – all the charm of a forgotten SNES classic

Nintendo Switch; Sidebar Games
The long-awaited follow-up to Golf Story is rough but characterful, with plenty of retro warmth

Like developer Sidebar's 2017 cult triumph Golf Story, Sport Story feels like an exceptional title from the Super Nintendo era. You're holidaying on a bright, retro-flavoured, pixelated island with your golf coach and friends. The aesthetic isn't far from a handheld Pokemon or Zelda, immediately inviting and comfortable to play around in.

In this colourful, clever RPG, rather than using swords and sorcery to forge our way through a fantasy world, we play in resort towns populated by athletes who can teach us new sports - tennis, BMX, cricket, football. There are, of course, also malign forces at work: a menacing corporation buying up local greenways, and a sort of athletic mafia that hampers the player's journey. What begins as a relaxing vacation with sunny beaches and glitzy malls soon takes us into dark silver mines full of puzzles to solve and citizens to help.

Sports Story is out now; 12.80