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Overly simplistic play and a general lack of much personality make this “sports” title a bit of an eShop benchwarmer
Sports games have certainly been one of the least-represented genres in the Switch’s eShop, so it is understandable that people may be tempted by just about anything that may show up. In the case of Volley Pals, unless your expectations for a quality experience are on the low side, you’ll likely want to keep holding out for something else though. It is clear that the focus here is on approachability, targeting local multiplayer as the key experience, though you have the option to add bots to fill things out as well. The issue is simply that mechanically there’s very little going on and not much nuance to things. You can move around and jump, making the ball bounce off your character to keep it in play, but that’s about it. No real provision for spiking or digging, you’re just trying to juggle the ball with your head, working to angle the bounce to go to the other side, in the hopes that they miss it or it takes them too many hits to send it back. To the developer’s credit, there is complexity added with the different locations you use, either adding in new elements like a fan, or variations on the rules, to change things up but it doesn’t elevate itself from just being a pretty simple (and not terribly satisfying) affair.
Justin Nation, Score:Fair [6.1]