Golf Story, released only about six months after the Nintendo Switch as an exclusive for the system, was an early indicator of the major success many indie titles would soon find on the Switch, something unprecedented for a Nintendo console. Now, a little more than two years later, developers Sidebar Games have announced a sequel as part of Nintendo's latest Indie World showcase. Titled Sports Story, the sequel will expand its focus from just golf to not only more sports but even some good old fashioned fantasy adventuring.
Unique to Golf Story was the integration of its golfing mechanic into a larger RPG framework. While actual games of golf are integral to progressing through its story, the moments in between those golf games require hitting and throwing golf balls in sometimes unconventional environments to complete quests and unlock secrets.
While Sports Story brings back the first game's golf mechanic, it's been expanded to encompass additional sports. In the new trailer, the player-controlled character swings a tennis racket, hits a volleyball, dribbles a soccer ball and even hits a soccer ball with a baseball bat into a soccer goal. From the looks of it, just like how golf wasn't always golf in Golf Story, gameplay for these additional sports seems to alternate between traditional and unconventional.
The player character is also shown traversing a crystal mine and a dark dungeon with a locked door guarded by large octopus tentacles. Golf Story included a spooky golf course with its fair share of ghouls and ghosts, but even from just this initial look, the sequel seems to expand its focus to multiple legitimate fantasy environments. Chances are, however, that defeating that giant octopus will involve some combination of different kinds of sports equipment.
Sports Story's plot involves something called the "decasportathon." A new logo for the sequel comprised of a mashup of a tennis ball, baseball, volley ball, soccer ball, golf ball and what appears to be a croquet ball should give some indication as to the tournament's contents. While no exact release date has been announced, Sports Story is expected to be released sometime in mid-2020.
Source: Nintendo