Sports Story Version 1.0.3 Is Now Available, Here Are The Full Patch Notes

Am in two minds whether to buy it full price after this patch or wait a few months for a sale price. Sad even having to say this for a Golf Story sequel 😢

I see the issue was not the game but how the dev try to rush and cram every sports idea they could into the game thus instead offering us one in-deph sports story to enjoy they offer multiple half-baked ones. Instead of Sports Story which focus too much on too many things at once they should focus on just one sports per game at a time like say soccer maybe and call it Soccer Story and then next one after that should be Tennis Story then Bowling Story then Badmington Story, then Boxing Story and then when they got all sports completely polish then they could make one huge RPG that tie those all together. Rushing it and doing it now just made it feel lackluster.

@somnambulance couldn't have said it better myself. For me, I tried finishing it, but a game breaking bug has stopped me from doing so. Can't progress in the water dungeon any further unfortunately.

Oh man… the original Game Dev Story on my iPhone 3GS lol.. have come a long way with the genre.. I picked this up, after reading some positive reviews on steam, but am disappointed. Not sure what I expected, having not played Golf Story (or any of their others, if any), but rpg-“ish”, maybe not enough? Not sure where the disconnect is there (to be fair, I stopped playing after the first hour or so lol..), and perhaps I haven’t seen all the mechanics/what this game has to offer.. but I wasn’t feeling it. Feeling “fetchy” in nature, and perhaps an afterthought, trying to use filler to plug holes in a sinking boat. Like others have said - the dialogue is decent (a little too “cheery” for my tastes), but I can recognize talented writing/full-hearted effort. I didn’t have performance issues much (playing docked, saved to internal storage), except a few boundary collision problems. Nothing game breaking.
With everything said, knowing what I know now, full price? Not for me. Sale, 50% off? Maybe.. but watch/read some reviews first, more than just thumbs ups

@WizardJ Sports Story and Golf Story are both unrelated to Game Dev Story. Different devs and different genre. Besides similarities in the names, they don't have much in common. Game Dev Story is made by Kairosoft, pretty much all of their games would fall under the simulation genre.

Some of these seem like workarounds rather than fixes, as if they don't know what part of their code caused the bug. Same result i guess but almost seems like they're rushing the patches like they rushed the game.

Catching bees, not enough bees enter the hive so just wait enough time and you pass the challenge anyways, instead of making sure enough bees spawn so you can complete it properly.

Looting the clue through a fence, instead of not allowing that and fixing the bounds they just make the clue reappear when you need it/ get to that point.

Just an observation i guess.

@Sidon_ZoraPrince I felt the same way reading this article, obviously I have zero idea how these things work, but your description of a workaround rather than a fix seems accurate to me.

@somnambulance Nice comment, think you've summed up a lot of people's feelings there.

Very, very disappointed with how many bugs this game contains. The stupid release date already had me suspicious this was a rush job for the calendar year, and what a surprise to experience 5 game resetting bugs and 3 crashes in my first 5 hours of play.

This game hasn't been tested properly and it shows. The game is otherwise great, but why did they rush this out the door instead of completing QA properly?

To be clear, these are not crazy "who would do that" scenario bugs... these are bugs that you cannot avoid that make you have to reset the game.

It's so poor.

Those patch notes are embarrassing... there's so many bugs there that would have been spotted if the dev only played the game...?! I experienced more than half of those and the game is close to unplayable in terms of fearing another game blocking bug.

Releasing a game you clearly have not tested is a scummy practice. I'll be seriously considering avoiding their future releases - if they even manage to do another game after this showing. I hope they come out with an explanation. A few bugs here and there is one thing, but this amount is an absolute joke and renders the game unplayable.

The short sighted nature of securing money in 2022 versus releasing a broken game speaks volumes. It should have been held back to late January - much better release date for people actually buying the game, and would have given them a few weeks to... actually play the game and at least eliminate the glaringly obvious bugs.

Lots of potential in the game, I’ve enjoyed it when it’s worked BUT there are big problems here. Not just bugs but it’s as if this game wasn’t ever play tested at all by anyone, things don’t thread together in the story. You can get stuck easily at certain points one just not having enough money to buy a key item, with no way to farm more. The tennis section makes no sense where is the tour? Where do you play the lumberjack? I’m actually really annoyed that the developers put it out in this state, it’s not acceptable. Golf Story is an indie masterpiece, this could have been that but it’s a total mess.

Massively inexperienced developer.

Golf Story was decent, but that was after some time, and certainly some lighter critique because they are an "indie" that got a pass for a basic game. But Golf Story was a one-trick pony anyway. I'd imagine this is not a good sing for the future of the team or their products.

Sports Story will remain a hard pass for me at any price, my time is more valueable then their game even at a deep sale price which is bound to happen.

I still feel like there must have been a contractual reason for them getting this out in 2022. The way Nintendo has been promoting Golf Story, announced Sports Story way back in an Indie Showcase and then built this weird advent calendar mechanic around the launch of Sports Story makes me suspect that the Sports Story devs were potentially backed into a corner on this releasing in 2022.

It clearly needed a few more months in the oven, predominantly for testing and QA.

I'd love to hear from the developer on this.

This is the second game from the holidays that comes out full of bugs. I wonder if developers will learn a lesson from all this, or we'll get another game like this.

@somnambulance not sure it's even cracking a list for me at all, actually. Golf story was an easy 9/10, and a top 5ish indie for me on the system. Its just not as fun, unfortunately. The very first time I started having fun was in this water dungeon where the game broke on me! Lol, such a shame.

I'm chalking this game up to the Hype Machine. I bought it, hit no bugs, enjoyed it maybe not as much as Golf Story so far (time will tell) but none the less. I think most people complaining haven't actually played it but can't avoid that main character syndrome of chirping in on something they know nothing about except general consensus.

Honestly, all the discourse about this game renewed my interest in Golf Story, and I managed to secure a physical copy from Limited Run's sale yesterday

@Goofonzo You don't get this much smoke without fire, and the patch notes in the article above make it pretty clear that the game is not only full of bugs, but has a whole load of things that would have been picked up by an intern who actually played the game prior to release.

I'm now 7 hours into the game - some of the bugs.

The gong in the library of Tennis Building. Did you smash it again AFTER the first time, when on detention picking up books? I did, and the game played out a broken cut scene (from the first time you do the gong) and then crashed. Reboot.

Tried updating your license at the Mall when you don't have the required number of punch cards? The computer counts out the punch cards you have and then you get frozen out of the game. Reboot.

Tried playing the football challenge in the Mines? The Blue and Yellow balls disappear at random leaving you too few to complete the challenge. I had to go through the goal, find the ball i just scored with, bring it back through the back of thr goal and recycle the same ball multiple times to complete it - which itself is a bug!

Every tennis match has an annoying loading hiccup between every single point.

Every tennis match has no mention of how many games you are playing.

That first game of Volleyball on the Beach early in the game... How many points ate you playing to progress? It doesn't tell you. You just carryc on not knowing if it's even right or not!

Trudging around the gardens of the Tennis Academy looking for the right coloured court to continue. Crash. Reboot. Brilliant.

That's just off the top of my head!

The game is an absolute mess.

What a shame. One of my biggest disappointments of the year.

@nocdaes I never encountered any of those issues. I know they are patching stuff to address things people have run into (very few of the things you mention) but the game hasn't crashed on me and no reboots. Maybe some hiccup here and there. But I've just been following the story and doing the stuff with zero crashes or anything like that.

@somnambulance let me know how the end shapes up since I wasn't able to find out for myself 😅

Hopefully all the patches will be on the physical which will come out in the summer (Believe it and it will happen 😅)

The patch is welcome, but this game is a dreadful mess.

1. The patch addresses some bugs, but there are literally dozens more. These are bugs you will definitely run into. They are not freak occurances. They're everywhere.

2. The game has not been tested at all. This is clear from the types of bugs that are being discovered.

3. The game is clearly not finished! I just finished it and I'm left scratching my head as to how the ending makes any sense at all?! They've cut this game short.

• why can't I upgrade any of my sport equipment?
  Basic Tennis Racket and that's it?!
• where are the tournaments for the sports?
  I haven't played a full set of tennis in the entire game! Literally just a single game match to progress the story!
• I haven't played a single game of "Soccer" or Baseball. Just some mini challenges sporadically.
• How many golf courses in the game? Hardly any!!
• World Map exploration is mentioned when you board the Pirate Ship but NOPE that's clearly been cut too.

Skip this game. It's a mess. It's incomplete. Developer shouldn't have been bullied into releasing it and should have taken more time.

The game has some solid foundations. They could have done a good job with this. It needed another year, minimum.

This isn't patchable. The game will still be woefully incomplete even if they do manage to eliminate all the bugs. But guess what... they won't be able to because a lot of these bugs are clearly there because the game is incomplete !!

TBH even if all the bugs are patched this is a wait for a deep sale for me because the actual gameplay sounds like it's taken a step back from the first game.

Loved Golf Story but I won't be going near this game even on a huge sale. I will also be avoiding this developer from now on. The fact they they released the game in this state tells me they don't care about their customers. So why should I care about them.

@OorWullie
might be a little dramatic for someone who didn't even spend money on the game.

edit - I mean you are probably not wrong. I wouldn't mind having my 15 bucks back but I'm not going nuclear over it.

There's a lot to like in the game. The music, most of the writing, some of the gameplay mechanics, loads of little Easter eggs and the characters are all really nice (although the characyer you play is a bit boring!)

However, I cannot overstate the simple fact that this game is absolutely incomplete. It is not a few nuisance bugs here and there. The game has been released for general sale incomplete, content clearly cut and not tested.

They've not rushed it. They've not missed a few things. They've not lacked polish. It is an incomplete game. It is a buggy mess. It has not been tested.

Based on what they've released and the amount of time it's been in development - factoring in Covid impact - I'd say this game is comfortably 6-12 months away from being where we all expected it to be I.e. Golf Story level of awesomeness multiplied by 4 or 5 sports to that same depth and amusement.

And I'm being generous here. The tennis is OK. But there's no equipment. No tournaments or cups. There's no tennis match in this game currently where you play a set of tennis let alone a full match. You hit the ball in 4 different styles, but you cannot direct the shot other than when you serve.

There's no "Soccer" in this game. The goal on the world map by Britannia Station doesn't feature in the game. There's an NPC in the mines that says "wish there was a football pitch". You're not alone mate!! Perhaps another nod to the fact the writing in the game is actually rather good, and they're clearly taking the mick a little there!

You see the hang glider on the loading screen? Nope. That's not in the game!

I completed the game today having... not played a single match of "soccer". Only playing 1 game of tennis maximum against 3 opponents total. Playing 4 x 9 hole golf courses and 3 x mini golf courses. I did about an hour of fishing - but all to progress story, there's no other mechanic here. No secret fish. No levelling up. Nothing. I have a baseball bat - but there's no baseball. I can't even hit people with it...! I mean, just wow. This is just the worst!

No exaggeration. The game is a massive, massive let down. The worst I have experienced in recent memory! Up there with FF13 levels of let down !!

@-wc- I've read and watched enough about the game to tell me all I need to know. For me, it's completely unacceptable to release a game in this state. Minor bugs, glitches, framerate hiccups I can handle, it's part and parcel of gaming.but by most accounts, this was released as a broken product and the publisher will have known it.

For them to shadow drop their broken game right before Xmas, knowing that many will instantly buy it in good faith and reviews wouldn't arrive for a few days...to me, that's a real scummy move.

If I had bought it on release day, which I was close to doing, I would have felt like I'd been ripped off and few things make me angrier than being ripped off.

I guess ill fire it up to see if my game breaking bug is now fixed (magically). Not expecting it, but its worth a shot. If not, I might just call nintendo and ask for a refund.

@OorWullie I think this is a fair comment. The release date is very strange. Not only does it delay reviews, but it also delays the patch they obviously knew they need (although I stand by my comment that no amount of patching will save an incomplete game).

It could be them being scummy... but then, why did Nintendo create this Indie advent calendar mechanic and allow Sports Story to be the star attraction? Nintendo must be held accountable here too. They too surely knew the game wasn't ready. They continued to give it a (by indie game standards) big promotion.

Strange decision.

I want a refund. First time I'm going to seek one. Ever. On any console. In over 30 years!

I ended up requesting a refund and got it. Where are the articles about that?

@OorWullie

totally.
I bought it on day on in good faith, believe me that's the last time for me, with this dev 😐

Doesn’t look like it fixes the game being bad and rushed even though it was apparently worked on for 5 years.

I put 13 hours into it and decided yesterday to quit. The bugs are ridiculous. But even discounting the bugs I don’t think this game is very good. Too many fetch quests, not enough direction, no map, and very little of my time was spent playing sports. And when I did it often didn’t seem to matter whether I did great or poor.

@IronMan30 I've never requested a refund before. Can it be submitted on the Switch itself or do you need to call a phone number?

I bought this on launch day but haven't started it thanks to the comments about it. I guess I'll wait for another patch or two before I give it a go. It was my most anticipated game of last year... :

Didn't think I'd be saying this.. but I won't be buying this, and I was looking forward to it too. The stealth release was fortunate as I missed it and was able to read about the issues in time. If it had a firm date I'd have bought it day 1 like a pratt.

Maybe they should do like Cyberpunk 2077 and pull the game and fix it up. Then release it when complete/fixed so players who bought it get the update free and those who didn’t buy it get a chance to buy a game in a finished state.

@SuperFANicom The game is littered with loads of nods towards what could have been. The ending shows signs of a considerable amount of content that has been cut from the game too. So yes, I think they could salvage it by taking some more time. Perhaps they needed the extra money from these early sales in order to complete it?

Who knows. The game looks like about 1 year of work - considering Golf Story has clearly provided a template. Yet they've spent anywhere between 3 and 5 years (Covid impact is hard to judge). No idea what has gone so wrong, but something clearly has.

I'm still convinced they released it because they had to. Maybe they were exhausted and couldn't do what they set out to at the beginning? Or perhaps they ran out of cash and couldn't afford to breach whatever contract they clearly have in place with Nintendo. Either way, they have well and truly destroyed this game.

Anyone reading this thinking it's an exaggeration. I encourage you to buy it. As I've said previously, there's plenty to love about this game, but you'll very quickly see exactly what everyone is complaining about and will reach the same conclusion that the game has most certainly not gone through any sort of testing, has had large chunks of content either removed or never completed, and is an incomplete game that should still be in development for a solid 6-12 months, at least.

So disappointing!

@jimbob298 you have to contact Nintendo support. You can text them about it (I did) and they might give you one. I have never requested one before so that may have helped my case.

I bought it using $12 worth of Nintendo Gold coins. I'll wait until the next patch before jumping in.

mm, now crashed after the patch in the punching machine, where some people crashed before the patch... (I got stuck before the patch but managed to get out..)