I've been obsessed with retro game remakes lately, and so far I've focused exclusively on the Big Two – Mario and Sonic. But this remake of Wii Sports Resort has surprised me with how impressive I found it – it's not a game I ever would have considered for a glow up, but the dev has done a remarkable job in adding, as he puts it, "killer graphics" and hurtling it into a new realm of immersion.
Using Blender, YouTuber JimBoat recreated three sports scenes, Swordplay, Table Tennis and Air Sports. The below video takes you through the process, showing you how he remodelled game elements including environment, props and characters through custom animations. This would be a lot of fun to play, and makes me wish we had a new version of the Wii to leap around the room with. See the video then check out the best animation software so you can make your own.
Full of handy tips for using Blender yourself (for more see our Blender tutorials), JimBoat actually shows you how he made his recreation, rather than just sharing the final output. You can see how he remodels details like the hotel, new clothes for the characters and how he makes the flags wave in the wind. Though JimBoat has upgraded large parts of the game, I love how he has kept fun signifiers of the game, like how the characters bob up and down in such a charming way when they're waiting for action.
It's interesting to learn about the challenges JimBoat faced, such as how to animate the characters in the table tennis scene. As he says, they move around so much that it was a puzzle to figure out how best to tackle this element – and he shares that this is why the video took so long to put together. JimBoat eventually decided to "first animate the individual [body] parts", and he shows us exactly how he worked on the racket swings and rotations.
The reception is overwhelmingly positive in the comments section, with one commentor saying "these videos deserve WAYYYYY more than 100k views" and "Thank you for bringing back wonderful memories of the game! You’re awesome! :) could you do bowling, cycling, and basketball?". Another commentor says they wish this could be what Switch 2 Sports would look like.
JimBoat's YouTube is full of fun remake projects, including a brilliant MarioKart remaster I may well return to for another article. He says he is "on a mission to recreate games with realistic graphics" and I thoroughly recommend checking his channel out now.
