Nintendo Switch Sports: How to Farm Progression Points

When making a character for the first time in Nintendo Switch Sports, many were disappointed by the severe lack of customization options given to them. After all, the game is meant to be a successor to Wii Sports which had nearly endless cosmetic settings so being limited to a small handful of hairstyles and other cosmetic options was something of a letdown.

Luckily, players aren’t exclusively limited to the options available to them from the start of the game. You can actually unlock more cosmetics in Switch Sports by playing the game online with other people. The unfortunate part about unlocking things is that it’s slow and the cosmetics earned are something of a gamble. This has caused players to start looking for a way to farm progression points.

More Nintendo Switch Sports guides:

How to Play as a Mii | How to Unlock Cosmetics | How to Bowl With a Hook

How to Farm Cosmetic Points in Switch Sports

The tough thing about Switch Sports is that the ways of grinding out progression points aren’t amazing. They take work either way and can force players into playing games that they might not be entirely jazzed about. That said, there are two ways that I’d recommend if you’re looking to get a lot of points fast.

Grinding Progression Points Through Chambara

Chambara is the sword fighting mini-game in Switch Sports. It has two players stand atop a platform over water and fight it out with swords. This is a good game to grind progress points because matches are quick. If one person wins two rounds in a row, the entire game can be over in roughly two minutes. If it’s more of a back and forth, then it might take longer, but if you’re looking to earn some points quickly, you can purposely lose a few matches in a row.

If throwing a game isn’t your style, then you can just play as normal since the matches are pretty quick even if there’s some back and forth. Losing will net you 30 points per game but winning can get you closer to or above 40 depending on how you won.

Grinding Progression Points Through Offline Bowling

You can grind progression points by playing offline with any sport. All you’ll need is an account on your Switch not connected to a Nintendo Switch Online account and you’ll be able to play Switch Sports online in “Trial Mode.” This pits you against the game’s A.I. instead of real people and the A.I. couldn’t sports their way out of a soccer goal (that metaphor got away from me a bit.)

While doing any sport will quickly net you some points seeing as you’re likely to quickly win against the brain-dead bots, bowling can get you well over 100 points per game. As long as you’re able to win (which shouldn’t be too hard) you can easily get a progress level in a single match. The unfortunate part is that a bowling match lasts around 10 minutes which is time that you could have spent elsewhere getting a marginally larger amount of points. Anecdotally, I played one round and got 111 points in roughly 10 minutes so it’s not a terrible use of your time if you’re looking to practice your bowling skills against bots.

The major downside to playing in the Trial Mode is that you can’t use your points to unlock items from both cosmetic sets because one is exclusively available for Nintendo Switch Online account holders.