Ring Fit Adventure Review
When it comes to fitness and workouts in general, we always get to hear those words, “no pain, no gain”; if you take your gym visit seriously, and work out hard, you can expect to end up very sore the next day, sometimes a few, if you aren’t exactly the fit type.
I woke up with sore muscles this morning. Chest, shoulders, and back, all feeling the burn of a post-workout day.
But guess what I did the other day? I played video games. Or at least, that’s what it felt like at the time. Little did I know that playing Ring Fit Adventure was going to give me the kind of workout that had me blasting my pecs just like I did in the gym.
The last time I felt this sore was after hitting the gym hard one day. Before the lockdown hit, I was able to use the gym at my workplace to get in shape, and since 2020 was the year I started taking my health seriously, I made a serious attempt to make going to the gym a part of my weekly routine. Lifting weights is a lot more fun than running on a treadmill. In fact, you could argue that it may even burn more calories depending on how intense your workout is.
And everything changed when COVID-19 hit.
They sent us home with our computers to work from home, closed the workplace gym, and effectively changed the routine that I had gotten so used to for several months. Suddenly bereft of weights and dumbbells, I was no longer able to build my strength.
But I didn’t let that stop me from trying to stay on the path to healthy living. With the help of my girlfriend, I started walking more, making healthier choices when eating, and cooking my own food in place of eating out. Fast forward a few months, and I had eventually managed to drop about 20 lbs of last year’s Christmas weight so far.
But that was only one piece of the puzzle; as they also like to say in the fitness world, “health is gained in the gym, and weight is lost in the kitchen.” I have to admit that the lost weight wasn’t just more exercise; since we had been making changes in our eating habits, it made sense that the weight would go down.
The newest addition to our fitness endeavors has been Ring Fit Adventure. To celebrate 7 years of being together, my significant other and I had started playing this game, and I have to say, it is a lot of fun. While it is true that only one player can play at a time, it doesn’t stop us from working out together.
Ring Fit Adventure is a fitness game made by Nintendo. It came out last year, and is essentially the spiritual successor to Wii Fit, except better in so many ways.
Normally, when I come across games that are based around fitness, I’ve always been a little bit skeptical about the idea of getting fit by playing a video game. In the past, many of these games tend to fit into one of the following categories:
- They are based around a one single gameplay gimmick, which can get boring fast.
- They have loads of minigames that might not keep you as engaged as a real workout would.
- They have expensive accessories that cost an arm and a leg.
So, where does Ring Fit…. um, fit into this? They made it an RPG game.
If you have been on this website often, you may have clued in to the fact that roleplaying games are among my favorite genres. From open-world to JRPGs, I always enjoyed games where you can assume the role of a different person.
To be honest, I thought I was only going to be playing a game consisting of minigames, but I was pleasantly surprised when I found myself battling monsters with squats and presses.
Of the three points I made above, Ring Fit does not seem to fit into any of those categories; in fact, the game seems to subvert them all.
First off, the gimmick… DDR had a dance pad, so you could dance. Wii Fit had a balance board, which felt like working out on top of a glorified bathroom scale. Ring Fit Adventure makes use of a resistance band that looks and feels like the kind of exercise equipment you can find at your local sports store. It allows you to do loads of various workouts.
It is true that this game does have minigames, but they are actually quite engaging. In the adventure mode, you travel the game’s colorful world by jogging in place. As you travel, you will have to partake in various minigames interspersed throughout. Sometimes, you run into monsters which you must defeat using an assortment of exercises using the Ring Con controller. All of these intermingle in a way that gives you time to rest a body part while working out on another, yet keeping your heart rate up as you play.
Lastly, the cost. Not counting any of those price scalpers reselling the game online, it costs the same as a pair of joy con controllers. You could argue that you bought a new controller that just so happened to come with a game for free.
So far, I am really enjoying this game. By the time this post is done, I’m sure that I will be fully rested up and ready to hit the game once more. The question is, will this game get you fit? Only time will tell. Fitness is a journey, as they say. There are no quick and easy ways to live a healthier life, and since I only just started playing, it’s hard to answer that question until I’ve played further into the game. Perhaps I might be able to lose a few more pounds in time for the holidays?
I hope you enjoyed this rather short post. It feels more like a “First Impression” post rather than a complete review, so I might write more content on this game as I play.
Thank you for reading!
Ken