Ring Fit Adventure – virtual jogging is so much more convenient (Nintendo)
GameCentral recommends Ring Fit Adventure as the best ever fitness video game and wonders how a Nintendo Switch 2 sequel might work.
The new year is rarely a busy time for new video games, even with the prospect of the Nintendo Switch 2 being unveiled at any moment. There’re a few minor releases planned for January, including Donkey Kong Country Returns HD and Dynasty Warriors: Origins, leading up to Sniper Elite: Resistance on January 30, but it’s not until February that the industry really gets into gear, in terms of new releases.
In many ways it seems a missed opportunity, given that long, dark nights are prime video game-playing opportunities, but as far as publishers are concerned everyone should still be busy with the big pre-Christmas releases – except there were unusually few of those last year.
But that’s okay, because there’s really only one game that you need in January: Ring Fit Adventure for the Nintendo Switch. First released in 2019, it is the spiritual successor to Wii Fit, only designed as an actual video game, with turn-based combat and the semblance of a story. We liked it when it originally came out, but five years later we appreciate it even more.
Now that Christmas is over the only adverts you’re going to see are for holidays and gym membership, with research suggesting that up to two-thirds of the latter are bought but never used. Most people would prefer to exercise in the privacy of their own home but, of course, keep fit equipment is expensive and takes up a lot of space.
2007’s Wii Fit was hugely successful but while no stats exist for how many people gave up using it within just a few weeks, it’s easy to imagine it might be a similar percentage to the gym no-shows. Wii Fit wasn’t a video game in any real sense, with sterile presentation, a lack of structure to your workouts, and zero sense of fun.
Ring Fit Adventure is completely different. It’s structured like a regular video game, with a series of linear areas to run through, which are interrupted three or four times by turn-based battles. You select attacks according to the colour-coded monsters you’re fighting, and then in order to do damage you perform workout routines in four broadly defined areas: arms, legs, core muscles, and yoga.
To do this you use a Pilates ring with a Joy-Con plugged into it, with the second Joy-Con strapped to your leg. The Ring-Con is just a stretchy piece of plastic but it’s used for most exercises, as something to pull or squeeze or simply to move about when stretching your arms.
The difficultly level is highly customisable, so it’s suitable for a very wide range of people. Although you’ll probably find yourself turning the dial up every few days, as exercises that seemed all but impossible at first gradually become more routine.
This is the game’s great achievement, as since it’s structured and presented like a video game it’s far more engaging than Wii Fit ever was. Even though the storytelling is awful (the Ring-Con talks to you in-game and it’s horribly obnoxious) the sense that you are continually making progress, towards a number of short and long-term goals, makes all the difference.
Ring Fit Adventure – getting good at the tree pose is braggable (Nintendo)
Although you can obvious track yourself losing weight (there were lots of stories, at launch, of people losing significant amounts within just weeks) the sense that you’re becoming generally more limber is arguably more satisfying, as the number of moves you have to perform to complete an exercise slowly increase.
When reviewing the game, we only got a couple of weeks with it, but multiple members of the team have kept playing through the months and years. Over that period of time, you begin to appreciate it even more, in terms of how well it gamifies the otherwise tedious process of exercise and how beneficial it becomes on a daily, practical level.
This won’t be the first January where, after overindulgence over Christmas and the New Year, a return to a regular schedule of Ring Fit Adventure exercise has seemed both necessary and welcome. There’s no need to go jogging out in the freezing January cold as long as you can spare half an hour or so each day with your Switch and Ring-Con.
The game has been a massive success for most of the Switch’s life (in Japan it surpassed sales of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild) and even now is often sold out. That level of popularity will not have escaped Nintendo’s notice and, even though it initially benefited from people being trapped in lockdown, it seems very likely that some sort of keep fit game will be released early on in the lifetime of the Switch 2.
It may not be a direct sequel (we’re certainly not interested in seeing the same characters again) but we’re genuinely excited to see what Nintendo can do with the concept in the new generation. Video games can make almost any topic interesting, but they often struggle when it comes to fitness – providing function but not form. Presumably this is an attempt not to scare away fitness fans but at the same time it does nothing to attract those that don’t already do some sort of formal exercise.
With Ring Fit Adventure, you get the best of both worlds and while it’s not perfect that only makes us more curious to see what comes next. But until there is a Switch 2 successor, we’ll keep our Ring-Con handy and try to work off some of that excess Christmas cake by fighting monsters in turn-based yoga combat.
Surely the spirit of Ring Fit Adventure will return on Switch 2 (Nintendo)
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