by Dan McAlister
What Is It
Ring Fit Adventure is Nintendo’s latest fitness game for it’s Switch console. It follows in the tradition of the Wii Fit series of exercise games, but also breaks from its predecessors in an important way: where Wii Fit was a more straightforward fitness app, Ring Fit Adventure is a fantasy quest that you play through by exercising.
At the beginning of Ring Fit Adventure, the player accidentally unleashes the evil bodybuilding dragon Drageaux from his magical prison. He flies off to wreak havoc, and it’s up to the player and a large magical ring (named Ring) to go on a fitness training journey to stop him.
The game uses two pieces of hardware to make this adventure possible: an electronic pilates ring and a motion sensor strapped to your leg. This equipment is used for all in-game interactions: you move your character by running in place, and you battle monsters by doing strength exercises. There’s some light strategy at play in selecting exercises for different battle scenarios, but it’s always in service of keeping your workout varied and fresh. This is a fitness adventure, and the fitness is always kept at the forefront.
Why I Love It
Ring Fit Adventure would be fine if it was just a good workout and a solid game, and for the most part it’s both. But what I love most is how charming and inventive it is in incorporating it’s fitness theme into a fantasy setting.
As you run through the game’s gauntlets, there are targets you can hit by aiming your ring and squeezing to shoot a burst of air. Half of the monsters are based on fitness equipment like yoga mats and kettlebells, and the game slowly introduces a cast of fitness-obsessed characters like Abdonis and Scarecruel. At one point, Ring told me to hold a yoga tree pose to “disguise myself as a tree” until some threatening birds flew away. I’ve never done that in a game before, nor in life. Now when I meet someone threatening, I know to disguise myself as a tree.
Getting Started
When you start your adventure, the game will ask you about your fitness experience, and it uses your answer to calibrate how hard the exercises will be. In most cases, a higher difficulty translates to more reps. Answer honestly, but also don’t sweat getting in over your head; the game will ask you how the last workout felt each time you boot it up, and is very flexible in adjusting difficulty up and down.
Fitness difficulty is only one of the challenges here, since Ring Fit Adventure is also a roleplaying game. You’ll have an advantage in battle if you can strategically select the best exercises for the situation, but if you’re not interested in strategy you can have the game randomly select exercises for you. And if the random exercises lead to lost battles, try doing some of the many side-quests the game has on offer. I play them to satisfy my completionist streak, and as a result my character is pretty overpowered to the point of making most strategy moot.
Going Further
The game has an end...I assume? I’ve been playing a few times a week since November, and I still haven’t beaten it. In any case, the game offers set-based workouts to complete outside of the main adventure mode. It also has an impressive collection of mini-games, which are a blast at parties.
As much as I’ve enjoyed my time with Ring Fit Adventure, I’m also excited for it to come to an end. I feel the most valuable thing this game provides the player is inertia. It can be hard starting up a new fitness routine, especially if you haven’t been in the habit lately, but the gamification here is fun and encouraging, and with frequent tips on nutrition and other forms of exercise, the game never loses sight of the player’s well-being outside of the game. By the time I finish this adventure, I’ll feel more ready and confident to try other kinds of exercise. I’m guessing most players would feel the same.
The opinions in this post are expressly the views of the author and do not reflect the views of their employer(s) or any entities that they might otherwise be affiliated.