Today, we are going to talk about sport! Not the sport that one watches on TV, but real sport, the one you participates to… the one you participated to… Anyways, the real sport that burns calories and heats your muscles up.
I did a lot of sport before working and I loved it! Running outside, playing basketball, roller skating or going for a long walk… I found that doing sport relieves me and afterwards I feel super zen and good about myself. I loved it, but I moved far away for my work and studies and had to stop those activities. It was so sad!
In my new home, I tried going to the gym and leisure basketball clubs, but it wasn’t the same, going to the gym after work bore me sorrow and going to leisure clubs to play basketball bore me… And then, I saw a Ring Fit Adventure video… and everything changed.
Ring Fit Adventure, a unique and motivating concept
Nintendo did really well with Ring Fit! The society with the capital N made THE game that made me want do sport again while having fun!
But what is Ring Fit Adventure truly?
It is an adventure/RPG game in which you will have to fight the monsters in order to save the kingdom of the maleficent influence of Drago, a dragon fan of bodybuilding. For the moment, Ring Fit is a totally normal RPG. Where it differentiates itself of the other games is that you have to do fitness exercises in order to eliminate your enemies during the famous fitness face-offs.
The game will always give you the motivation to get along in the adventure and triumph over your enemies. The music, the ambiance, the story and even the graphics will give you the necessary motivation to come back to the game or continue doing more sport, in a regular and ultra fun way. It is a true challenge that Nintendo took up while integrating exercises that would have their place in a gym at the heart of a fun video game.
Who says RPG says story
The story of the game is relatively simple and is only there in order to give a goal to your adventure, even though, the game has a completely dedicated to sport and filled of humour.
In Ring Fit Adventure, you incarnate a young athlete that is going to release Drago by accident, the famous fitness fan dragon. However, its obsession for bodybuilding and the aura that emanates from it seems to compromise the peace that reigns in the kingdom. You will go after Drago accompanied by Ring, your new magical sport coach. Ring is a hoop that will let you use magical capacities to advance in your adventure. It represents the ring con that you manipulate in real life.
The ring con is the hoop that is sold with the game. It serves as a support for one of the joy-con and will capture the movements as well as the pressure or extensions that you will apply to the ring-con during the exercises. In fact, if you move the ring con, Ring will duplicate the movements in game.
Ring is a lot more than a simple hoop that speaks, it is a fitness professional! It will be your guide in the adventure and will coach you during your fitness face-offs. Its advices will be very useful to keep a good position during the exercises or give you some tips. It will also root for you so that you always stay motivated.
Your adventure will take you in different regions symbolised by paintings in the style of the maps grouping together the levels in a Mario world. Each painting will propose you a different landscape and ambiance. You will have to complete each level to go to the next world apart from the bonus levels: that unlock mini-games.
Each level takes place in the same way even though it adapts itself as you progress and proposes you new challenges: advancing on water… To go through each level, you have to walk on the spot as if you are warming up. The fitness face-offs will be on the road under the form of small ghostlike monsters. You will not be able to go around them and will trigger the face-offs when you go near them.
Personally, I loved the graphics of the game which are colourful and lively. It is really enjoyable to “go for a walk” even though, generally speaking, they will make you sweat, through those beautiful sceneries. On your path you will encounter many obstacles that you will be able to destroy or pass thanks to the ring con. Take advantage of those moments to also gather some coins and smoothie ingredients. The coins will be useful to buy new equipment (sport clothing) and the ingredients to craft some smoothies that will give you different bonuses. Once again, we can see a nice appropriation of the RPG genre because buying new gear will give you statistic bonuses and the smoothie can be assimilated to potions.
It’s really fun and enjoyable to play.
The fitness face-offs: efficient or not?
Ring Fit Adventure proposes a large panel of “fitness techniques” from real sport exercises.
The sport exercises are unlocked as you go along in the story mode (they are already accessible through the quick exercise menu) and there something for everyone or at least for every one of your muscles.
In order to propose a complete sport programme, Nintendo had the idea of using colours! In fact, the exercises are sorted by categories of muscles you can work on and associated to a colour: the upper body in red, the legs in blue, muscular strengthening in yellow… Each of those colours are also used for the enemies. A red technique will be more efficient on red monsters and so on. In that way, if you wish to be more efficient on all types of monsters, you will have to use at least one technique of each colour and make your muscles work.
Concerning the techniques, they are true fitness exercises and the game gets more and more difficult as you go. So if you do the exercises correctly and with an adapted intensity you should feel the effects on your body. For having tested the intensities 11 and 18, I can tell you that there is a real difference between the both of them! I struggle a lot with the 18th intensity, but it feels good =)
You can also train outside of the story mode by following a targeted programme or by creating your own with the exercises that you wish. It is really super nice and so you can easily programme your own daily sport session.
From my point of view, the story mode is ideal to get back to sport for 30 minutes per day or every two days. It is the only condition to be able to see some results: be a regular.
Personally, I am going to mainly use the story mode, but also the targeted programmes to strengthen the muscles in my body that need it the most. Even the trainings are nice so I am going to enjoy this game to its fullest ^^.
Mini games to defy your friends
Ring Fit Adventure also gives you access to mini-games/quick games from the menu. This menu will offer you multiple choices:
- Have access to the mini games
- Defy your friends or your own record during a challenge
The first two are mainly destined for chilling out and fun, but don’t get me wrong, they will also make you work out (be mindful of the choice of intensity of the exercises). I found the mini games really fun in solo mode or multiplayer mode, but they can be particularly hard on yourself when you don’t have any training or if you choose a too high difficulty.
Concerning the pre-defined and personalised training, it is very nice and allows you to easily replace your gym. I think I will use them as muscle reinforcement once I will have gotten back in shape.
Conclusion
Ring Fit Adventure is a really good sport game. It is a lot more dynamic than Wii Fit U and a lot more motivating. Ring Fit Adventure is a really nice way to do sport or go back to sport from the comfort of your home. You will also need less space than for the Wii Fit: you will need a circle of about 1m50 around you to be at ease.
Honestly, I didn’t see time go by during my sessions, because of how much fun I was having. I absolutely do not regret having bought this game. I recommend it, be it because you want to learn how to do sport or stay in shape! It’s awesome!
