78 days played – 5 kg lost – Level 180 approx.
Ring Fit Adventure offers us a type of RPG adventure, moving away from all the conventions of titles that tried to combine sport with the game .
How could it be otherwise, we will play a young athlete who discovers the Ring-Con, a device with the shape of a ring similar to the one we will use ourselves and that contains our travel companion, Rin. At the same time we will free the evil dragon Bodybuilder Draco , who seeks the mastery of perfect biceps by enslaving the population in his gymnastic crusade.
The adventure presents us with twenty worlds , each one with its own routes and tests while we chase after our muscular enemy, we fix the disasters it causes and we recover the powers of our hoop.
The levels are raised in the following way: we will literally go through a map, running, jumping, crouching , and in our path different creatures will come out that we will have to defeat. In this sense, the fights will quickly remind us of those of Pokémon or any classic JRPG, each one has a turn to attack and some enemies have their own weaknesses.
This is where Ring Fit Adventure makes the proposal work: our “attacks” will be the different exercises that we have been unlocking, which cover all parts of the body. In turn, they are divided by colors: red for the exercises that involve the arms, yellow for the trunk, blue for the legs and green dedicated exclusively to yoga attacks.
Most of the enemies have these colors and this will be the indication to know which attacks are more effective in each case and which attacks we must carry equipped.
Like an RPG, our character will improve over time and we will be able to enhance our skills and change our equipment.
Does Ring Fit Adventure work?
In the words of Nintendo itself, the story mode would be completed in approximately 4 months if we play 30 minutes a day . In my case I completed it in about 79 days and playing a relatively variable time but that spanned between 30-40 minutes each session.
During that time I have lost 5kg, with a relatively varied diet but with little change since I started the challenge. From time to time I have eaten pizza, ice cream, the occasional sweet … but I have never lost my routine, which I consider more important in the present case.
When we start the game for the first time it asks us for our height, age and weight to be able to adjust each exercise and we will also calibrate the belt and the Ring-Con. In addition, during the beginning of a session it will ask us if we want to decrease or increase the intensity of each exercise; He will always invite us to do some warm-up and cool-down exercises at the beginning and at the end of each workout.
Ring Fit Adventure is not especially focused on people who already have a certain training routine, but on those who have never had it , as has been my case. Trying to avoid any type of cliché, what is sought is to generate a routine in us, that exercising is fun, and it succeeds.
As you may have guessed from the analysis, Ring Fit in its campaign mode is reduced to running, facing enemies and big bosses with many life points and with a story that is simpler than the summary that I can do in these lines . The objective is to defeat the enemies with our own hands, the satisfaction generated by having overcome such a great obstacle with a more gamified reward; Nintendo turns satisfaction into level ups, new attacks, and outfits . In turn, it becomes a feeling of improvement, which happens when we see the long-term results of the gym.
This is what Ring Fit constantly does, every time you take a small step it rewards you because it knows that for you it is a great physical and mental effort , even more so if you have been a sedentary person and it even advises you when you cannot emulate a position . It’s pure behaviorism, but it works tremendously well for the first month and keeps you going even when the rewards stay on the less gamified plane.
On some occasions and as we progress through the game, the combats will be increasingly difficult and long, but for anyone who has played this type of RPG will find it a very addictive challenge. Most of the time you are going to go bareback against an enemy without knowing what type it is or how strong it can be, but as you have been unlocking new attacks and you already have your deck of favorites ready for combat, you are facing with better humor each new challenge ; Despite the months, it is still satisfactory to defeat an enemy with many points of life or with minions that raise their attack or heal them. Nintendo knows how to hit the right key to finally turn exercise into a video game, the same satisfaction that comes from defeating a tough enemy in Final Fantasy , Dragon Quest or a Pokémon is perfectly translated in Ring Fit .
And like a role-playing game, apart from having equipment and new techniques, we will also have potions, intelligently adapted to the game genre, such as energy shakes . Some will help us to increase the attack or defense, others to change the color of our attacks temporarily and others to recover life. How could it be otherwise, these shakes are prepared with 100% natural ingredients (strawberries, beets, basil, potatoes, carrots …) that we collect along the different routes and we will also prepare them with our own arms, pressing the Ring -With .
The set consists of two accessories, one the leg strap and the other the Ring-Con . In each of them we will place the Joy-Con and while one detects the movement of the legs the other will do the same with the arms, even using the infrared sensor of the remote control to measure our pulsations.
Within the game we will have available both the time we have been exercising, as well as the kilometers traveled and the kilocalories burned. It is important to emphasize the stopwatch since it is not one to use , but rather it counts the time that our body is in motion. That excludes the time that we are in menus, but also the time that we do not move in the middle of an exercise, whether it is running, doing a squat or the warrior pose, the counter will stop if we stop doing the pose . What is achieved with this is to have a more realistic measurement of the useful time of exercise, although we will invest more real time than desired to fulfill our routines.
This title is not for acquiring a statuesque physique, but for staying in shape, something the game insists on.
As in other Nintendo franchises, they care about creating certain synergies with the player , this is achieved through an interface that talks to us, gives us daily advice and is always concerned about our well-being. Throughout the game a constant that is repeated is “Do not force”, “Prioritize execution to repetition”, “Rest when you need it” and this is tremendously essential for the experience to be maintained.
One of the big problems that these types of proposals have is that they focus on you doing exercise with a remote, without wanting to go deeper .
Nintendo has always been characterized, since Nintendo DS, by concern for the user through warning messages, rest notices after certain hours of play and even adding digital manuals for parents in each game.
It is very comforting to know that despite not having burned enough one day or not having been able to carry out all the exercises perfectly, you have done well because you have put in the effort . Even the game itself invites you to take a few days off because it prefers that you always come to Ring Fit Adventure motivated.
On many occasions, exercise involves many more psychological than physical processes and that is why it is so important that the game does not reproach you for the fact that one week you do less than the previous one or that you do not perform enough. This is where this game shows off muscle.
How should Ring Fit Adventure improve?
Probably where this proposal generates the most doubts is in the game / exercise relationship , which as we progress through the story mode, we will see that it advocates more for one than the other.
As we have already seen, the game combines exercise with skills and each one has a different attack power and a different radius, so we must choose which attacks we will assign before combat.
On more than one occasion we will find an attack that requires great physical effort on us and that does less damage than another whose physical effort is minimal . It does not happen all the time, but it will happen more than once throughout the adventure and it is here that Ring Fit Adventure skates the most because of that struggle between play and exercise.
The title leaves on our shoulders an important decision in which the most logical thing would be to always choose the attack that does the most damage, the choice that I have always made throughout the adventure. But it really is exercise that we are abandoning, it feels like some kind of trick or cheat that we execute towards the game.
Ring Fit has different options to adjust the exercise to the type of person , letting us even activate different options that disable exercises depending on the area that we do not want, or rather we cannot, exercise either due to an injury or problems derived from age.
This title suffers from some other detection problem that is not exclusive but is caused by the already known problems of the Joy-Con. There are exercises that I have been unable to perform correctly even after repeating them over and over again, and that I have ended up leaving aside. As a former owner of the Joy-Con Drift phenomenon – when the joystick of the controller gets stuck in one direction – I know that with new controls I would have no problem carrying out each and every exercise, but it is something to keep in mind. account.
Would you recommend Ring Fit Adventure?
As I said before, if you are within the target of this proposal, definitely yes . If you are one of those who does not see the entertainment in repeating an exercise until exhaustion while you fix your gaze to infinity or listen to Eye of the tiger , if what you want is that your physical effort has a reward in real time (in the form of an item) If you want to stay in shape while saving the world, run to your nearest store.
I have also seen other cases of people who are gym regulars but use Ring Fit Adventure as a complement to what they already do, which is a very valid option.
It is a proposal that hardly forces you, that adjusts as much as you want it and that values every little effort you make. It has plenty of content to last as long as you want the process to last, you can prepare your own workouts and you can even share the results with your friends and compete.
It is not a miraculous method since it forces you to do real exercise, but in a very suggestive way and with a packaging that is difficult to reject. He is fully aware of the challenges and mental barriers that one has to face when starting an exercise routine, which from my point of view is equal or more important than the rest of the actants when leaving the sofa .
Nor does it stop being a type of exercise that allows us to have the body in motion and to be in shape , whoever approaches Ring Fit should not aspire to bodybuilding since for a more than obvious question – we are only going to use a leg strap and a hoop for strength – bodybuilding will develop gradually .
In my case, I have lost 5 kilos in almost 80 days approximately, such a loss is evident when putting on shirts or pants that now fall in a looser way, a feeling of less bloating, and all the psychologically positive effects that physical exercise has. .
Taking into account all these aspects, Ring Fit becomes a very pleasant companion, with a single fee and available 24 hours a day, whenever we need it. It’s really easy to create a routine with the invention and feel motivated enough to carry on from day to day, sweating every pixel .
