They both have Chad chins.
OK so I picked this back up cuz of this thread. Thank you for compelling me to finally do so!
I tried out the new rhythm minigame they added, and the Breath of the Wild medley is a hilariously bad fit for it. It’s just a lot of mild, incidental piano music strung together with no discernible beat! The minigame itself feels pretty slight, but it’s probably fun if you pick a track you can actually dance to. I shoulda picked the Splatoon medley!
I changed the ring’s voice to the woman option and the voice acting is fine, but it’s more mild and supportive than the male voice’s absolutely over-the-top, maniacal intensity. The lady ring wants you to enjoy your workout. The male ring doesn’t care who you are or how you’re feeling, he just wants to get off on watching the exercises performed well. I think I prefer that coked out vibe he’s got.
Got to the first town and I was a little disappointed at how basic it was, essentially just a series of menus. BUT it let me buy dope ass clothes that change the look of my guy and boost my stats, so I ain’t mad.
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Glad to hear you gave it another shot! Yeah towns are pretty anaemic, I imagine Nintendo had a very strict budget because of the R&D for the health consultancy and the controller. Fashion is pretty cool though.
I tried female voice too and was disappointed that they didn’t realise how appealing the feverish yelling of the male ring voice was. I wonder if personal trainers consider this as a competitive selling point.
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i fell off ring fit after like 2 months. i think i got to world 10 or so.
nintendo should let me get a digital download of the game. i really cba swapping cartridges just to do my exercise.
I feel the same way about not being able to play undocked. My job required me (back before the great plague of 2020) to take a week-long trip every month 200 miles East and I couldn’t Ring Fit during those trips which would make it very difficult to keep the routine.
I played FF12 instead.
when i have played it in the last 6 weeks (during lockdown) i have actually been playing undocked w the kickstand, so i can keep my monitor w work emails open incase people wonder why im not responding. this is sort of why i dropped off doing the rpg and just did the ‘quick play’ exercises which unfortunately have no real long term tracking.
Whoa, did they patch that in? I hadn’t bothered trying since they said you couldn’t at launch.
Honestly I’m dreading completing adventure because I’m not sure what the endgame situation is and I don’t know if I have the willpower to just do custom routines without the progression.
Had a further look into this and knee assist seems like the way to go. You can also do assist for the major muscle groups as well if that part is too difficult. Just converts the movement to a button press.
You can also ‘trick’ the joycons into thinking you’re doing stuff if you want to try another option. The way it detects running and squats is by calculating the angle of the left Joycon relative to the floor so as long as it’s strapped to something that’s generally perpendicular to the floor you can then move that thing to trick it into thinking of that motion e.g. you could strap it to your calf and then just extend your leg while seated or even strap it to your bicep and raise your arm.
While digging into accessibility I actually found you can toggle the game to complete exercises even after an enemy dies so this point is invalid and the game is actually perfect.
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That’s good to know, I can stand but have trouble staying balanced. When these become available again I’ll check it out. (…after getting my drifting joycon fixed or replaced) Also good to know you can tell the game you want to finish exercising both left and right sides. Something I forget about when doing boring non-game workouts on my own in these times.
For what it’s worth I had quite severe patellofemoral pain in my knee joint and was recommended by a physio to do one-legged stands as part of a routine to build up muscle tone in my glutes and thighs. I struggled with a lot of the yoga/balance exercises in Ring Fit initially but it has been really helpful for powering through and now I can do warrior pose 3 and other tricky ones after about four months of practice. I’m not suggesting it’s a cure-all but I found it surprisingly effective for some physio needs.
this was in a recent patch. last month i think, the same one that added the rhythm game.
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I finally finished the main campaign. The postgame options are actually pretty cool and will still give me structure for a while yet. The campaign climaxes in a nice way with some really laborious stages that feel like a proper culmination of your actual bodily training (the final stage took me 31 minutes!).
The endgame narrative content raised an interesting issue that I hadn’t really considered until the final few worlds. The way Ring Fit handles body image is actually quite thoughtful in many cases. While the attacks you do show flabby or skinny limbs morphing into their idealised ghost forms (beer gut turns into 8-pack abs). This is the only case where the game implies an ideal for the player but I think it’s implying that the goal is ideal through it being depicted as a spiritual or ‘ghost’ form. The player character always remains a slim but not super-fit looking person.
For the most part its generally quite careful to show that people of low or moderate fitness (NPCs you meet along the way) are not deficient or undesirable. There’s no fat character who is framed as a failure because they’re unfit. Likewise no character is morally good just because they are fit. Instead almost all the moralising about what fitness should be for is reserved for a discussion of motivation. This may be slight spoilers but I think it’s interesting and something that no other fitness game seems to do:
The main antagonist is a giant dragon who basically epitomises negative aspects of gym culture (superficiality, domination, competition etc.). Similarly the player meets ‘four masters’ that correspond to each exercise type. They initially start off as friendly NPC trainers but get hypnotised by the dragon to be secondary antagonists. The last few areas open up each one’s motivation for becoming an expert in their specific exercise and I think the intent is to get the player to reflect on their own reasons for approaching fitness. The four masters and the dragon are all physically fit ‘ideals’ but their motivations are shallow or toxic and the game makes it clear that this problem needs to be addressed in any quest for self-improvement.
By calling attention to the inner motivation for fitness and contrasting it with body ideals Ring Fit appears to be the only fitness game (ever?) that uses a game’s narrative to ensure the player is not getting fit for the wrong reasons. My personal reasons for getting fit were due to general health (mental and physical) and a bit of vanity as well (I want areas of my body to just be more ‘aesthetically pleasing’). I don’t think I was a full on narcissist or unrealistic in my goals but the game made me think about it and that’s pretty admirable.
This might be the best game in its genre but there are a few problems I feel like I can conclude with given 88 days of squeezing rings.
Arm exercises aren’t as useful as the others and my long-term improvements are all legs and straight abdominals-based. The reason for this is none of the arm exercises effectively use body weight, just resistance (usually against your other arm). This is kind of weird given that the control scheme involves a huge ring you hold with both arms. I’d recommend incorporating some light weights into your routine if you’re planning on exclusively using Ring Fit to get fit.
The minigames, on the whole, suck and don’t really improve fitness or enjoyment and could probably be left out of the campaign.
You can unlock an ability that allows for an additional exercise known as a rush that has a set probability. Each type of exercise has a couple of versions of the rush e.g. abs has abdominal twist press rush and pedal rush. However, when it triggers, the exact exercise you do is randomly determined for you. I think it would be entirely improved if it gave you a choice of rush exercise.
I highly recommend Ring Fit Adventure and think that it might be the best game I’ve started in the last 12 months. This might be fitness-induced Stockholm syndrome though.
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There’s… no… pushups?
I know! It seems like such an oversight. I think they really wanted to push the ring as a gimmick for arm exercises but honestly all it’s really good for is tracking large upper body movements than any kind of proper arms workout.
I wonder if it was to keep it within the 5-101 age range that Nintendo might’ve been wary of pushing too hard. But then the game does have mountain climbers and planks so I have no idea what they were thinking.
Having no way to reliably track that you are doing them correctly is probably it. My huge criticism of Wii Fit, which I mostly hated, was that the little scale had no way to judge your form, which is an extremely important part of exercise. For pushups you could just sit on your knees and press down with your hands and it’d be all GREAT JOB
Yeah that’d be a worry for sure. The Switch’s motion controls are relatively precise but some exercises can be quite fudgy when it comes to detecting good form (overhead bend was quite bad for this since I’d do it consistently and get alternately good or bad feedback). I made a special effort to pay close attention to exercises that have you stand on a single leg, squat or require back movement.
Hi captainlove, I have finally saved Dragaux’s life and my own in the process. I fell off the game right around when it would’ve made the most sense to really get into it, March 2020. But one year later, I jumped back in and incorporated it into my daily routine. Part of my motivation is that I weigh more than I ever have before. I don’t want to put too much emphasis on weight, but it just feels unusual to gradually see my body change now that I’m living in America again.
To be honest, I don’t think I’m going to lose too much weight by playing RingFit, but that’s not the point really. I feel much better, lighter on my feet and more physically capable. Exercise just feels good. I’m hoping to incorporate a lot more active hobbies into my life now that we’ve got blue skies and perfect temps outside.
That final boss took me 30 minutes! Wow! Feels great though.
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Grats Minty! Glad to hear it made a difference. Hope it acts as a gateway to some fun outdoor stuff.
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Yikes, I don’t think I’ve had a session go past 20 minutes at most. I’m usually a sweaty wreck by the 10 min mark
Congrats on showing that dragon what for
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