So after a full “Ring Fit” month – i.e. 30 days played1 – let us see how this workout game held up for me.
Historic context: COVID-19 and Ring Fit Adventure
This might be less interesting for those reading now, but might be relevant information for anyone reading this in a few years.
The first part of the year 2020 has been marked by COVID-19. This disease has since spread to a pandemic, impacting the whole globe, with many countries going into a more or less full lockdown. This situation is slowly changing, as in May many countries in Europe are removing the lockdown.
As everyone who could had to stay at home, the demand for Ring Fit Adventure rose drastically. Not only is it almost impossible to get one, due to it being out of stock pretty much everywhere, there are even rumours that in China you can only get one on the black/grey market for 250 $ (i.e. more than 3x the MSRP).
30 workout days in 76 days¶
The main question is obviously how much did Ring Fit Adventure get me to work out.
First off, I have to admit that I did not train every work day, as I hoped, but still much more than usual.
One reason I skipped two full weeks was that I had to send the Joy-Cons for repair, as their notorious drift started to show quite badly. This prevented me to work out, as without joy-cons I could not play itt
I took another fortnightly break from it before that, due to not feeling so well.
Now let us look at some data.
According to Ring Fit Adventure itself:
- I reached world 9 of the story3
- my character is now at level 75
- and my difficulty setting is at level 20
- the total time I exercised2 is 8h 18'
- in which I burned 2670 kcal of energy
- and ran a total of 28 km
Looking at my own log, this is how much I trained in the past few months:
| yoga | gymnastics | rowing | Ring Fit | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-12 | 3 | |||
| 2020-01 | 1 | 1 | ||
| 2020-02 | 2 | 10 | ||
| 2020-03 | 12 | |||
| 2020-04 | 7 | |||
| 2020-05 | 3 | 1 |
This table needs some comment:
- I got my Ring Fit Adventure in early February. But as you can see, my training regime was a bit lackluster in the two months before it. It was somewhat better the previous year, but I lost that piece of paper.
- Rowing is something I did go to last year, but have not mustered the courage to go in several months … and then COVID-19 kicked in, so I am not even allowed to go (ha! another good excuse).
- We are only half-way through May and I just got my joy-cons back from repair yesterday, so I was not able to play Ring Fit Adventure for the whole first half of the month. And the rest of the month is still ahead of me.
In my opinion, this clearly shows that Ring Fit Adventure did trick me into training more often. Including all the hiccups it took me 76 days to work out 30 days (or 36, if you ask the game1), which is roughly every second day. As a comparison, reaching my goal of exercising every work day, I would have to play it for 55 days in the same time frame.
In sum, I am happy with the results, but will try to train more in the future, with the hope to soon be able to go work out with others (e.g. go rowing).
Adventure content so far¶
As mentioned, in those 30 days I reached World 93 – in fact, I could have taken on the boss today and reached World 10, but decided to instead revisit some old levels and side quests.
Following is a short summary of what Worlds 5 to 9 introduce new to the game. I have to say that so far every world brought something new and refreshing, so the gameplay never got stale. In fact, I have a small problem that I have almost too many fighting skills to choose from. Good thing that by now old fighting skills are getting levelled up, so they are again a reasonable choice to bring to battle.
What also proved as a great feature – especially after a longer break – is that when you start up Adventure mode, it summarises the story so far.
Update: Voices and languages
In the update, they also included more voice languages and the choice for Ring to have either a male or female voice.
I find that as a neat addition, and I am currently using a male French voice with English subtitles to brush up on my French while I am working out.
World 5 & 6¶
- introduce days that target only specific skills/muscle groups and does so in a very nice, fun and varied way
- introduces skill points and a skill tree
- gyms now have also skill sets – a great and easy way to get some targeted work out in Adventure mode as well
World 7¶
- the plot twist is becoming apparent and the story is becoming more varied – while nothing award-winning it is actually enjoyable
- unlocks All Sets as a choice for setting fighting skills – i.e. choosing to go to fights with workout skills that focus on a certain muscle group, posture, cardio workout, etc.
- new enemy that can buff defense
World 8 & 9¶
- expand the skill tree, including upgrades to previous fighting skills
- adds a new movement skill that enables to reach alternative paths (also in previous) levels, adding to replayability of past levels; and if timed right, doubles as battle evasion
Other modes¶
Since my last blog entry about Ring Fit Adventure, the game has received an update that introduces two new modes:
- Rhythm game – in this mode you press and pull the RingCon and/or twist your torso to the beat of a song, while also occassionaly having to squat or stand up. It seems like a pretty fun party game, especially if they introduce more songs. The only issue I have with it is that I have trouble keeping the RingCon in place when doing the fast twists.
- Running mode – in this mode, you simply run through a level, without any mob encounters or similar. I have not played this mode much, but for a more lazy day, it seems fitting and relaxing.
Final general thoughts¶
To start with the negaive, in the past weeks my RingCon did not recognise the transition from presses to pulls really well. But that was easily fixed with a simple recalibration from the options menu. I have not had those issues since.
So, after a full Ring Fit month, how do I feel about it?
While it did not make me lose much weight or gain any major muscles, my back has not ached since. Well, except maybe a little bit when I did not train for two weeks. But even then it took only one or two days of playing for it to stop aching again. I also do feel more fit in general.
In that regard I would say it is a great success.
Did it trick me into training more? Perhaps not as often as were my ambitious expectations, but it has undeniably improved my workout regime immensely.
I do think the story mode is a great way to pull me in, and apart from the fun story and overall atmosphere, I think this is in great part to the RPG elements. I am not a big fan of gamification of everything, and “adding RPG elements” is usually just an euphemism for introducing some levels, badges and collectibles to trick the player into investing more time. But in my opinion this game does it right.
That being said, I am continuing to work out using Ring Fit Adventure and will continue to bump up the difficulty to keep my workout to Moderate Workout.
hook out → very happy to be able to move and play again
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The game claims I have been playing for 36 days, but I suspect this includes non-adventure modes. ↩↩
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Ring Fit Adventure records only time actually spent exercising. For comparison, my Switch records that I played the game for 20 h. ↩
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Apparently there are 20 worlds in total (encompassing 100 levels all together) with a NG+ and NG++ as well. So with 30 full days, I am probably not even half way through. If the trend continues, the worlds are only going to get longer, not shorter. ↩↩