Ring Fit Adventure is Nintendo’s latest foray into the world of video game fitness. We round up the critical response to the Switch’s sweaty new RPG.
Coupled with a leg-strap and the new Ring-Con peripheral, the Switch continues to prove its versatility with Ring Fit Adventure. Nintendo’s new game blends a traditional RPG experience with Wii Fit-style workout routines. It certainly looks more appealing to traditional gamers than its Wii predecessors but does it work? Is it possible to level up and lose pounds?
Here’s what the critics are saying.
Ring Fit Adventure: review Round-up
Eurogamer
“As a piece of hardware, Ring Fit Adventure is assured. As a piece of software, it’s often inspired. The adventure is at the heart of it all, a fully-fledged, full-length RPG that has you and your avatar traversing the lands to defeat Dragaux the body-building dragon.
“It’s very video games, in other words, drawing upon staples of the medium and breaking them down into exercise routines. Judged purely as an RPG it can be a bit ramshackle – environments are quickly recycled, and good god your anthropomorphic Ring Fit friend can grate – but most importantly it has that pull of XP points and easily defined progression that gets all those gaming synapses popping, all while you’re producing endorphins by sprinting on the spot or tackling mobs with well-maintained yoga poses.”
Recommended – Review by Martin Robinson
IGN
“The main draw of Ring Fit Adventure is its exercise-based combat, and it largely delivers on that idea. This fitness roleplaying game, or FRPG as I insist on calling it, is a sweaty challenge. Every attack you have can only be used by doing the set of exercises associated with it, like squeezing the ring over your head or completing a warrior Yoga pose. The level of customization that quickly opens up after the first world or two let me tune it to my fitness level surprisingly well. Ring Fit’s battle system is its most inventive twist, and after a slow start it sticks the landing.”
7.8 – Review by Jonathon Dornbush
The Verge
“What’s perhaps most surprising is that both halves of Ring Fit Adventure not only work well together, but they feel fully developed on their own. I really enjoyed the lighthearted RPG gameplay and particularly the world, which is a charming, pun-filled place, despite initially looking very generic. Somehow, despite it yelling at me constantly, I never got tired of Ring and its very helpful positive reinforcement. At the same time, whenever I play, I really feel like I’m getting a workout in.”
Not scored – Review by Andrew Webster
Kotaku
“The cleverness of Nintendo’s design extends beyond the main exercise adventure. A “multi-task” mode tracks squeezes and pulls of the ring while your Nintendo Switch system is in sleep mode, the idea being that you could use the ring for arm workouts while talking to someone on the phone or watching TV. Any exercise you do that way provides a boost the next time you play the game. Nintendo’s designers also utilize the right Joy-Con controller’s infrared sensor to track your pulse after a workout, which, just, wow, that’s really clever, Nintendo.”
Not scored – Review by Stephen Totillo
Venture Beat
“Ring Fit Adventure is probably a smart way to exercise for some people, but not for me. I know that I’ll get much better results from combining different VR exercise games. That’s a shame because I really like the way the RingCon feels. I also enjoy leveling up and running through the environment. But the core mission of Ring Fit Adventure is to make you forget that you’re exercising, and I think it’s only partially successful at that.”
60/100 – Review by Jeff Grubb
Videogamer
“Wonderfully simplistic but effective, Ring Fit Adventure may see another peripheral eventually end up consigned to a cupboard, along with your Wii Balance Board, Kinect, dance mats, and whatever else. But if you get the bug, it could transform you into your most svelte, muscular, best-ever self.”
8/10 – Review by Rich Walker
Title: Ring Fit Adventure
Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo
Release date: October 18, 2019
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Ring Fit Adventure is out now for the Nintendo Switch. Visit our new releases section for more on this week’s new video games.
