Script:
Before there was Ring fit to adventure, Nintendo decided to be friendly to the developers of Hello Kitty Collection: Miracle Fashion Maker, and publish their game. It would be the first fitness game on the system. Does the game hold up next to today’s competition of Ring Fit adventure or Zumba, or is it better left on the bottom shelf of GameStop. Let’s find out! What’s going on, everybody? My Name Is Jack Jenkins, and welcome to today’s Fitness game review. Where I play a fitness or dancing game for thirty-days to see if I can lose some pounds. Today’s game is Fitness Boxing.
When fitness boxing was first released, I was pretty excited. I loved the boxing game in Wii Fit, and it seemed like a great way to lose weight. When more and more information came out, I was a little bit hesitant. The tracklist that came out was a little bit disappointing. I used to go to a boxing gym, and we would usually train to music like this [Play Rap] instead of like this [play terrible fitness boxing song]. I decided to put the game off and wait until a new Wii Fit comes out. However, after playing it for the thirty days, I was a little bit surprised as the game can be quite some fun and it could be an excellent way to lose some weight.
And harder, it got. The first day was mostly just a tutorial in the way how the game is played. After that, you start with your daily workout. Within your activity, you can choose which part of your body you would like to work out if you want an Arms day, chest day, leg day, or more. Depending on what you choose, the punches or ducks will change accordingly. Once you decided your type and how long you would like to, it will create a workout plan for that day. Each workout is composed of a combo you will have to do while a song goes in the background. You will need to time the punches with the beat of the music to score more significant points. The more points you get, the more rewards you can unlock, including more outfits for your character. As you continue to play, you will unlock more songs and combos, which added to the replayability.
When I did my thirty-days of playing, I did the twenty-five minutes each day, including the stretches before and after each workout. This meant I had time to do two or three combos each day. I tried to change the targeted muscle each day so that I can experience the most variety of combos. If I had to rate the exercise types, I would say the full-body workout is best. With the full-body workout, you get every single offensive and defensive combo available to you. That adds the most variety, which makes the training feel better and goes by quicker. That’s to be expected, though. No matter what I choose, I felt like I had a pretty good workout of the course of the twenty-five minutes I was playing. I felt the different exercise choices did train that body part. Choosing arms means you will get mostly punches, and choosing legs will give you primarily ducks. Overall the gameplay is very solid with a ton a variety and combo options. I mean, you will be punching, ducking, and weaving over and over again. Still, combos feel distinct enough from each other that I knew the pattern from just the first few seconds of the game.
As far as the motion controls go, my movements were read pretty well for the most part. I found some punches such as the body uppercuts as well as ducking weren’t tracking as well, and It counted some as misses when I did the exercise. It wasn’t enough to ruin the combo, and I still got high enough points to get outfits at the end of the combo, but it was an issue. The Wii fit boxing could solve this issue by having you use the Wii balance board, but a last, there is no such thing for the switch.
While at first, I wasn’t too big on the style, as it seems to similar to DDR, I got over it pretty quickly. By the end, I ended up loving the aesthetic of the game—the anime characters with the trippy backgrounds made for a fun experience. One negative I did notice is a little framerate dips here and there. Mostly when the stage got busy, it was a bit weird, mainly since this could work as a Wii game graphics wise but it wasn’t enough to ruin the experience or throw me off of hitting my combo streak. Lastly, while changing closes for the character was a decent idea, it was executed horribly. Look at me, changing the outfit. You have to load up the character. Move to the selected clothing and wait for it to load… why does it take so long here? The wait times made me not want to change, so you will see characters wearing the same clothes for each part of this game.
My main issue with the game is the music. Remember what I said about the beginning about the setlist being bad… well, it’s pretty bad. The game features only twenty songs in it. Most of the songs are decently old, and they’re all pop songs. Party Rock Anthem by LMFAO, Funkytown by Lipps Inc, She looks so perfect by five seconds of summer? These are just not songs I want to listen to when working out. If you do like these songs, then I got terrible news for you. They are instrumental cover versions, so you don’t even get to hear any of the lyrics. It makes sense since the BPM needs to change to fit the boxing motive, but switching it to an EDM Remix of these songs is far better of an idea than using Midi covers with no vocals. About half of the songs are locked out when you first start playing, so you are going to be boxing to Movies like Jagger a lot for the first week or two.
The second issue I have with this game is that there isn’t a whole lot of content to chew on. It is released for fifty dollars, so it is a budget game, and it regularly goes on sale for twenty dollars on the eshop. That said, it could use a bit more content. Have more characters to unlock or add more songs. When I got through with the game over thirty days, I unlocked almost all of the combos and songs. There was still a ton of clothes to unlock for each character, but that was less motivating to me then more songs or combos. Don’t get me wrong, though. If you can pick it up for twenty dollars during one of Nintendo sales that it is definitely worth that price. Fifty dollars is pretty steep for this type of game, though.
[Day 25 check-in]
Now it’s time for my favorite part of these videos if there was a sequel. I really hope that there will be a sequel to this game as it has a great base that can be extended a whole lot further. The first thing I would add is a story to go along with the daily workouts. Just a quick few sentences and each day with a few cutscenes, maybe once a week, would go far in motivating gamers to play. It should be cheesy and cutesy and all that, and it would fit the game perfectly. Maybe throw in a few characters or make it fun and see if Nintendo will allow some characters. They used to do this all the time with games such as SSX3, where you can play as Mario and peach. Why don’t they do this anymore… especially if they are publishing the game? Having little mac become one of the characters would be a great way to get us, nerds, all hyped. Lastly, update the songs. You can have your family-fun radio jams but add some obscure pop songs or even some rock songs as well. Keep going the remix route, but keep the vocals.
Overall, the game is worth it if you can find it on sale. Fifty dollars is a little too much for the lack of content in the game, but for twenty, it is a gem. I didn’t really lose any weight while doing this game, and I actually lost my sheet before I could scan it, so I can’t show my daily progress. Overall it is a good game to play intermediately between rounds of Ring Fit adventure, or during those days, you just don’t feel like heading to the gym. As always, I recommend trying to do this on your own. Please try this challenge out for your self and message me about it. I love it when I see others trying to lose weight and get healthier no matter what you do to do it.
So guys, thank you so much for watching this video on Fitness boxing for the Nintendo switch. I recommend all of you take up the challenge and do thirty days of cold showers as well. If you like this video, then please thumbs up, share, and subscribe to the YouTube channel. You can expect a new video every single week now that I am back into the rhythm of things. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook whenever I have the time to create those. I still don’t have an account created. Lastly, have a fantastic day, everyone.