Fitness Boxing – Time to burn some calories!

Fitness Boxing is a motion-based exercising rhythm game for Nintendo Switch. The game uses the Joy-Con motion controllers to perform punches, steps, and dodging movements. Boxing itself is a fun and effective exercising method, but the actual gameplay is a poor experience, and it feels like it’s cheaply made.

When performing a workout, two lines indicate when to punch with your hands. Your instructor also shows and tells the movement what you have to do.

The game doesn’t give much variety when you start the game. The game recommends doing the daily exercise, which can be modified from 15 minutes to 45 minutes. You can also choose the fitness goal and body target. Then the game makes you a workout session that you have to complete. The workout is separated into multiple parts, including stretching if you want. Every part has different movements and music playing in the background. You perform the actions by punching, stepping, blocking, or dodging in the rhythm of the music and instructions. Punches and blocks felt well optimized, but I think I missed steps and dodges multiple times because they weren’t configured to the joy-cons perfectly. Once the workout is done, you get to stamp the current day’s workout to the in-game calendar. Then the game shows how many calories you have burned and how many punches you have done.

The main menu is quite empty, but the daily workout is the only one that you even choose from here mostly.

The game lacks content in other sections. You can choose free training or basic training to have more control in the content of your workout, but the daily workout is the fastest and most optimized workout you can have in this game. Punching in rhythm is fun, but the game has only 20 cheap instrumental versions of popular pop songs like Justin Bieber’s “Baby” and Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance”. The small selection of songs makes the game feel repetitive in the long run. There are only six instructors to choose from and the only reward of completing a workout is either to unlock one of the 20 songs or clothing for one of the instructors. What makes this game even more hollow experience is the lackluster graphics and animations of the instructors and background. The game doesn’t need to be good-looking for an exercising game like this, but the graphics look outdated and the animations feel clunky to follow. These poorly made sections about the game make the gameplay experience quite hollow, and the game itself feels disappointing.

Here are the six instructors. You can change their skin, hair, and eye color besides changing their clothing.

Even though the game lacks in multiple areas, the game does what it is made to do: giving boxing exercise instructions. This game feels more like an instruction video than an actual game. Still, boxing is a good method of burning calories, and a 45-minute workout will make you sweat and it burns around 600 calories. For me who has made a new year’s resolution to lose some weight, this game has helped me in some weight loss. While the game doesn’t give much inspiration to exercise frequently, the actual boxing is fun, and keeping track of how many calories you have burned each day is motivating. If you want to do some exercise at home, this is a good method to do so, but don’t expect any amazing gaming experiences in this game. Nintendo Switch does have a better exercising game called “Ring Fit Adventure”, but this is also a good method to exercise if weight loss is more important to you than the actual gameplay experience.

Publisher: Nintendo

Developer: Imagineer

Platforms: Nintendo Switch

Release Date: 21.12.2018

Genres: Exergame, rhythm game, sports

PEGI 7

The pictures are taken by the author.

Post Views: 683

#Exercise ##RhythmGame ##Boxing ##Switch