It has been six years since Ring Fit Adventure, the Nintendo Switch health sport that requested gamers to defeat monsters (and a attractive dragon) by train. The exercise sport used the Pleasure-Cons’ accelerometers to measure your actions and translate them into health assaults on display. It’s bizarre, it’s wacky, nevertheless it labored.
I performed fairly a little bit of Ring Fit through the COVID-19 lockdown. What can I say: Nintendo saved me energetic at a time after I wasn’t doing a lot else. And it didn’t take lengthy for me to note that I felt stronger. Workouts like squats or leg lifts, which had been extremely troublesome in my first week, received simpler.
Even now that the world has opened up once more, as a persistent miser, I hesitate to hitch a fitness center or a yoga studio. On the finish of the day, I can’t assist however suppose: We have Ring Fit at house. (I don’t endorse this mindset, however I do personal it.)
However because the years have passed by, a creeping worry has grown at the back of my thoughts. And now, within the early weeks of the Switch 2’s launch, it appears plain: They’re not making a Ring Fit 2, are they?
Nintendo ought to make Ring Fit 2
Ring Fit Adventure was a blockbuster sport for the Nintendo Switch. Throughout the pandemic, desperate players snatched the game off store shelves or overpaid for it on eBay. In 2022, it was one among Nintendo’s best-selling games.
The identical was true of Wii Fit for the Nintendo Wii, which reportedly sold out in shops even earlier than it was launched. However its follow-up, Wii Fit U, didn’t accomplish that scorching — it didn’t crack the top 10 titles for the beleaguered console.
Possibly that is what Nintendo is attempting to keep away from. However the Switch 2 isn’t corresponding to the Wii U relating to gross sales. There are 3.5 million units within the wild proper now, however scant few console exclusives. I can’t complain that almost all Switch video games are playable on the Switch 2 (together with the unique Ring Fit Adventure, extra on that later), nevertheless it appears affordable that an viewers for a new health sport exists.
A part of the allure of Nintendo’s health video games has all the time been their visible quirks. In some Wii Fit workout routines, your bean-shaped Mii is the on-screen avatar, they usually do step workout routines onstage in entrance of cheering crowds. The avatars in Ring Fit Adventure are extra subtle, however the narrative is stuffed with cartoonish characters and situations.
The lighthearted aesthetic, and Ring Fit Adventure’s low-commitment mannequin, make figuring out really feel extra enjoyable than a chore. It solely takes about 10 minutes to finish a stage. Whilst you can actually do extra in a session, I can’t let you know what number of occasions I satisfied myself to get off the sofa and work out as a result of “it’ll solely be 10 minutes!”
Nintendo hasn’t fully deserted health video games. In December, it launched Health Boxing 3 for the unique Switch. As an train sport, it’s undoubtedly purposeful. However its laser-focus on boxing and a extra easy fitness center setting doesn’t fairly scratch the itch that Ring Fit Adventure did.
Theoretically, you’ll be able to play Ring Fit Adventure eternally. As soon as the principle quest is over, you’ll be able to basically do a New Recreation Plus run by crafting customized exercises. Armen B. at CGI Espresso did an entire year of Ring Fit Adventure, and reported that the {hardware} holds up, even after lots of of reps.
It feels fallacious to be asking — nay, begging — Nintendo to let me give them extra money, once they’ve already launched an costly console and populated it with choose $80 exclusives. However even when Ring Fit Adventure is a eternally sport, certainly Nintendo left one thing on the desk?
A second installment of Ring Fit’s narrative may convey lapsed gamers like me again to the fold — and introduce new ones to the health sport. Please, my atrophying thigh muscle tissue are begging for it!
Ring Fit 2 would need new {hardware}
The excellent news is that Ring Fit Adventure continues to be suitable with the Nintendo Switch 2. However the {hardware} isn’t. In its compatibility guide, Nintendo notes that the new Pleasure-Cons received’t match within the Ring-Con or the leg strap. Gamers can nonetheless use the unique Pleasure-Cons to play, which is nice. However given how inclined they’re to float, it’s not precisely enjoyable to think about shopping for a entire new console and nonetheless probably needing to shell out for substitute controllers for the previous one in the event that they break, simply to play a health sport.
It could be nice to see a new Ring Fit Adventure, constructed for the Nintendo Switch 2 and its upgraded {hardware}. I’ve all the time appreciated Nintendo’s dedication to health, and I hope we received’t have to attend too lengthy to see what it may do with the Nintendo Switch 2.
