Ring Fit Adventure Fitness Log Week 24: Featuring the Fitness Boxing 2 Demo

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - I'm back to get fit!

A not-so-secret: I haven't been staying fit. In terms of weight, I'm a bit over where I was in November 2019. Body mass index-wide, it's still “normal weight”, but if I'm doing nothing, that could change, and that's not what I want. I made the stupid, public decision in April 2020 to stop playing Ring Fit Adventure until 2021 because the 2020 Olympic Games got delayed to 2021, and the Olympics being in 2020 was why I was playing Ring Fit Adventure to begin with. (In case you're wondering, Team Koopa is competing in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. ...I'm also assuming it's not getting cancelled in 2021.)

I was supposed to course-correct in the second half of 2020 (at the recommendation of my chiropractor, no less), but anyone who has been on my Nintendo Switch friend list knows that I haven't actually been playing Ring Fit Adventure since I wrote that. It turns out that I'm not good at self-improvement, and documenting things on KoopaTV helps me actually do things. Also, since I wrote that article in the second half of 2020, my back has been relatively decent (not needing big chiropractic adjustments), but my shoulders and neck are the tension areas.

Before I get into what I did this week, note that there will be no Ring Fit Adventure story/adventure mode content this week. We last left off completing the final world of the game, World 23: Finalia, and then going through World 24: Extra Fitness Lv. 181. It's a good idea for, uh, search engines to have the week # in the article title to be the same # as the world featured in the article itself, so... You'll get other content for the fitness log comeback.

This Custom Fitness List was generated with shoulder-helping exercises.
(Ring Fit Adventure doesn't break out exercises that help the neck.)
Bow Pull x28; Fan Pose x28; Back Press x20; Overhead Squat x20; Standing Forward Fold x16; Robo-Wrecker (Novice); Aerochute (Novice).

On Sunday (January 17, 2021) all I did in terms of activity was the above Custom Mode Fitness List. I got a perfect score (for apparently the first time) in the Robo-Wrecker minigame. But the real challenge were the 20 Overhead Squats. The Overhead Squat is notorious for showing up in the adventure mode as a defence against certain bosses’ super attacks, and I'm notorious in how I handle it. By Monday afternoon, my legs were still pretty sore from doing them, which justifies why I should practice doing the squats to begin with, though it's unclear to me how Overhead Squats help my shoulders. It hurts to go up and down the stairs, of which there are many in King Bowser's Castle. (Fortunately, they're not endless, like in Princess Peach's Castle. She has an awful sense of interior design.)

After doing nothing on Monday in terms of fitness (gotta heal from the squats), on Tuesday I checked out Quick Play's Simple exercises for... the first time ever. And these have RANKINGS and LEADERBOARDS to them that can be friend list wide, which uses the spirit of competition as a motivating factor. There's a total of nine:

They're colour-coded for convenience in terms of what kind of gameplay to expect.

1. Pectoralis Major Challenge: Counts how many times you can press the Ring-Con in for 20 seconds, holding it in front of you. I got 97 presses.
   





I would've been very disappointed if they put my 97 below Offbrand's 97.

2. Latissimus Dorsi Challenge: Counts how many times you can pull the Ring-Con out for 20 seconds, holding it in front of you. I got 67 pulls.
   
3. Deltoids Challenge: Counts how many times you can pull the Ring-Con out for 20 seconds, holding it above your head. I got 64 pulls.
   
4. Spinal Erectors Challenge: Counts how many times you can press the Ring-Con in for 20 seconds, holding it behind your head. I got 43 presses.
   
5. Quadriceps Challenge: Counts how many knee lifts you can do in 20 seconds with the Joy-Con contained in the Leg Strap pocket. I got 67 lifts.
   
6. Mighty Pectoralis Major: Push and hold the Ring-Con in, held in front of you, until you run out of stamina, denoted by a ticking time bomb that blows up after trying to take a small time break. You have to gradually push it in harder as time goes on. I got 70 pushes.
   


7. Mighty Deltoids: Hold the Ring-Con above your head, and repeatedly push and hold it in until you run out of stamina, denoted by the ticking time bomb that blows up after trying to take a small time break. You have to gradually push it in harder as time goes on. I got 71 pushes.
   
8. Endless Latissimus Dorsi: Hold the Ring-Con in front of you and pull it outward for as long as you can. You need to pull it out harder as time goes on, and maintain the pull. Trying to take a break will set off a ticking time bomb. I got 71.11 seconds.
   
9. Endless Deltoids: Hold the Ring-Con above your head and pull it outward for as long as you can. You need to pull it out harder as time goes on, and maintain the pull. Trying to take a break will set off a ticking time bomb. I got 100.45 seconds.

I did the first seven on Tuesday and the last two on Wednesday, since by definition, my muscles were exhausted from the stamina-depleting Mighty challenges. One thing to note, given the leaderboard: Make sure your friends aren't cheaters.

I also did the custom list from above again. I realise that maybe I should swap out the minigames at the end for ones that I haven't S-ranked already, since activities done in Custom Mode count for unlocking new Titles (or in-game achievements) that were a big motivating factor for Adventure mode. ...And if I want to spare myself, cut the number of Overhead Squat repetitions. Or cut the exercise out entirely.

On Friday, I did want to experiment a bit. Since there is a weekly worldwide leaderboard (in other words, the results are wiped clean after they're there for a week, as opposed to being of all time), and that takes in all players, what preventative measures are there to cheating?

In some of the other Quick Play Simple exercises, I'm down in the thousands, so there are at least many thousands of people who do this every week.

Unlike in other modes like Custom or Adventure, you aren't allowed to use the Pause button. It does nothing. If you use the HOME button, you'll be brought to the home menu... and when you return, it will instantly end the exercise, with your score being whatever you left it at. In other words, it's a forfeit. These are strong anti-cheating measures because you can't take a non-designed break for an hour and regain your stamina. The fact the leaderboard clears every week (except for among your friends) also disincentivises cheating, because your glory will only last for a week anyway.

I didn't actually do any fitness in Ring Fit Adventure today—just wanted to see that detail. But for the rest of Friday and this article...

Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm and Exercise Demo Impressions

I didn't have much to say about Fitness Boxing 2 when it was shown in the Nintendo Direct Mini from September 2020. But the demo has been available for a bit, and hey, why not try it out for this log? And I can even compare it to Ring Fit Adventure. And... I encounter a problem immediately:

I haven't used my Joy-Con straps once since I got my Nintendo Switch, since I don't use my Joy-Cons to play games.
As a result, I don't even know where my Joy-Con straps are.

Well, let's not let that stop us. I proceed to live DANGEROUSLY and venture forth to the Daily Workout, which apparently has several options in the real game, but not in the demo:

Not only is Full Body also an option, Full Body is my ONLY option.

Too bad I can't take your recommendation unless I spend $50. (I guess it's up to me to do that or not?)
If Ring Fit Adventure has taught me anything, is that it's unhealthy and possibly dangerous to exercise without stretching first.
Locking stretching out of the demo ain't a good way to sell Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm & Exercise.

Now that my body isn't ready for the game's rhythm and exercise, and my Joy-Cons might fly out of my claws at any moment, it's time to start. The game taught me how to have proper posture while playing, and the gameplay basically revolves around waggling your Joy-Cons forward in time with the sliding indicators (which should be moving to the songs—one of which is Darude's Sandstorm, though that's locked out of the demo) on the left and right sides of the screen. Obviously, each Joy-Con is a hand, and you box with two of them, and the left side is your left hand and the right side is your right hand, and you move them at different times.

The demo's Daily Workout just has you doing Straight punches and Jabs, and you gotta change your body posture from being right-angled to left-angled midway. But you can see other varieties of boxing moves in Free Exercise, including Hooks.

The easiest thing to do when you got to Jab and then Hook? Fling your arms forward.
It's not a real jab or hook, but it'll fit the timing and you'll get a Perfect!

My problem with this game is that, because your input method is just a Joy-Con waggle, there's no difference between a jab and a hook in terms of what the game is looking for. While Ring Fit Adventure has both the Leg Strap and the Ring-Con to make sure you're doing elaborate movements (though they're sometimes easy to cheat, believe me), Fitness Boxing 2 has only one check: your one Joy-Con. And here's the other thing: While Ring Fit Adventure emphasises your form, Fitness Boxing 2 emphasises your speed and timing. That basically means you're encouraged to do whatever you want. Gotta do a one-two one-two in very quick succession? Just toss your Joy-Cons forward and you'll get it. Fitness Boxing's game design encourages very bad habits.

It's waggling disguised as exercise. Meanwhile, Ring Fit Adventure is actually exercise (thanks to the peripherals that make the game's price higher, but it's worth it), and it's also actually a game! And it's a lot less repetitive, too.

Though Fitness Boxing 2 thinks I'm 18 years old (“Fitness Age”, which is like a worse version of Brain Age), which is very flattering of it. That said, I'm not gonna buy it or return to the demo. But I WILL return to Ring Fit Adventure for the weeks to come, and the Adventure portion for the Extra Fitness worlds!


Let Ludwig know if you want to know more about Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm & Exercise... but he probably can't give you details. He CAN give you a lot of details about Ring Fit Adventure, however, and he's one of the most knowledgeable people about it out there. The Fitness Logs should be weekly on Fridays, which means you'll get four non-Fitness articles on KoopaTV every week. Week 25 will cover World 25: Extra Fitness.


Did you know Ring Fit Adventure has its own rhythm game in it? Here's Ludwig's thoughts on that.
As promised, here's Week 25 with World 25!