Ring Fit Adventure Fitness Log Week 36: There in El Dorago is Lord Dragaux!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - But we're going to his other stadiums first to dismantle statues.

Normally, my main goal in playing Ring Fit Adventure on a weekly basis is to... be in better shape for the purposes of winning the Tokyo Olympic Games. We call it KoopaTV Fitness Fridays. Last week, we cleared World 35.

This week, however, in the spirit of the United States of America, our main goal this week was to tear down statues. Which, by the way, still requires finesse.

The best place to find statues to destroy is Ring Fit Adventure's World 36: Extra Fitness Lv. 225, based off World 13: El Dorago, with the majority of that content covered in our Week 12 log. I'm continuing to play on difficulty level 30.

Now, Ring doesn't remember where Dragaux is, but according to my notes in KoopaTV's Week 13 Fitness Log, he's in the bottom left Dragaux Stadium. THEREFORE, we'll do that LAST. That's because we want to stock up on Dragaux Statue Cores and Dragaux Statue Fragments obtained by destroying Dragaux Statues and Mini Dragaux Statues, respectively. General Store Number 32 is offering the Stone Dragon II clothing set but they require those items (two Cores and two Fragments—Cores are more scarce), while the Peacock Contender II set requires two Peridot stones.

I do remember. I just wrote it in the paragraph above, Ring.
I hope you read my content and not just look at the pictures and the captions.

Dragaux surprisingly acknowledges that the bottom left Dragaux Stadium is the real one without us having to clear any of the other ones first, just by visiting it from the overworld map. But we can cancel out of that and do the others.

We're visiting Dragaux first thing, but we're not actually going to enter his Stadium until the end.

Let's start with the top right Dragaux Stadium, which is two minutes of a Squat-powered rail cart into a Dragaux Statue miniboss. Dragaux Statues can punch you, gleam through its eyes at you to reduce your defence, and my favourite action of all, shoot laser beams from its eyes that do far more damage than the punch. (Still not enough to be a threat.) Defeating it forced it to drop a valuable Dragaux Statue Core

The overworld Treasure Chest at the very top right contains one Peridot stone, and behind it is a four-round Battle Gym offering a Strength Drink for completing it well enough. Which I did, and I also got the Russian-Twist Surgeon title, given to anyone who has completed 5,000 cumulative Russian Twists. Definitely a useful Fit Skill! And that's it for Sunday.

On Monday, I went to the right-most Dragaux Stadium, which was just two giant staircases you have to knee-lift through for over a minute. Then there was a Mini Dragaux Statue at the end, which had normal battle music. Like the big statue, it can also gleam at you to lower your defence...and it can also shoot lasers! Upon defeat, it dropped a Statue Fragment, and provided access to the lowest-right Game Gym, and the three Gold Hoplins guarding that. (Which can net you a total of 3000 much-needed coins with proper smoothie drinking.) The Game Gym is for Smack Back (Advanced), and they offer a revival-granting Watermelon Smoothie.

How can you tell? It's a statue. How does a statue get disoriented?

I figured I'd do one more Dragaux Stadium, so it's the one on the bottom row to the right, to the left of the Game Gym. The stage itself is quite short, a matter of running up conveyor belts and air blasting push blocks as you're doing so. The fight at the end? A regular-sized Dragaux Statue... but with two friends! A Red Matta Ray+ and a Yellow Matta Ray+! (Those are healing minions, and will heal the Dragaux Statue if it's damaged. The statue will comically jump on them.) Unfortunately for me, I thought all of these would be single-foe fights, so I didn't bring my usual assortment of multi-range Fit Skills besides Pendulum Bend and Boat Pose. Unfortunately, those aren't enough to knock them out, so I had to dedicate single-target Fit Skills to beat them, which are turns I wasn't using doing damage to the statue. EVENTUALLY I got through the match, sort of helped by the statue's eyes gleaming at me multiple turns in a row to lower my defence, but not actually attacking me to take advantage of that.

On Tuesday, I went through the top left Dragaux Stadium, which involved platforming through conveyor belts and spiked logs. Happy to report I didn't get hit by any. The fight at the end was against a real Dragaux Statue, along with a Blue Megaphauna+ and a Green Megaphauna+. Like the clerical Matta Rays, Megaphaunas can lengthen boss fights by buffing the defence stat of the Dragaux Statue. (A Megaphauna “alert” increases all enemies’ defence, while a Megaphauna's “enthusiastic support” increases all enemies’ attack. ...In my case, on the first turn—and you simply don't have the power to one-round KO these guys under normal circumstances—the one Megaphauna did an alert and the other provided enthusiastic support.) Still, nothing insurmountable, and the Dragaux Statue represented yet another torn down monument. (And it left behind the Dragaux Stature Core item.)

To the left of that stadium on the map is an overworld Treasure Chest containing one Dragon Fruit, and behind that is the Squattery Wheel (Advanced) Game Gym. The reward for completing it with an A rank was 425 coins... but I wanted to dedicate what's left of Tuesday night trying to S rank it. ...Except the first several tries, I couldn't even get the basic A rank needed. Finally, on the fifth try, I got a new high score—a 95/100! ...Which is a solid A rank. I tried several more times, and right before I was about to stop because my knees were getting very tired and it was almost midnight... I got the S rank! And the Sculptor Supreme title! W00T! That leaves 3 minigames remaining that I haven't yet S ranked.

I definitely didn't expect this to S rank. So I was VERY HAPPY.

Wednesday got skipped, but I'm playing on Thursday! The second-to-last Dragaux Stadium (aka the last one without Dragaux actually residing) that I'm playing is on the far-left of the map, and it involves a Chair Pose-powered railcart into TWO Slinkbug encounters that you need to sustain a Tree Pose for. After that, it's ANOTHER Chair Pose Hold railcart segment. I guess this Dragaux Stadium is using both of the ways that Green Fit Skills can be encountered during the platforming/running segments. Then to my surprise, the fight at the end was a Mini Dragaux Statue... and TWO Gold Hoplins! One on each perimetre of the battlefield (meaning to hit both at once, you need to use a five-range Fit Skill as opposed to a three-range Fit Skill). In the name of defeating the Gold Hoplins before they fled, I abused smoothies to beat them quickly, which spilled over to trivialising the time it takes to beat the Mini Dragaux Statue. With 2,000 coins and a Dragaux Statue Fragment richer, I went south to the Rare Hoplin overworld fight. I don't care about getting experience from them (money is more important), so one fled.

The last thing before the FINAL Dragaux Stadium is the Posture Set Fitness Gym, which is offering a Peridot stone for clearing it with at least an A rank. As I write this, I'm slouching, so I could definitely benefit from posture...

1. Overhead Bend (x30)—Normally, Overhead Bend is one of the strongest Fit Skills in the game (as a Lv.3). It just isn't really worth it in terms of how much real-time goes into doing one repetition, and how awkward your back can feel if you don't do it correctly. Still, in terms of the Fitness Gym, it's fine.
2. Overhead Arm Spin (x60)—Overhead Arm Spin is really useful during fights because it's a five-range Arms Fit Skill with pretty decent base power. That said, it can be tricky to get 100 points per repetition because the Ring-Con wants you to be moving it at a certain minimum velocity when it gauges itself every couple of seconds. If you're too slow, you might get, like, 98 points instead, which could be interpreted as a “Good!” in battle, as opposed to a Great!
3. Thigh Press (x30)—Thigh Press is one of my favourite Fit Skills, but I've stopped using it during battles because I already have the best title you can get for it, and like every other Legs Fit Skill, single-target Legs Fit Skills are significantly inferior to the other types in terms of base power.
4. Hip Lift (x30)—Unlike the previous three, I never ever use Hip Lift, because it's a Fit Skill that heals you, which is useless in a game where you take so little damage. I would strongly recommend to NOT put the Ring-Con in-between your thighs as you lift your hips off the ground. Just don't use the Ring-Con at all, since Ring Fit Adventure is ONLY measuring the slant of the Joy-Con tucked into the Leg Strap. You can do good, legitimate Hip Lifts much easier without worrying about the Ring-Con falling/flying out...which happened to me. And when THAT happens, if you try to get up and retrieve it, it'll consider that you doing more Hip Lift repetitions, and you'll get terrible scores for them. (Since the game is only measuring one of your legs and won't wait for the Ring-Con to be where it should be... or even know it's not there.)
5. Tree Pose (x28)—We just did this in the preceding level, though that was a Tree Pose Hold, while these Tree Poses involve repeatedly bending to the side while standing on one leg. Still.

I'm actually not too sure how all of those benefit my posture, but, whatever, I'll finish this world (the final Dragaux Stadium) tomorrow! And I went and bought the last of the Peacock Contender II set with the Peridot I got.

It's Friday, and it's actually Friday now when this is being published. Today is dedicated to one level: the final Dragaux Stadium with Dragaux in it. And the level design angers me, and this video should explain why:

As for the fight, Dragaux is balancing on a Blue Puffersquish again. He gave a speech about how hard work is better than relying on luck, which came out of nowhere. After losing half his health, he did a super attack of pounding wooden boxes my way... this time... FOUR at a time. Still not a threat. After his defeat, Dragaux dropped a Peridot stone and claimed that we're not here due to luck, but due to our hard work, so we're proof of what he's talking about. ...Yeah, no one asked, Dragaux.

Not much running this time.

I wish “El Dorago” was name-dropped at least once in the dialogue. Dragaux presumably lives there at least some of the time, since it's a world he made. Would've been nice for him to mention that for continuity and lore. Maybe he could be upset we went to his house. But instead he said some out-of-place generic stuff. Missed opportunity.


Ludwig hopes World 37 will be more fun, but also progress much faster. This world took five days to clear ten levels, since they all involved a miniboss or miniboss-equivalent. (Or Dragaux himself.) If the worlds keep taking up so much time (and take more and more time per world), Ludwig won't be able to do it all in a week!


World 37 did progress faster, and... Ludwig broke out in song!
Ludwig and Ring return to El Dorago in World 59, but again it's not name-dropped.