In this day and age of video game companies battling each other for the ultimate AAA supremacy, we still have companies like Nintendo that don’t really care about any of that and do their own thing. No one does bizarre video game stuff like Nintendo does. There is just something about the company that sets it apart from the rest of the pack. Things are not really that simple though. You see, a company with Nintendo’s history and legacy would usually drift away from such risky business decisions. However, the fact that they’ve been successful at pulling these peculiar moves off in the past is what makes them the masters of this craft.
Take Nintendo Switch, for example. It is arguably one of the best video game consoles of all time. It doesn’t have any massive AAA games. You know, your Red Dead Redemption 2 and the Call of Duty games etc. The thing is, though, that it doesn’t need any of those games. There is just a special aura around Switch that makes it good without ever needing these mainstream AAA titles. Its own games are extremely well-crafted with just the right amount of graphical fidelity. Breath of the Wild is probably not the greatest technical feat ever but the game still manages to look absolutely gorgeous. All the third party games Nintendo picks for the Switch are the same.
Overwatch doesn’t need to look ultra-realistic to feel good. Nintendo is the master of putting all these pieces together. The Switch is all about the experience, not caring about the graphics or the technicalities and that’s what makes it so special. It just brings out that kid inside you and makes you want to play games.
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Switch Ring Fit Adventure
The point is that Nintendo has always been good at making weird things work. From the Power Pad on the NES to the Wii Fit Balance Board, Nintendo is no stranger to bizarre fitness accessories for its consoles. The new Switch Ring Fit Adventure is just another one of these strange yet exciting endeavors for the company. It is basically an RPG mixed with a fitness game which is controlled by the new ring-con and leg strap accessories. Once you’ve paired them up with your Joy-Cons, these two accessories would then work in tandem with each other to determine your body movement and translate it into the game.
As far as the video game side of the Ring Fit Adventure is concerned, it is a bunch of challenges that you have to complete as you embark on the quest to defeat an evil body-building dragon and restore peace and order to the world. Yes, you read that correctly. These challenges include overcoming obstacles and defeating different types of enemies. Each one of these requires you to exert yourself physically in a different way to get that full body workout while saving the world from evil. Only Nintendo could have come up with something so bizarre yet amazing.
The Accessories
The ring-con and strap accessories are what make this game so different though. The fitness ring was unveiled a few days ago. It is a flexible pressure sensitive ring that can sense how hard a player pulls it or squeezes it. It can also be calibrated to your liking if you’re too strong or too weak for the default setting. You insert a Joy-Con into the ring and it can then detect other forms of movements as well, presumably due to a gyro sensor. The ring also comes with a heart rate monitor to make you realise that this is the real deal and the fitness thing is not just a gimmick.
The strap, on the other hand, wraps around your leg and sense your lower body movement. It syncs up with the ring in your hands to determine the positioning and posture of your body, which, sounds like an extremely clever way of doing it. Much like the ring, the strap also has a Joy-Con inserted into it for additional sensors.
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Workouts
Considering the simplicity of the equipment, Ring Fit Adventure actually has a surprising amount of different body workouts. These include exercises focusing on the upper body, lower body, core strength and even full body workouts. The game also has a ton of different yoga-based workouts and you’d have to mix and match between all of these to defeat the enemies that cross your path. As you work your way through the game, you level up your character and unlock additional workouts and advance movements. These help with dealing extra damage to harder enemies.
However, if you’re not really in it for the whole RPG adventure experience in Ring Fit Adventure, you could simply just jump straight into normal workouts. These don’t require you to progress through the story or play the actual game. However, doing the normal workouts would does still level up your character to unlock additional moves. Other than that, the game has a few more fun minigames for shorter bursts of exercise gaming.
Overall, this could either be a massive success or a complete failure. However, knowing Nintendo, it probably wouldn’t be the latter. Nintendo also released a video explaining everything about the new game but the acting in it is really strange and bizarre, so beware.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1orju1NsN8
Ring Fit Adventure releases on October 18 for the Nintendo Switch and would probably cost a little more than your usual Switch game. What are your thoughts on this bizarre new fitness thingie from Nintendo? Let us know down in the comments below!