The Rampant Discourse staff have made several valiant attempts at sustaining an exercise regimine. None of them stuck around.
Paul’s Xbox Fitness Challenge in 2016 had a single update at the two month mark before the service itself was killed by Microsoft.
Paul’s P90x3 Challenge in 2017 had a single update at the one month mark before ending in disappointment (and hope).
Paul’s 21 Day Fix Challenge in 2018 had a single update after its 21 day duration and was never heard from again. I didn’t even know about this challenge until I searched the site today.
The Rampant Discourse Exercise Dare in 2020 was perhaps the most successful. That was undoubtedly a result of the dare being issued to all three core Rampant Discoursers: Paul, Andrew, and myself. We managed three check-ins across the 90 days of the challenge: here’s the first, here’s the second, and here’s the final. Of course, a certain pandemic reared its ugly head right as this challenge was winding down, so it felt like we ended on a downer as our lives got interrupted. Of course, we’re still not out of it yet.
My plan during the exercise dare of 2020 was to fully commit to the schedule laid out by the DDP Yoga program I was already doing. I also mixed in some workouts inspired by Bruce Lee. The yoga worked out far better than the Bruce Lee exercises and I continued DDP Yoga for most of 2020.
For Christmas of 2020, I bought a Nintendo Switch and a stack of physical games to share with my kids. The kids were primarily interested in Mario Kart and Pokemon, while I was initially focused on Zelda. I had a blast during the first 100 days and now full year of owning and playing a Nintendo console again.
On December 30, 2020, I used GameStop’s same day delivery service to buy Ring Fit Adventure.
On December 31, 2021, I finished my personal Ring Fit Adventure.
The Beginning of the Adventure
It took me a full year to reach the end of Ring Fit Adventure. I did not set out with any specific end date when I fired up my first session. I can’t even remember what made me decide to buy another exercise video game.
The last console I bought prior to the Nintendo Switch was the Nintendo Wii. Like everyone else, I had Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort. But I also dabbled in Wii Fit and some boxing exercise game I can’t recall (and Google refuses to find for me). Before that, on my Xbox 360, I used my fancy Kinect to exercise with Your Shape: Fitness Evolved. (Sidebar: I just now realized the subtitle “Fitness Evolved” has to be a nod to Halo’s subtitle of “Combat Evolved.” Wow, that took me only about a decade to figure out.) Both the Wii and Xbox 360 Kinect had several other games that encouraged (i.e. forced) the player to be active, along with dozens of other exercise games I never tried.
Something about the year 2020 made me want to try something more likely to stick. The Wii’s motion controls and the Kinect’s motion capture were never perfect and wound up frustrating me a lot, though. Then I read how Ring Fit Adventure had become super popular during the pandemic. It didn’t use wonky motion controls like Wii. Instead, it used an actual piece of exericse equipment, a pilates ring. One of the major appeals of DDP Yoga was it’s notion of “dynamic resistance,” which uses resistance training without grappling with heavy weights. So this ring thing sounded right up my alley.
The other big draw for me was the role playing game behind the exercises. Most exercise video games have a trainer leading you through a set routine or random sequences. The only real progression is some bar graphs showing time or calories, or maybe you manage to unlock some new exercises or something. I know that’s basically the same feedback as going to a gym or a personal trainer, but exercising just to exercise and stay healthy has never gripped me. I’d much rather exercise using some activity, which is why the boxing game held my interest the longest. I used to play basketball with friends. If I did just straight up exercise, I always had the TV on to occupy my mind.
The Promise of Adventure
Ring Fit Adventure promised, well, an adventure. A basic story to link all the exercises together. A lush world to look at while exercising. A unique character in the ring itself. And all the other trappings of an RPG, complete with experience points, levels, and money.
The gimmick to the game is, of course, you use exercises to defeat all the monsters you encounter. Rather than lazily use a controller to scroll through some menus to pick an attack or ability, you have to physically perform exercises. Even the menu system can use the ring motions to scroll and select options.
There are some additions to the combat. Each exercise has a color associated and if you match the exercise’s color to the enemy’s color then you do more damage. You can also drink smoothies (your character does, in the game, not you in real life, although I suppose you could) to buff exercise colors, increase defense, or recover health.
The neat thing is, by the end of my adventure, I wasn’t focusing on those game elements. I rarely used smoothies in the second half of the game. I occasionally matched colors but mostly I just used the “Random” option to let the game pick which exercise to perform and which enemies to target.
That leads into one of the best aspects of Ring Fit Adventure. You can tailor the exercising to your taste. You could always match colors to ensure you dish out maximum damage, but you do wind up exercising less that way. You could focus on making and drinking all sorts of smoothies, although again the offensive smoothies will decrease the amount of exercises you have to perform. The biggest option you can change, though, is to always finish an exercise even after the enemy is defeated. By default, the game aborts the current exercise the instant you defeat all the targeted enemies. Not only does that cut out a huge number of reps, it often means you only get to work on one side while totally skipping the other side. For both of those reasons I quickly enabled the option to always complete each exercise.
The story is better than expected. The main characters are all wacky, unique, and memorable. The plot revolves around chasing the big bad guy, Dragaux. He’s a huge dragon demon thing that is obsessed with working out and perfecting his body. As the plot goes on, he learns his lesson about this toxic attitude toward fitness.
This is all a far cry from Nintendo’s previous exercise effort, Wii Fit. That game infamously body shamed its users. Your Mii would plump up after the game determined you were overweight. The primary metric was the flawed BMI. There was very little encouragement.
The character Ring, on the other hand, is non-stop encouragement. He (or she, since you can select the gender of the ring’s voice) calls out how many reps you have left in a set, shouts positive phrases to keep you going, and often compliments you on your effort afterward. The line “Your sweat is so shiny and beautiful!” might seem creepy or silly at first but you’ll come to appreciate it before you know it.
The End of the Adventure
As you clear each world in the story of Ring Fit Adventure, you see a list of remaining worlds with their contents hidden. At the beginning you can’t see the end of the list. Once I progressed far enough, though, I could see exactly how many worlds were left. That’s when I knew I could finish this adventure.
I still had about two full worlds to complete at the beginning of December. I set my goal to finish both worlds, and thus the entire story, by the end of the month so I could wrap it up within a year. I skip working out on weekends. My weekday schedule is usually dictated by my work schedule, which provides a regulated rhythm. But my work office shuts down the last week of the year (between Christmas and New Year’s) and my kids had off school the same time period. That meant the last week or so was going to be much less regimented in terms of schedule and waking up.
It came down to the wire. I had two levels left in the final world when that last week rolled around. On Monday, we took an overnight trip to see the Christmas display at Longwood Gardens (lesson learned: buy tickets further in advance so we can be there after dark to really appreciate all the lights). That knocked out Monday and Tuesday. I woke up Wednesday with two levels to finish in three days. I finished my morning exercise to knock off one of the levels and advance to the final level. Then I realized I had miscounted and there had been three more levels! Good thing I didn’t skip Wednesday so I only had to tackle one level per day.
And that final level, the final battle with Dragaux, is a doozy. I’m not spoiling the story by telling you that single battle took me longer than any other session. And since it was one battle, there were no menus or jogging or other interstitial activities to break up the workout. It was close to a full 30 minutes. The game always encourages you to stop after just 10 minutes (when you return to the map screen after a level, it will ask if you want to quit every 10 minutes).
Defeating the final Dragaux felt awesome! Knocking off the final boss of any RPG usually feels good, but knowing I had used my actual physical actions to withstand all his life bars and ultimate attacks was a way better high than just pressing buttons on a controller. And seeing that I could finish a session that long also gave me a mark of pride.
Trainer congratulations
After the end screen and credits roll, your trainer, Tipp, pops back in to continue the festivities.
I like Tipp. His faceless visage belies any true feelings but his body motions are always exuberant. He’s not as effusive in his praise as Ring but he offers plenty of compliments.
Just check out all the confetti this guy throws around to celebrate various exercise rep milestones!
Tipp leads you in your warmup stretching and cooldown stretching. He also provides a daily tip (get it?) that is usually something I already knew but occasionally dropped some nugget of knowledge I was not familiar with.
One thing Tipp taught me was the difference between dynamic stretching and static stretching. My son’s baseball team always starts each practice with “dynamics.” I didn’t know really know why until Tipp told me. Dynamic stretching involves moving your body and muscles to warm it up for more activity. Ring Fit uses knee raises, knee hip raises, back stretches, and side bends. Static stretching, on the other hand, involves holding your body in a specific pose for a little while. Ring Fit varies its static stretching based on which exercises you performed most during your session. You don’t want to do static stretching before working out and you don’t want to do dynamic stretching after working out. Thanks, Tipp!
The Final Countdown
After Tipp offers his congratulations, he gives you your overall numbers across the entire adventure.
From top left going in clockwise order: total time exercsing, total calories burned, total ring presses, and total distance run.
I wish one of the final screens showed how many days you worked out. I think I was at 127 or 128. Which feels low given I took a full calendar year of 365 days. But taking out weekends already brings that down to roughly 260 days. That means I was close to a 50% rate of daily workouts, which is pretty good considering how spotty my past exercise regimes have been. The mere fact I stuck it out for the full year is way longer than any other exercise program. And I’m looking forward to the New Game Plus worlds plus going back to 100% all the original worlds (although there are some total BS levels that I’m not sure I care enough to ever accomplish).
Put a Ring on It
Nintendo managed to catch lightning in a bottle a few times during the Covid-19 pandemic. Its Animal Crossing: New Horizons game became an unexpected smash hit during a time of social distancing and lockdowns. Bowser’s Fury showed the potential future of Mario games. Metroid Dread followed up on an Easter egg from over a decade ago and won Best Action/Adventure Game at The Game Awards.
The biggest surprise, though, was the unlikely success of Ring Fit Adventure.
No doubt, like Animal Crossing, Ring Fit was aided by the pandemic. With gyms shut down and people spending more time at home, a game that served up a fun way to exercise was bound to succeed. It was hard to come by during much of 2020, so my coming to the party late meant I didn’t have to miss out or wait. I dove headfirst into the adventure and never looked back.
Ring Fit Adventure delivers on its promise. The ring peripheral is one of the best Nintendo has put out. The exercises and adjustable difficulty options yield plenty of fitness. The story and characters make up a fun, goofy adventure that provides enough impetus to keep you exercising.
Do yourself a favor. Help accomplish that fitness resolution you just made. Pick yourself up a copy of Ring Fit Adventure and start exercising.
And remember. “Your sweat is so shiny and beautiful!”
