On a Quest for Buffness [Ring Fit Adventure Challenge/Review/Discussion]

[Commander]

Before I go into anything else, my god when did I get so out of shape?

 

Ring Fit Adventure is honestly quite the interesting game I've only played half an hour into and my body can feel it. Actually, it can't really but that in itself is a good thing. So to give you some background, I'm actually not some overweight loser, more just a right on the edge of fatness loser. I gained about 30 pounds too much over the past year after getting skinny but my goal isn't exactly to shed that off. It's more about getting back into the shape I was around 5 years ago back in my high school days. That would require the greatest barrier and most failed New Year's Resolution to overcome: actually exercising.

 

I already know most of you are probably looking at me funny because what would a fat gamer know about exercising. I actually took 4 years of marching band and let me tell you I had calves of steel from that. But we actually had to do all kinds of stretches for warm ups which many are now ingrained into my head. Marching 8 hours a day for a month then 3 hours every single day plus 4-6 hours on a Saturday really makes for a wild workout. You also feel the pain of holding a chunk of metal for all that time. So yeah, I do have some background on this. I'll get more into my band stories which will tie into what I talk about in a minute. There's actually something I know more or less everyone reading this will understand. One issue that plagues a majority of the US.

 

People don't like to exercise. That's just a fact. It's grindy and painful and there's a lot of things that should be done that people just don't want to do. Most people's daily exercise if they do any is to just jog for 30 minutes a day and be done. All you're doing is just working your legs slightly which is good. But once it becomes routinely, it's just some lull in the day to stay healthy. Now there are still a number of people who go to the gym and work out there which I say, "Good for you." There are actually issues doing that which is ties into my issue from marching band. There's areas of your body that you just don't do workouts for because it's tiresome and troublesome so when you have the option to not do it, you don't do it. One of the reason I have stick arms even while in marching band. It grinds down to one of the simplest answers to the biggest problem: people don't like to exercise because exercise is not fun.

 

I want you to remember this: "People don't like to exercise because exercise is not fun" as this entire review and discussion will be centered around that. Ring Fit Adventure is a very niche game that became mainstream for some reason that was designed around that philosophy. So what exactly is Ring Fit Adventure? It's an RPG where you have a ring and jog in place while you run through the level like a sonic character while dealing with enemies in battle by performing different exercises. There's also minigames and normal excercises but for the sake of discussion, I'll leave out anything I haven't tried yet and I'll talk about them when I get around to doing them. The game's story is also relatively simple in that you travel to a bunch of worlds to stop a dragon named Dragaux from corrupting the world in evil darkness.

 

I really want to be proven wrong here but I can't imagine seeing people putting this into their daily regimens which they should. Personally, I think this game was suited perfect for me. What I really like about the game is the combat. I won't beat around the bush in saying that combat is miserable. When you get into combat, you have to do things such as pullups or pushing the band in and out. And it's not some simple cutesy 2 times. You have to do 15-30 depending on the difficulty you set. Considering they are color coded based on the core getting the workout, there will be ones you dread to do. I died inside every time I had to do the chair pose. It deserves to burn in a pit of fire. Squats I really liked doing (I have the thighs of a First Class Soldier) so I often went for those when I had the choice. But enemies are color coded so you'll be either suffering more doing what you love or suffer a little doing what you don't want to.

 

That really is the secret to Ring Fit Adventure. It rewards you for doing things you don't want to do. I don't want to be in pain, but I'm willing to put up with it to progress further in this game. Getting through the first world was rough for me doing it on the normal difficulty. I felt tired, worked up a good sweat, and needed water and fast. When the game says have a towel and bottle of water ready, they aren't kidding. You need those. World 1 took me around 10-12 minutes to do and I did a few of the rhythm games (gotta have my Odyssey) while I did a bit of world 2 for 8 or so minutes leaving it around 20-25 minutes. Let me tell you something: I burned more calories in those 20 minutes than I would in two hours with the Wii Fitness. And the even crazier thing is that I'm in much, much less pain.

 

And given I'm probably like one of the 5 people who can actually talk about this, Ring Fit is different the Wii Fit. People like to compare the two but they are two entirely different entities which a majority of people prefer one for a reason. Wii Fit is more about posture and stretching muscles to become more nimble and be able to balance more. Ring Fit focuses more on a daily regimen on what you should be doing in a day and slowly pushes you to do more and more to get a full workout like you would in a gym or more specifically a gym class. Ring Fit does a lot more to what will feel natural. The other crazy thing is that it doesn't eat up my day like Wii Fit would.

 

So as this is not something you can simply spend a week on to give a good review we're going to be doing a little challenge here. My end goal is to be able to play this an hour a day on the higher difficulty each morning but for now I'll slowly start from 20 minutes each morning and try going longer and longer. At the end of the month, I'll do a weight check to see if I actually lost any weight (that's not a goal but a good thing to check). I plan to keep doing this daily but only through September I'll actually be jotting stuff down. But here's my quick thoughts version:

 

This is a good game to get into an active lifestyle which is something myself, and I imagine a lot of people also have issues with. Personally, I am not that bothered by tedious or grindy games so this fits up my alley but I could see a lot of people being turned off and dropping this after a month alone. This also is going to simply be a supplement to losing weight and not a heavy hitter to knock those pounds off as while you do workouts, there isn't anything intense to really shed those pounds off. But regardless, it'll be good for a better rounded workout than a simple jog a day like I've considered getting into and haven't...for the past year.

 

Also I'll probably make a quick blurb daily but here's my Day 1 Suffering Workout

 

Spoiler

 

 

Day 2 in a nutshell: F*@# you doors. I shall burn every door in the vicinity down. Also, I did not sign up for Through the Fire and Flames but with my body

 

Day 3 in a nutshell: Maybe I shouldn't have done the Rhythm game. Also, screw you Mr Boss. You can't take two turns in a row. That's against the rules.

 

Day 4: When I said chair pose was the worst I was so, so wrong. Planks are much, much worse. So much worse. My arms feel like they're about to fall off.

 

Day 5: Oh my abs. I decided to crank it to level 30 as I thought the stage would be simple to test it...it was actually a boss stage. I'm in a lot of pain.

 

Day 6: When I said I had the legs of a first class soldier, I was so, so wrong. This one mastery workout pooped me out early.

[RedAlert]

Thank you.

 

Being a fitness junkie, I love this concept and will try it out. Let you know how well I fare.

 

I'm gonna go off on a little ranty tangent here but I believe it's necessary.

 

I agree that most people do not like to exercise because it is boring - but that's because most people don't know how to make exercise fun. The reason why this is because everyone thinks you have to do 200 pushups to look like Brad Pitt. Which is boring, if not extremely difficult for the layman. And I have good news. You don't.

 

All goals for any fitness enthusiast can be broken down to two goals - the most common one being to lose fat, the second to gain muscle.

 

Muscle growth and strength growth comes though progressive overload. If you can do an exercise for more than 8 reps, you're strong enough to proceed to the next level. For the average gym goer, that's easy. But what about the rest of us who don't like cranking heavy weights? Funny, because it's even more relevant with the pandemic in existence now.

 

Introducing - Calisthenics. 

 

Progressively get stronger by doing and sticking to an exercise for 5-8 reps. Keep in that range, do it for two months which adequate protein consumption and you'll build a hefty amount of muscle. Once you can do 3 sets of 8 pushups, go to the next variation - the pike pushup.

 

Second, fat loss. Easy. Caloric deficit is the answer. You have to programme your body to eat less. I understand that this is the larger problem for most people. What i personally did is go down from three meals a day to two - thereby consuming lesser amount of calories by default. Easier to stick to and I can eat more at a single sitting and still consume less on a daily basis overall.

 

It's that simple.

 

The problem with fitness being so difficult to understand is the amount of bullshit spewed over the internet. You see celebrities on roids like Dwayne Johnson swear by drinking 4 gallons of water a day (which is impossible and dangerous for any human being), talk about eating 6 times a day to around 5000 calories worth of food. Which is as you would guess a lie, and not completely true. Eating that much food will put you at a caloric surplus and you'll gain fat. Which you don't want.

I implore everybody to workout. It's the most liberating feeling once you get used to it, you'll develop a very positive body image when you see the change because of the work you put into it. My final year of college, people called me the "shredded otaku" - cringy as it is, I loved it because I had overturned the classic redneck anime 5000+body pillow wielding stereotype.

 

Let's all become buff nerds. 2020 is our year.

 

PS: for those of you looking for a good plan to do at your home, try the Recommended Routine from the bodyweight fitness subreddit. Its a perfect beginner's routine that slowly builds up to elite level exercises like the full planche and the handstand pushup.

 

Equipment: I recommend getting gymnastic rings, a pullup bar and a weighted vest once you're strong enough for the most challenging exercises for more challenge.

[Godot]

I finally got the game today and gave it a shot.  Holy shit.  This game is absolutely not joke.  When I usually go running or lift weights I rarely sweat.... When I finished my first session of this game I was drenched in sweat and was fucking exhausted.