The Grumpy Old Gamers

By Rob Leggo

Developed by Imagineer Games and published by Nintendo, Fitness Boxing for the Nintendo Switch was released in early January 2019, no doubt timed to take advantage of the “I’ve eaten all my feelings away at Christmas, and now I’m going to change my life, this time for sure” resolution makers….myself included!

Right after just one more plate of Poutine…..

Nintendo has a history when it comes to the fitness industry.  The Wii Fit series was very well received, and spawned a slew of middle to bottom rung “waggle control” fitness games, from Nickolodeon Fit for the kids, to a Zumba game, and even a Pilates game starring Daisy Fuentes. Getting fit was big business for a while on the Wii…and on its successor, the Wii U. Well it probably would have been, at least for the 8 people who bought a Wii U, but I digress.

So with Fitness Boxing, Nintendo looks to carry on with waggle fitness onto the Switch.  How does it do? Let’s find out.

The Presentation

Fitness Boxing consists entirely of aerobic boxing workouts set to popular new-fangled music (no lyrics, just sweet elevator type muzak) where you are led by one of 6 virtual boxing instructors. Holding a detached Joy-Con in each hand, you’ll be throwing a variety of punches, slowly at first, but quickly escalating into combos of punches, as well as ducking and weaving. The limits of the Joy-Cons as a motion controller surface a bit here, as their tracking is just not sensitive enough to tell the difference from a jab to an uppercut or hook, and there is the occasional punch that I swore was thrown and just didn’t register correctly.  Overall though, it does the job, and I found myself getting right into every workout. 

For those sorts who are into it as well, as you play, you “unlock” outfit options for each of the trainers, as well as new songs.  The new songs are then available in free play mode, which is separate from the daily workouts and you can do any time. I’d personally rather have everything unlocked at the beginning, as it is an exercise game, but it does give a sense of reward to each workout I suppose. I do realize a 40-something married man may not be the target demographic, and you’ve got to keep the “participation generation” (tm pending!) excited!

I’m special, just like everybody else!!

Graphics and Audio

The graphics are very much what you would expect in this type of game.  It has a very rhythm based game look to it, similar to a Guitar Hero feel, and the icons for each of the movements are very colorful and clear. You get the typically swirling and whooshing in the background to the music, which never gets all that distracting, and the trainer performs all the motions along with you.  None of it is all that exciting to look at, but it’s exactly what you need for this type of game. 

The audio again is more of what you’d expect. The variety of “music” keeps things interesting enough, but the canned dialogue from each trainer gets old fairly quick. My teenage daughter has already memorized most of the things they say and when they’ll say them…and this is from the kid who can’t remember to close the darn door to the fridge.

“I didn’t ask to be born DAD!!!!”

The Workout

There’s a lot of good cardio to be had in this.  The daily exercises are customizable, as far as time you have available, and what body parts you are looking to target. The game also does a good job of easing you in, by starting off your exercise plan fairly easily the first day, and adding more difficult moves as you go. By even the third day, at 35 minutes duration setting, you are getting quite a good beating by your virtual trainer and you feel like you earned any caned kudos once you get to the end.  

One thing I would recommend is leaving the stretchs on when you set this up.  The game will give you an option to NOT do them, but a 2 min stretch session before and after is already a little light, especially for us more “life seasoned” folks. You’ll be throwing upwards of 1000 simulated punches per workout, and that stretching is important.

Mr Leggo is back, this time he broke….everything?

The Verdict

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Fitness Boxing does a lot of things right. The exercises are fun (who doesn’t like pretending they’re boxing?), there is a good level of challenge that starts off easy and ramps up at what seemed to me to be the right pace.  There are a variety of instructors to choose from, that you can dress up…in…different outfits??? OK, I don’t get that one at all…but it might keep some people engaged.  The music is paced well for keeping you charged up during the exercises. The instructors canned responses will start to aggravate you quickly, but they do a good job of helping you learn the new moves, and to keep you on pace during the workout. 

So if you are looking for a good way to spice up your cardio, and are willing to put up with some occasional control hiccups, you could definitely do worse than this.  It’s a really fun workout that is just as easy to get into for us out of shape “life experienced” folks as it is for kids. Just don’t go challenging people to random street fights because you learned some video game “boxing”

I’ve never see a Joy-Con there before…might want to notify next of kin.

Written by:

Rob Leggo really is a swell guy, once you get to know him. 20 years in the telecom industry has given him the social skills of a hermit however, so he spends a lot of his spare time with “the vidya games.” He’s a Husband of a woman who is WAY outside his skill level, and a Dad of 3 wonderful kids.