Being an avid Just Dance player in my youth, I was super excited to trial the new Fitness Boxing 3: Your Personal Trainer on Nintendo Switch. I was ready for a fun and light-hearted exercise. What I got was a game that has been incredibly motivating, fun, and rewarding both intrinsically and extrinsically with workouts that have left me in puddles. The “Your Personal Trainer” is more prevalent than you think, after completing your first workout it puts you through a questionnaire running through previous experience, current fitness level, intent with playing the game and what your body goals are. You then enter your weight, height and age for it to curate and design a programme that fits your needs.
What’s great is that there is a roster of six instructors you can choose from after the tutorial. Lin, who you’re first introduced to, runs you through the basics and teaches you all the different movements. After the first daily workout, you can access the rest of the roster. Bernardo, Evan, Guy, Monica, and Stella each have different approaches to encouraging the player.
My personal favourites are Guy and Monica. Guy is cool, calm and collected. He was a little tsundere at first, but the more you use him, the warmer he becomes. Monica is the opposite, almost hyper, in an infectious way, the game almost takes advantage of that as every time I’ve had her as a trainer she’s kicked my ass.
Throughout the game, it tracks your progress and rewards your achievements with an in-game currency that you can use to purchase new outfits for your trainers and remixed songs. The more you use an instructor, the more cosmetics you unlock, and with all of the achievements I’ve been accruing, it’s been super easy to purchase all the new looks. So, if you get a kick out of playing stylist, then unlocking and buying all the looks may be what you’d like to do. It was my focus until I found the list of purchasable songs when I updated my stats. Then all my in-game cash went to clearing out all the favourites there. There is a fascinating mix of songs, some classics like “I’m Still Standing” by Elton John or “Danger Zone” by Kenny Loggins then there were some unconventional ones like “What Does the Fox Say?” by Ylvis, or “Miss You” by Oliver Tree & Robin Schulz.
My first “Daily Workout” was on the 3rd of December, after which I had the “bright” idea to commit to the classic 30-day challenge. The terms of the challenge would be that I’d complete the “Daily Workout” along with whatever pop-up challenges would come up, e.g. lessons, mitt work, or “box and bonding”. Three days into it, my body was beginning to ache, and workouts were beginning to get more complex.
When I first started, I was concerned about the lack of depth in the library of movements, as I was throwing a lot of jabs, straights, and one-twos. This was put to rest on the third day as it introduced hooks and uppercuts, upping the challenge and leaving me feeling rewarded for my consistency. The game is great for keeping the player challenged and engaged during workouts.
Day five rolled around, and I am still learning new moves (weaving and ducking were introduced today); the sharp aches and pains have dulled, and I was focusing on getting the technique and timing right. It was also the first day that I attempted the high-intensity day. It extended the length of the exercises and then added an EX track. This transports the player to a German dungeon rave where the music is upwards of 180 bpm, and combos come at you hard and fast! This left me completely exhausted, and then, to my absolute horror, my trainer, Guy, wanted to do a “Box and Bond” session. This was where I did my first mitt drill, since doing that first drill, if I feel like I have a bit more in me I’ll do a mitt drill to finish this off.
I’m now 17 days into my 30-day challenge, and this game has become one of my favourite parts of my day. I used to be incredibly active but had become really stagnant, this was after several surgeries and a bit of a “menty B”. I feel like I’m learning something new every single day. I’m challenging my body and having a blast while doing it. I’ve already lost 4kgs and feel energised throughout my day. The best part is how my wife has been getting in behind me and encouraging me along the way!
So, at whatever stage of fitness you are at, and you have a switch, I highly recommend this game. The music can be a bit questionable at times, but the accessibility and the gratification I have gotten from this game-ified exercise have been so worth it!
OUR RATING:
4/5
