Fitness Boxing (Switch) Review

The Wii era was the golden era for fitness games. Between Wii Fit (with the balance board), Zumba and to a degree Wii Sports, there was a lot of people working out on the Wii. The Wii U also had Wii Fit, but it never had the same audience as the Wii and fitness gaming went into stasis. It’s now on the way to two years with the Switch, and fitness gaming has been thawed out and given new life in Fitness Boxing.

Now before we go too deep into this review, I want to let you know I don’t for a second think that Wii Fit or other fitness games are a 1:1 substitute for proper exercise and gym time. That said, Fitness Boxing will make you sweat, well it made me sweat, maybe because I need more real exercise. I’m pretty sure anyone spending a decent amount of time with this game will work up a sweat and feel like they’ve had at least a bit of a workout.

If the title of the game isn’t clear enough, this game is all about boxing and throwing punches to the beat of some licensed songs. While I felt the tutorial was thorough enough to prepare me on what was to come, they are more than happy to remind you whenever you start a new session on what stance to take and how to hold the Joy-Con. The actual work out will have your in-game Trainer preparing you for the stance you should be taking. Then there are two scrolling lines that indicate your left and right hand, as music plays icons will scroll up representing what type of punch you need to do. Then it’s all a matter of timing as you punch, as the icon reaches the top of the lines. If you’ve played any rhythm game it’ll look familiar enough.

The idea of Fitness Boxing works so well because of the Joy-Con and how well they can handle motion controls. You take a Joy-Con in each hand, holding it clenched in your fist while you follow the different kinds of punches in the workout. This could’ve fallen apart at several points; rubbish motion controls being the main risk. The game can tell which way you’re holding the Joy-Con, and even get some idea from that if you’re doing the punch right. Sometimes I experienced an issue with getting an ‘ok’ over a ‘Perfect’, when the slightest movement to ready for a punch would trigger as the punch a little too early.

Along with the boxing, there are the standard fitness inclusions: working out your BMI, calories burnt as well as graphs to chart your progress. I never paid attention to most of these, but it was nice to see my progress as I was getting better. There is also a calendar on the main screen to help keep track of your daily workouts, and also tracks when you’ll get bonus items for completing a session. The bonus items you get are accessories and clothing for your personal trainer, which I’ll get back to in a minute. The coolest bit about the calendar and the daily work out is, of course, getting to mark each completed session with a punch.

Back to the Trainers! Instead of a faceless Wii Fit trainer, you have a choice of several trainers with faces and different voices. There are a few women as well as two guys, and they all have heaps of unlockable items to customise them if you like. Throughout the game, and more so in the sessions, they will be your guide and trainer. Once you start a session they’re pretty chatty most of the way through. I’m thankful for this because when you’re trying to punch through eight combos in a row, the last thing you want to do is try and read if the Trainer has something to say. The Trainers are always peppy (not that Peppy) and throwing encouragement your way, as well as helping to make sure your punches and jabs are right. I thought this was really cool, they can tell when I wasn’t hitting it properly.

While the only real actions you’ll be doing are different punches and moving your body back and forth to the beat, there are quite a few options on where to focus the exercises. Unfortunately, I’m not a fitness guru so I don’t know how effective the workouts are for the different areas, but you’ll definitely feel it in your arms regardless. After even just a few sessions you’ll know your jabs, punches and uppercuts in no time at all.

The daily workouts will give you around a good 20 minutes worth of boxing. This in itself can bring on a sweat, but once again that could just speak for my fitness levels. If that’s not enough for you, or the daily didn’t give you the song you wanted to work out to, then you can also do some free training. Pick your song and what kind of workout you’d like to do and you’re on your way. What you’ll find out immediately is that all of the 20 licensed songs are instrumental versions. This is no public domain whatever classical music we could find though, and I hope you like pop music.

You have music from the last decade with One Direction, Lady Gaga, Maroon 5 and other recent bands that have that one song you know. There are also older songs like Funkytown and Video Killed The Radio Star. They really missed an opportunity to put in some other classics that are associated with fitness or even boxing, such as Eye Of The Tiger, Take It To The Limit or even Let’s Get Physical. Only a few songs are unlocked at the beginning. To unlock some of them you need to unlock another song first, which could wind up with a chain of songs to unlock to get the one you want (if you must know I wanted to unlock the Aqua song). Overall it’s great that they did get licensed music, unfortunately, it’s limited to being midi-tracks but at the same time, your Trainer talks through most of your workout so it could potentially be too much noise.

Something I’ve gotten used to with games where keeping to rhythm is the goal is having calibration options to make sure the visuals, sounds and my actions are all matching up. In Fitness Boxing these are not included at all, and it is a big disappointment. It may seem minor, but I found I had to adjust to always punching a little bit later than the icon scrolling past for it to register as perfect. Because of a minor setting left out, it meant that none of the rhythms felt liked it mattered and I was busy thinking of the lag I needed to make each punch count.

So with a game that puts all of its eggs in the motion control basket, the first thing you want to do is try and see how easy it is to cheat it. The first thing I found out was playing whilst sitting is not ideal. It’s possible, but some motions make it more difficult than it’s worth. Then I tried seeing how much movement I could get away with to count as a punch. With the motion controls really on the ball about how your fist is moving, it also makes it more work than it’s worth. One thing I did find was that they wouldn’t let me get away with punches short of sharp hard jabs and swings. While it did help make me feel more accomplished by the end of a more active session when I played for a little longer to unlock songs my arms were sore for over a day after. Honestly, I don’t know if that was a failure due to my fitness or the game being a bit hard on registering hits.

Sometimes you don’t want to exercise, so having a friend along for the journey can be a great motivator. You can rope your friends into working out with you, either by both sharing a workout session, working together to take on a challenge or to compete to get the best score. Boxing with someone else can be fun, as long as you give each other enough space so you’re not turning it into a round of Punch-Out. The multiplayer features work well. If you’re looking to work out with a friend like the Wii Fit days then you can’t go too wrong here.

Value as always is a tricky area of discussion, Fitness Boxing is asking a bit much. A positive is that you don’t require any peripherals like a balance board, which would have blown out the cost even further. But Fitness Boxing simply doesn’t have the content to justify the price, with only 20 songs and the amount of time value you’ll get out of it different to traditional games. For a game, at this price, it feels light on content, even if it just included more cosmetic options or silly minigames for co-op.

Fitness Boxing has an admirable goal like Wii Fit before it; to help you get fit. While it isn’t a replacement for full exercising or getting down to the gym, Fitness Boxing will make you sweat to reach your daily goals, and the motion controls demand you make an effort to punch your calories away. The amount of content available is limited, and the amount of songs on offer to box to is a letdown. If you’re looking for a 20-60 minute game workout you can do at home then Fitness Boxing is more than capable, it’s just a shame it’s not more appropriately priced.

Rating: 3.5/5