Fitness Boxing 3: Your Personal Trainer
Publisher: Nintendo
Format: Switch
GIVEN yesterday was Boxing Day, it’s a timely third round in the ring for Nintendo’s pixelated pugilism trainer that puts lard-arse types through their paces like Mickey in a meat locker.
Channelling the 1990s Boxercise craze, Fitness Boxing 3 won’t turn you into Balboa, but is perfect for burning off those disgusting rolls of festive flab.
With the emphasis on fitness rather than making orphans of someone’s children, you won’t be channelling your inner Raging Bull here. The gloves are off and the Switch Joy-Cons are on in a home workout similar to lockdown hit Ring Fit Adventure, except you don’t need to buy a new gimmicky controller.
FB3 is a home workout similar to lockdown hit Ring Fit Adventure, except you don’t need to buy a new gimmicky controller
Starting off with the jab, FB3 will soon have you floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee. Playing out like a dance rhythm game, except with punches instead of pirouette, a variety of movements slide down a track for each arm, and performing the correct move at the right time lands a score.
Six fully-voiced personal trainers offer advice as they guide you through a series of arm-flailing workouts to music. All chirpy encouragement and day-glo Lycra, their contributions are fairly banal (“you’re almost there” - cheers for that), though the game does count the calories burned and even gives you an exercise age based on your performance. Turns out I should have died a decade ago.
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A few new features justify the entry price for series vets, including a ‘box and bond’ feature that helps players get closer to their virtual trainer through short conversations, leading to new exercises.
Two players can work out at once, a daily mission board doles out goals to complete while there are even warm-up and cooldown routines in a game that focuses on delivering an aerobic workout rather than turning you into a brick hit-house.
For the less mobile, Sit Fit Boxing allows for a workout while parked on your backside, while Mitt Drills removes all the rhythm-matching shenanigans for some freeform punching as you wallop your trainer’s pads.
These are much more intense than the standard routines, and energetic enough to have even hardened gym bunnies on the ropes.
It all plays out to a cacophony of EDM muzak that was seemingly composed by someone after going 12 rounds with Tyson.
Along with new outfits, 20 licensed tracks can be unlocked, with excruciating renditions of hits from the likes of Britney Spears, Fallout Boy and Billie Eilish.
If Nintendo’s latest fitness fad doesn’t quite land a knockout blow, it at least makes a decent fist of coaxing couch potatoes onto their feet. A fun way to break a post-Christmas sweat behind closed curtains, there’s a free demo to sample on the eShop before throwing in the towel.
