Since embracing motion controls back on the Wii, Nintendo has developed a reputation for publishing fun, gamified exercise experiences. The most recent successor in that lineage, Fitness Boxing 3: Your Personal Trainer, has now been bolstered by a Nintendo Switch 2 Edition that makes it worth popping those Joy-Con 2s off the system.
In the tradition of Wii Fit or Ring Fit Adventure, Fitness Boxing 3 is meant to be the type of game you work into your daily routine for 15 to 45 minutes. Unlike doing errands on your Animal Crossing New Horizons island, this routine is meant to better your actual physical well-being (not simply releasing dopamine for arranging your island just right).
The core, as the no-nonsense title suggests, is a boxing game. Players pick up their Joy-Con 2 controllers and follow the instructions of a virtual personal trainer, aiming to throw punches at the right timing and get their whole bodies moving in the process. Ideally, these exercises are meant to target different areas and supplement one’s physical health journey; in reality, it feels more like Rock Band.
Upon starting Fitness Boxing 3 for the first time, the default trainer prompts you to enter your age and physical information, then walks you through a tutorial on the various inputs (jabs, straights, hooks, uppercuts, dodges, and so on). Based on the goals you choose, the game will try to tailor a series of daily workout routines focused on the areas you wish to improve and your chosen intensity. At the minimum, you could pop the game on for about half an hour each day, do the daily workout, and clock out, and get a pretty decent bang for your buck. Sounds good on paper, right?
“Fitness Boxing 3 essentially puts the player on the Honour System, trusting you’re doing the right punches and not simply swinging your Joy-Con 2 at the right time.”
It quickly became apparent, however, that the exact nature of the inputs didn’t matter much to the scoring. Fitness Boxing 3 essentially puts the player on the Honour System, trusting you’re doing the right punches and not simply swinging your Joy-Con 2 at the right time. On a couple of occasions, I jabbed when I should have hooked, but because I still moved the controller at the right time, the game scored it as a Perfect.
Now, here is where the Switch 2 Edition becomes vital. One feature of the upgraded game is Advanced Scoring, which introduces greater scrutiny of timing. I played the first couple of days without this feature turned on, and thanks to my background in music and rhythm games, the generous scoring registered almost every input as a Perfect. For a game about training and self-betterment, this was not helpful feedback. Turning on Advanced Scoring helped markedly. Perfects still abounded, but at least there was more of an opportunity to get actual feedback.
Without this feature, I suspect the original version of Switch 1 would have been much harder to recommend. I can’t help but feel like there was better motion control feedback using the original Wiimote and MotionPlus in Wii Fit and Wii Fit U—or even any number of half-assed licensed games on Wii. With the added sensors in the Joy-Con 2 controllers, we certainly should expect a little more than the vaguest sense that we flailed our arms at roughly the right time.
It would be one thing if Fitness Boxing 3 simply wasn’t measuring your actual punching form, but it’s an insult to injury that the personal trainers will yammer on about your form. After flubbing an input on one occasion, the trainer said, “make sure you’re throwing the right type of punch,” which I took as an indictment of my mistaken input… until I heard the same voice line later when I had been executing the commands correctly. The simulated feedback isn’t helpful if it’s regurgitating a bank of voice lines, not truly responding to inputs.
And boy, do Fitness Boxing 3‘s personal trainers like to yammer. Granted, yes, this is part of the process; with the subtitle “Your Personal Trainer,” I expected the game to be vocal. But this truly does get excessive sometimes, calling out every move of an upcoming combo as though I’m going by the shouted commands instead of the massive prompts scrolling across my screen. I could have done with a little more customization in this department.
To that end, however, Fitness Boxing 3 tries to help you “connect” with your virtual coach. There are a smattering of different trainers to choose from and customize, from their wardrobe to the simple details of their appearance. Swapping between them comes with no penalties, thankfully; I couldn’t get away from Lin, the default trainer, fast enough, thanks to some janky voice lines that sounded too cobbled together. The game offers unlockable attire pieces, which should help spur completionists.
The workout playlist varies as much as the voice acting does. For the most part, the generic tunes sound fine and aurally inoffensive. And then there’s a truly eclectic smattering of pop songs from different eras, most of which I wouldn’t expect in a workout game, recreated in a more licensing-friendly tone like Kids Bop for gym classes. From Fallout Boy’s “Sugar, We’re Goin Down” and OneRepublic’s “Counting Stars,” to Billie Eilish’s “bad guy,” to the freaking Ghostbusters theme and Madonna’s “Material Girl,” this soundtrack is like muscle confusion for your ears, but also on Prozac. (On that note, it was a real missed opportunity to include songs by the band Prozzäk.)
After over a week, Fitness Boxing 3 feels like a rhythm game wearing yoga pants and calling out sparring instructions—much more like the illusion of a fitness program than an actual exercise routine. It doesn’t live up to the “Your Personal Trainer” epithet, and certainly doesn’t come close to the sort of approximate guidance the Wii Fit series provided.
That being said, I didn’t hate the experience either. If you do follow the routines to the best of your ability, you can actually work up a sweat or feel underworked muscles complaining the next day. I came to think of it like a rhythm game with punching motions and had some fun while checking in daily. There’s a surprising amount of things to do if you branch off of the Daily Workouts alone, too.
“Fitness Boxing 3 feels like a rhythm game wearing yoga pants and calling out sparring instructions.”
New to the Switch 2 Edition of Fitness Boxing 3 is a Boost Up mode, which increases the speed over several rounds and penalizes you for missing inputs. Like the Advanced Scoring mode, Boost Up will probably make the upgrade all but essential for those who want to get more out of the game; I can’t imagine the Switch 1 version would be stimulating enough without these two features.
Also new are CameraPlay and GameShare functions. You can plug in a compatible camera to see your own form at each stage. Sadly, this doesn’t “check your homework,” so to speak; the camera is there to show you your form, not to judge your form for you. GameShare could be a fun way to connect with remote fitness buddies by competing in score battles or fighting to stay in the game in Sudden Death mode.
There are stretching walkthroughs before and after Daily Workouts by default, as well as a stretching mode and Tai Chi. Again, the Honour System rules here, since the Joy-Con 2s are hard to hold while balancing on one foot. Tai Chi felt especially hollow without any feedback, but it’s a nice change of pace. To the credit of developers Imageneer, Fitness Boxing 3 includes a Sit Fit Boxing mode for those who might not be able to stand properly due to illness or injury, but still want to give their arms and core a workout.
If you’re looking for a game to supplement your physical health journey, you may be better off seeking a copy of Ring Fit Adventure (or hell, even a Wii and Wii Fit, for that matter. With such tepid feedback, it’s hard to tell if the game’s results are worthwhile in the long run or if the whole thing is just a placebo effect. Yet, the Switch 2 is lacking in this particular department, and ultimately Fitness Boxing 3 is a fun way to use your game console to get your body moving. If you just need an easy way to turn a little cardio into a game, step into this squared circle.
