
I knew from the moment I saw the trailer for Fitness Fables that this game was exactly what I was looking for in a virtual reality fitness game. I have played some pretty decent ones on the Quest, but ultimately very few succeed in keeping me wanting to play it once the review goes out.
That changed though with Fitness Fables, which not only was a fantastic experience, but one that will end up being in my rotation for quite some time.
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RINGLESS FIT ADVENTURE
The key thing that makes Fitness Fables far more engaging than its competitors is in just how it presents its fitness regime. Whilst other games are designed purely with the exercise in mind, this game wants you to go out on an adventure. You’re still keeping fit as your routine helps you traverse the world and take down enemy creatures, but there’s an actual narrative involved to help encourage you to push forward. Sure, the story itself about the world of Alterterra is ultimately rather forgettable, and you’ll probably find yourself skipping most of the cutscenes, but having that structure and narrative progression in such a beautiful world is more than enough to keep you engaged.
You may be thinking that the adventure mode sounds an awful lot like the Nintendo Switch classic Ring Fit Adventure – and you’d be absolutely right. Each stage you face has a series of exercises for you to perform, and doing so will push you forward. Perhaps, you’ll be skiing (along a dirt path, strangely…), flying using a set of mechanical wings, canoeing down a river, or much more. They’ll all test your body in different ways, but thankfully they’re super intuitive and the diagrams do a great job at making sure you know exactly what to do when you need to do it.
To help encourage you to push yourself to your limits, the game brings up a leaderboard showing the people ranked nearest to you and keeps a track on how well you’re performing against them. It’s a small touch, but you’d be surprise at how much it encourages you to go that extra mile just to edge out your closest rival. Doing exercises efficiently will help ensure you get high points, but so will collecting the purple orbs that are strewn all over the place – many of which will be in the hands of the game’s enemies.
Unfortunately that leads us to one of the elements that feels slightly weaker by comparison. Whereas Ring Fit Adventure had an engaging RPG style combat system to take out enemies, Fitness Fables either has you chasing them down during standard traversal, or taking them out using another one of your exercises. It is fun to take out enemies by carefully aiming tennis shots, for example, but there’s not a huge amount of variety on offer to help make it feel exciting. As such, it feels like just another exercise to do before making your way to the door at the end of the stage.
Still, this is offset by some fun boss encounters that help to make things feel a little different. Instead of using your normal moves, bosses will have you selecting your ‘loadout’ from a handful of available moves on offer, and you’ll use these to either attack or defend. There’s nothing inherently more thrilling about most of these moves, but the fact that the boss has its own set of attack patterns for you to block, dodge, or shoot down certainly helps to make them seem far more interesting that the normal combat encounters.
Even though the combat may seem a tad disappointing, it’s really only when compared to its competitors. However, during the course of Fitness Fables’ adventure, you probably won’t mind all that much. With around 25 integrated exercises and the narrative framework, this is still way more engaging and entertaining than any other fitness game I’ve played on the headset. And that alone makes this game a must purchase for anyone wanting to keep their body fit.
VERDICT
Fitness Fables is almost exactly what I was looking for in a fitness game. With an engaging adventure mode, colourful visuals, and intuitive exercises, you’ll only want to put it down when your body is absolutely exhausted. Sure, the combat could have been better, but it’s not enough to spoil an otherwise fantastic way to exercise in VR!
Thank you for this review. I picked up Fitness Fables after reading your thoughts, and I love it!
Thanks! I’m glad you liked it! It’s a pretty hefty workout, but it’s a cool way to do it!