I never really liked fitness video games, but being trapped within the confines of my own home for months (thank you Covid) made me get creative with my fitness options. Until recently, the cream of this cream in my opinion was Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm & Exercise, a game that helps build body strength while helping endurance, but this game has always been lacking in the lower end of the game. body, never really do much to involve your legs in the action. Marvelous Knockout Home Fitness saw this and provided an alternative fitness game that uses martial arts to provide a workout to involve your whole body, and it allows for a more complete experience.

Unlike Fitness Boxing 2, Knockout Home Fitness not only uses boxing as an exercise method but also adds various martial arts techniques including karate, kung fu, kickboxing and a few others. Like other fitness games on Switch, it uses the motion controls of handheld Joy-Cons to have players execute the moves that trainers direct, and track how accurately you complete the move (in terms of timing and movement). ) to judge the effectiveness of the training.

To get players to understand the practice, the game uses a fairly typical eight bar time system, where the moves are displayed in advance, and it’s up to the player to execute the move as they go. it shows up on the timeline. For example, during a boxing workout, you may be asked to jab, cross, jab, uppercut, before you have a two hole break, then to jab twice, before the entire timeline resets and you start over. This system in Knockout Home Fitness is not as refined as Fitness Boxing 2, as there are several times a new movement will appear, and you will be scrambling to figure out what you need to do before it hits the spot. on the timeline. It might be a little shocking in this aspect, but as you play more you actually start to enjoy nature faster, as Knockout provides faster, more intense, and less repetitive workouts than what Fitness Boxing does. 2 tends to deliver (even on the high difficulties), which is ideal for those looking to train quickly during a busy day.

The majority of the gameplay is provided by the daily training portion, which allows the player to take three different personalized workouts, each using a different form of martial arts. Typically these last around 15 minutes in total, and unlike Fitness Boxing 2, don’t switch between orthodox and left-handed positions multiple times during a workout, instead each workout usually goes from the orthodox, left-handed, frontal (a position for a lot of martial arts exercises) just once, which means it’s a lot less repetitive and a lot more engaging.

The exercises themselves are also more rewarding and demanding, due to their faster and more intense nature. And since the legs are a vital part of this game (squats, kicks, and knee movements of all kinds are common), you get a full workout that doesn’t slack off on any part of your body compared to a lot. other fitness exercises. Games.

But despite the fact that this is generally a more engaging practice title, it is not without its flaws. In addition to completing the daily workout, which is relatively limited in its customizable options and primarily focuses on adjusting the workout area of ​​interest, your goal, or the duration of the workout, there is no there isn’t much to do. The three-minute free practice allows you to exercise more, and there are a few trainers to choose from, but compared to Fitness Boxing 2, which has a huge range of customizable options for trainers, various stages, even of licensed songs, Knockout is a bit lacking.

And then there is the recording of hits. There have been a bunch of times the game just doesn’t register a move that I’ve made, despite doing so physically. Granted, this has happened to me less often than in Fitness Boxing 2, and might be more of a Joy-Con issue than an actual gameplay issue, but it’s still hard to miss a lot of the time.

Still, when it comes to fitness games, I think what Marvelous has created with Knockout Home Fitness is actually one of the best fitness games out there. It involves your whole body, offers faster, more intense workouts, and doesn’t even require a lot of space to play (just make sure you don’t hit a table or whatever). If you’re looking for a fitness game that will get you active and do so in an unconventional way, teaching you some basic martial arts moves along the way, you can’t go wrong with Knockout Home Fitness.