Wii Fit U

Genre: Sports (Exercise) / Minigame Collection

Players: 1

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Review:

Wii Fit U, released on the Wii U in 2013, is Nintendo’s follow-up to the original Wii Fit, which once again makes heavy use of the Wii Fit Balance Board, while also making some use of the added motion control provided by the Wii Remote Plus, as well as some extra added compatibility with a pedometer called a Wii Fit Meter. Clearly, this game is trying to find as many ways as possible to get players to interact with the game, and to measure your progress both within and outside of the game.

Before moving on, it should be noted that while the Wii Fit Balance Board is absolutely required to play this game and the Wii Remote Plus is used in multiple exercises, the Wii Fit Meter is really just a bonus extra way to incorporate your outside movements into your in-game progress. It’s a nice addition, but is not at all necessary to play the game. However, if you’re buying the game used, know that getting the balance board as well is an absolute must.

Graphically, Wii Fit U has the same simple, cartoony look that many of the Mii-centric games on the Wii and Wii U have. In other words, there’s absolutely nothing even remotely impressive here, but it all has a colorful, inviting presentation that should make it easier for non-gamers to get into. Likewise, the music is cheerful and instructions sometimes come with encouraging voice clips, but overall there’s nothing truly standout or memorable going on with the presentation.

As for the game itself, Wii Fit U strikes a good balance between a workout tool and a game. While I would have liked the available games here to be more in-depth to better gamify the workout elements, I appreciate that there’s a wide variety to keep things interesting – leaning to headbutt soccer balls, swerving left and right on a ski slalom course, skydiving, and even a range of dance classes are available to choose from here. Of course, players looking for an honest-to-goodness workout will find that here too, with quite a lot of variety as well, including yoga exercises, weight training, and so on. And all of this is tracked on a calendar to keep you aware of how you’re progressing on your weight goals.

When it comes to a game that encourages players to get fit, Wii Fit U is a bit more sterile and shallow than its closest spiritual successor on the Nintendo Switch, Ring Fit Adventure. And because of this, it’s not quite as compelling as a way to encourage couch potatoes to get off their butts and work out on a regular basis. However, the wide variety of activities here makes this a solid choice for anyone who wants a good serious Exercise application… at least, as long as they have a Wii U, a Wii Fit Balance Board, and ideally a few Wii Remote Plus controllers.

tl;dr – Wii Fit U is a solid Workout game that provides a pretty healthy variety of minigames to exercise with, as well as some great tracking tools to keep you on-target for your personal goals. Having said that, this game doesn’t gamify its exercise quite as well as Ring Fit Adventure, and the requirement to have multiple Wii Hardware Accessories to play the full game can be cumbersome as that equipment becomes harder to find. Still, this is probably the best workout game other than Ring Fit Adventure, and Wii U owners looking to get in shape should definitely get ahold of it if they can.

Grade: B+

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