Fitness Boxing 3: Your Personal Trainer

Genre: Boxing / Sports (Exercise) / Music-Rhythm

Players: 1-2 (Local)

.

Review:

Fitness Boxing 3, released in 2024 on Nintendo Switch, is the third mainline game in the Fitness Boxing franchise and fifth game in the series overall, after two collaboration spin-off titles with Fist of the North Star and Hatsune Miku. It has been nearly a half a decade since 2020’s release of Fitness Boxing 2, so naturally one will wonder how much has changed for the mainline series in that gap of time.

In some ways, quite a lot has changed. The development of the series has changed hands to Syn Sophia, the longtime developers of the Style Savvy series. With this change comes an evolution of the graphics, with newer, more detailed 3D character models and real-time scene transitions between the game’s different (largely abstract) locations.

This is mostly a positive change, though it does have a few rough spots – characters’ mouths don’t move quite right in time with their speech, and while some levels feature reflection and shadow effects that look great, other levels inexplicably seem to be lacking shadows entirely. Also, the rumble inexplicably feels weaker this time around.

In terms of gameplay changes, there are minor changes throughout like a new warm-up and cooldown routine and a smaller roster of trainers with a mix of new and returning trainers to choose from. However, the main new features you’ll find here are Sit Fit Boxing, Mitt Drills, and Box and Bond.

Sit Fit boxing are workout routines that have you punching while sitting down, an odd half-measure that seems like it’s for players who want to be able to tell themselves they worked out without actually fully committing to a workout. Box and Bond is a new feature that lets you gradually “get to know” your selected trainer after working out with them for a while… although pretty much all you’ll be getting to know are their fitness routine preferences. Finally, Mitt Drills are a genuinely positive addition here, taking away the Music-Rhythm elements from the gameplay and simply having players respond to instructions with the correct punches as quickly as possible, making for a much faster workout that will be the perfect fit for players who can’t manage a rhythm.

While Mitt Drills is a nice step forward for the series, Fitness Boxing 3 takes a massive step backwards after the fully-licensed music of Fitness Boxing feat. Hatsune Miku, by returning to poorly-synthesized wordless covers of pop songs rather than including the actual song itself. The Fitness Boxing series has already shown that it’s capable of working with actual music rather than crappy cheap knockoffs, so it’s ridiculously frustrating to see them return to this, especially in a game priced at $50. Nintendo, if you’re actually charging us full price for this game, the least you could do is give us the real music!

Then of course, there’s my usual complaint about this game, the one that has remained consistent through all five games in the Fitness Boxing series – this simply does not feel like a game, it feels like an Exercise Application. And if that’s all you’re looking for, fine, but games like Ring Fit Adventure and Samba De Amigo: Party Central have shown us that we can break a sweat and get in shape while playing an actual fun game, so it’s disappointing that even after all these years the Fitness Boxing franchise either can’t or won’t find a way to make working out actually fun.

Still, if you are looking for an Exercise Application instead of an actual game, Fitness Boxing 3 gets the job done, though I would strongly argue that players are much better off going with Fitness Boxing feat. Hatsune Miku – at least in that game, you get actual music instead of this synthesized cover garbage masquerading as music. Maybe in another five years, this series might actually figure out how to get this right again.

tl;dr – Fitness Boxing 3 is the fifth entry in the Fitness Boxing series of Exercise Applications, and it is no closer to being a fun game than it was when the series started. In fact, in some ways this game is a step backward from Fitness Boxing feat. Hatsune Miku, since it returns to using crappy wordless synthesized covers of songs instead of actual music, and the new features and changes here don’t make up for that cheapskate move in a $50 game. Plus, it’s still hard to recommend these titles when actually enjoyable Exercise games like Ring Fit Adventure and Samba De Amigo: Party Central exist. I suggest getting one of those instead.

Grade: C+

^{You can support eShopperReviews on Patreon! Please click HERE to become a Sponsor!}

^{This month’s sponsors are Jamie and His Cats, Ben, Ilya Zverev, Andy Miller, Homer Simpin, Johannes, Francis Obst, Gabriel Coronado-Medina, Jared Wark, Kristoffer Wulff, and Seth Christenfeld. Thank you for helping to keep the reviews coming!}