Shardfall: FitQuest VR is likely the closest you’ll get to Ring Fit Adventure on Meta Quest, and that’s not a bad thing. Here are our full impressions.
Fitness and gaming used to seem odd bedfellows, but they’ve never been closer. And, while Nintendo’s Ring Fit Adventure follows the trailer walked, squatted, and whatever else by Wii Fit back in the day, VR remains a great place to get your sweat on.
We’ve seen a whole host of fitness experiences on Quest 2 and 3, many of which are quite good from dedicated workout apps like Supernatural to more incidental ones like Until You Fall. With Shardfall: FitQuest VR, this might be the first time I’ve considered putting down the resistance ring and switched to a VR workout instead on Quest 3.
I mention Ring Fit Adventure because if you’ve spent any time in the Switch exclusive, Shardfall will feel more than a little familiar in terms of both color palette and the way in which its challenges are presented.
This world is a colorful one, full of lush, verdant landscapes, although the background admittedly lacks definition. While your job is mainly to move along a linear path, it doesn’t hurt that there’s a storybook-like quality to just about everything.
Each level starts with a running section, and herein lies one core issue — you won’t be able to play Shardfall: FitQuest VR while seated. That’s a shame, but there is an Auto Run option in the settings if you’d prefer.
If you can stand while playing, the game's design does a good job keeping you aware of the boundary area as you speed through the path, collecting ‘Rage’ as you steer with the left stick. More on that in a moment. As things progress, you’ll be sliding under obstacles and jumping over traps.
Every so often, you’ll meet an enemy or two that pop up out of the ground and challenge you to hand-to-hand combat. And, while you may feel fighting corrupted forest spirits and robots with your bare mitts is a little unfair, some magical gauntlets enjoyably help even the odds.
This nifty hand wear lets the Quest 3 track various types of punches in a sort of “rock, paper, scissors” of fisticuffs. For example, if an opponent blocks one side, you can swing the other way. If a particularly cunning robot puts both hands up, you can hit them with an uppercut instead.
This is followed by relatively easy-to-spot attacks of their own to prompt blocking and dodging. As a 6ft 5in man who regularly visits the gym, trying to drop low enough to avoid an attack via a squat is pleasingly just the right level of challenging. Completing a skirmish earns you the choice of a couple of boons, Hades-style, letting you earn more mana or do more damage.
You’ll reach a literal fork in the road after a few encounters, letting you extend the session by what developer Quell estimates as an extra five minutes, or head straight to the final encounter. These are usually accompanied by enemies powered-up by Rage.
A collectible resource that turns the world a nightmarish purple hue, Rage is used to amp up your score. The crafting system unlocks progressively more powerful gauntlets, and every fight awards a performance rating that helps incentivize repeat runs. It's nothing more than buffed stats right now but paired with the boons, there's a subtle nudge towards buildcrafting for those inclined. You've also got leaderboards to challenge your pals, too.
With weekly leagues planned, a practice arena to help you work on your form, and plenty of enemies to sock in the face, there's plenty to do in Shardfall: FitQuest VR. As such, it's an easy recommendation for anyone looking for a new style of workout on Quest.
Shardfall: FitQuest VR arrives on the Meta Quest platform today.
