Fitness Boxing 3: Your Personal Trainer Review

Many people don’t know this about me, but I am actually an avid Fitness Boxing player. I picked the first game up during lockdown, and it has been a fantastic workout regime I try to get to on a daily basis. Fitness Boxing 2, however, was kind of a letdown, with most of the package being a shameless copy-and-paste of the first game. With Fitness Boxing 3, I was concerned it would repeat the same mistakes.

Thankfully, Fitness Boxing 3: Your Personal Trainer does feel like a new game. Granted, there are still some shameless copy-and-pasted features here, but the fresh coat of paint and new speed modes make this a definite upgrade over the second game.

For those unaware of the series, Fitness Boxing is a gamified workout experience where players need to shadowbox to the rhythm while copying the actions of their personal trainer. Boxing moves include the usual jabs and straight but get as advanced as body jabs and weaves. You’ll even need to master some step-in-jabs, ducks, and uppercuts.

Of course, the process here doesn’t lead to an overnight success. The game requires you to complete daily workouts that are chopped up into different sessions. You can’t jump into the toughest session without working your way through the basics and unlocking newer ones day by day. So you’ll need a few weeks of dedication and boxing to truly experience what is on offer here.

But that doesn’t really matter because unlike Fitness Boxing 2 where the most basic workouts felt underwhelming after a while, Fitness Boxing 3 turns even the starter sets into sweating sessions thanks to two layers of difficulty. You can decide on the workout intensity and then the speed of that workout. It also seems that the slowest speed in Fitness Boxing 3 is the middle speed in the second game. The fastest speed is absolutely insane.

I haven’t played Fitness Boxing 2 in a while, mainly because I felt like the game started to get too slow for me. I moved to Knockout Home Fitness and it has been great. Returning to Fitness Boxing 3, I was happy to see the game’s new faster modes kind of aligned the workouts with the high-speed intensity circuits in Knockout Home Fitness.

As a result, even the basic Straight Combo on “Hard” and on “Speed 3” would see me jabbing and punching like a professional. This meant my heart rate would climb to 150+ and stay up there instead of dropping and lingering in the low 100s while I slowly punched through the combo.

This higher speed does mean that some workouts are impossible in my eyes. When you get to the weaving and stepping, you’ll need to move like lightning to match these movements at the speed the game throws at you. It might be a challenge. I also box with 1KG weighted gloves, which makes these faster movements much tougher to perform due to how much more effort is required to swing my arms. But I am up for the challenge.

The point here is that Fitness Boxing 3: Your Personal Trailer is highly accessible. If you’re just starting out, the sessions can teach you the basics. You’ll slowly learn how to move and perform each action. You’ll enjoy the process and the curve in difficulty as you slowly move to tougher sessions and faster modes. If you’re like me and need a little more, this game is intense. The higher speeds are fantastic ways to work out. I found myself doing more starter workouts on the higher speeds rather than repeating the same advanced workouts on slow. This is what I found myself doing in Fitness Boxing 2.

While the workouts are fun, it is hard to ignore the issues with the game. For starters, the voice acting is horrendous. The voice files have been copied from the previous two games and sound exactly the same. As a result, you hear the same robotic voices that have zero personality. Some voice lines are also over-enthusiastic, while others aren’t. They are then played right after one another, and it sounds like a sad AI character.

The music is okay. Just like the previous games, the so-called “licensed music” is best avoided. These tracks sound like Temu versions of popular pop hits. Britney Spears’s Toxic is the stuff of nightmares. However, the original music in the game is actually pretty decent, so you don’t need to venture to those tracks.

I did find some tracks didn’t sync up properly with some of the speed modes in the game, though. Some music sounded off compared to my punches, and it can be distracting. The beat and the movement simply didn’t complement one another. This was especially true for some of the dance tracks.

Speaking of speed and movement, when you select the faster workout modes, the game simply speeds up the track and personal trainer. So the music is played at double the speed. I wish there were songs designed for these faster workouts instead. When you start to enjoy a song and it is played at double the speed, it starts to get a bit repetitive and annoying.

I also feel like the whole “double speed” thing is just a cheap way to add other modes to the game. Watching the personal trainer bounce around like he is on bath salts looks unnatural.

For the most part, the workouts in Fitness Boxing 3 are new. I noticed a few cloned ones here and there, but most of them are new combos. A session would start with learning the first half of a combo, then performing it over and over again. Then you’ll learn the second half and combine them together. By the end, I was pulling off long combos, tying together all sorts of moves.

The new Ex Workouts also add a bit of stress to the game. These random events take place after a full daily workout. The trainer asks if you want to “go a little harder”. If you say yes, you’ll then have to do a 2-minute fast-paced combo. Of course, this means just the same combo but at double the speed. These are a nice way to end a workout. However, during my review, I often turned them down because I was dead.

There’s also a new sitting workout for those who can’t exercise while standing. These combos are designed just for sitting and are great ways for people to get a little bit of sweating in.

The Mitt Drills are then punch sessions where the trainer puts up his hand and you have to punch his mitt. You know, like you see in the boxing movies. It is okay. There was no rhythm to the session and often I just stood around waiting for the combo to start. It isn’t fast-paced enough for me. The mode is also very limited to certain sets.

Then there’s the progression system. The game has an online ranking system that resets every month. You don’t have to participate in this. You can simply rank up on your own. But you can see how much you’re doing and compare it to leaderboards and friends.

You can also level up your trainer and “bond” with them. This is done by simply playing the game with any one of the six available trainers and putting up with their horrible dialogue for hours on end. These trainers also try and come across as more “human” by offering conversation options on certain days. They talk about movies and other interests. I didn’t care. I closed the game as soon as I was done with the workout. I didn’t want to stand there sweating trying to pretend I was interested in what this badly-voiced trainer had to say.

You can also get new clothes for them using credits you earn by completing daily and weekly tasks. There are also dozens of achievements to unlock for performing certain moves and taking on different sessions. These things are fun and all, but I honestly don’t care. After over two years of playing these games, you stop worrying about what your trainer looks like, and all you want to do is get the workout done and move on.

Visually speaking, the game looks good. It has a new engine, and there are no more frame rate drops. The stages are nice to look at, and the particle effects add some cool flair to the level. Indicators are also clear, and combos are highlighted too. It is a pretty game, and I am glad they did something to make it look different from the rest.

Is Fitness Boxing 3: Your Personal Trainer worth the upgrade? I would say that depends on where you are. This is definitely the game you get if you’re new to the series. However, if you just picked up the first two games, play those for a while and get used to the workouts. Then move onto this and up the speed. If you’re looking for something new and you’re tired of the past games, this has enough to warrant its price tag.

I will still go back to Knockout Home Fitness every now and then simply for the mixed variety of kicks and squats there, but I am so happy Fitness Boxing 3 came with some new modes and workouts to enjoy. I felt like I completely drained the life out of the previous two games, and this has brought it all back.

Fitness Boxing 3: Your Personal Trainer isn’t perfect. There are some really cheap things going on in this game. From the awful music to the horrendous voice acting. Not to mention the copy-and-paste stretches and dialogue. However, the game is accessible to those who need a little working out while also catering to those who are veterans of the series. I enjoy the game and will return to it as often as possible.

This Fitness Boxing 3: Your Personal Trainer review is based on a Switch code sent to us by Nintendo. The game is available on 5 December starting at R1000. There’s a free demo out now on the eShop.