Quell Hero

When Ring Fit Adventure was first announced, some of us were unconvinced. Wii Sports was great, but we fell off it hard in the end, and having all that extra equipment was a bit of a pain. But we were wrong. Ring Fit Adventure is very good — good enough to spawn competition.

Enter the Quell Hero, design studio Morrama's "future of fitness gaming" platform that, much like Ring Fit, tasks its players with jogging through a linear 3D world and fighting monsters. The twist? It's all boxercise, powered by a haptic-enabled waistband attached to resistance bands and motion-tracking controllers.

Cirhiv8eoNzYLkzE5sHtyj 970 80.jpg
It even looks a bit like a Wii peripheral, only much swankier — Image: Quell

The haptics are new — the trailer promises that it will feel like you're being punched (yay?). There's even competitive and co-op modes, which Ring Fit doesn't have.

But Quell Hero is, perhaps, not the future of fitness after all, and certainly doesn't look poised to take Ring Fit's throne.

"It's already clear to me that the Quell Hero won’t topple Nintendo’s title to become the next big thing in fitness gaming," says TechRadar's Adam Vjestica, who criticises the limited range of exercises and the $219 price --which, although cheaper than a Nintendo Switch and Ring Fit Adventure, is more expensive than just Ring Fit, and doesn't, you know, have lots of other games. He even says that playing Wii Tennis with weighted wristbands feels "far more compelling to play than mindlessly boxing."

"There’s no reason to choose this over Ring Fit Adventure, [a] Quest 2, or even Wii Fit for that matter. [...] Nintendo and Meta's hardware isn't just designed solely around fitness games, either, which means the value proposition is far greater than the Quell Hero could ever hope to achieve."
- Adam Vjestica, TechRadar

Back to Ring Fit Adventure for us, then. Or maybe it's time to pick up Fitness Boxing 2...?

[source techradar.com]