When the original Wii Fit was released, I found it to be enjoyable and good for light exercise, but I thought there were some obvious--and seemingly simple to add--features missing. Most notably, I wanted to be able to customize a workout without having to select exercises one at a time. My primary interest in Wii Fit Plus was therefore due to the customizable workouts.
As others have mentioned, there are 15 new games/exercises that are grouped under a new category called "Training Plus". I have found them to be pretty good overall; some are fun, some are good exercise, some are both (I especially like the Obstacle Course and Island Cycling). There are three new Yoga exercises and three new Strength exercises; honestly I haven't even looked at them since they were not a strong selling point for me.
There is a "locker room" available in which you can choose pre-programmed routines, which are generally three exercises of a 6-8 minute duration in all that are targeted towards a specific goal (Warm Up, Relaxation, Hips, Arms, etc.). These can be combined but not further customized.
You can create your own routine under "My Routine" within the locker room as well, and as that was my primary interest, I will elaborate. You can choose any combination of strength and yoga exercises; the total minutes will be calculated for you. Once you begin the routine, the Wii will automatically cycle you through your exercises one after another. This can reduce the total time spent dramatically; for example, suppose you want to follow the Push Up/Side Plank with the Jackknife. Before, you'd finish the first exercise, grab the remote and press A several times while getting your score, ranking, feedback, encouragement, etc., etc. Then you'd select the other exercise, get out of the floor and stand on the board for a few seconds, and then get back down in the floor. Now, you just wait in the floor while the second exercise loads. MUCH faster, and with enough exercises in a row you actually can feel like it's a real workout. I would estimate that doing 30 minutes of activity now takes 5-10 minutes less of actual elapsed time.
However, there are still some obvious flaws with the new implementation. First, you can only select strength and yoga exercises; no balance games, no aerobics, none of the 15 new Training Plus modules. Second, you can only have one exercise routine per Mii. If you want an upper body workout and a lower body workout separately, you're out of luck. Finally, you are defaulted to the minimum number of reps, and you can't change that. If you select Jackknife, you're doing 10. Ditto for lunges. Push Ups? You'll do 6. I can't imagine that it would have taken much effort to allow that extra level of customization.
I like the Wii Fit Plus overall, and I think it was worthwhile. But, the fifth star would've been so easy to earn from me, and it came up short. Get more detail about Wii Fit Plus.
Posts
