Remember when the Nintendo Labo VR Kit was released and a small handful of Switch games – including The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Super Smash Bros. Ultimateand Super Mario Odyssey – received unlikely updates to Labo VR mode? We may not have spent hours exploring Hyrule with Nintendo’s virtual reality goggles close to our faces, but we certainly like the novelty of playing with other games with that mostly cardboard peripheral.
We recently saw how Team Nintendo Life is staying active in early 2021, but even when we’re not pumping iron or doing burpees in the living room, we would receive any excuse to get up off the couch while playing our ‘normal’ games too – anything to keep the old blood flowing! With certain regions of the world entering another blockade or on the verge of new restrictions to fight the third wave of the pandemic, we are looking for any remnants of novelty that we can find today. Fortunately, we know a company that specializes in this area and we have been thinking about another Nintendo peripheral to which many of us have access: namely, the Ring-Con that came with Ring Fit Adventure.
Although some (but not all) of Team NL have used it daily over the past year or so, we don’t mind trying it out with other Switch games, just like we did with Labo glasses. To that end, we brainstormed some ideas for Ring-Con compatible modes that Nintendo could add to its Switch library with one or two cheeky updates.
Are these suggestions totally serious? Yes, everyone is an infallible, stone-faced winner and Nintendo would be an idiot – FOOLS! – not hastily implementing each and every one to keep us entertained during the next wave of social detachment and confinement. *
So, let’s take a look at the Ring-Con modes for other Switch games we’ve created …
* Jokes! Except for a few fun ideas, they are all pretty silly … OR ARE they?
Editor: Nintendo / Developer: Nintendo SPD
While it is possible to play VR mode in Breath of the Wild indefinitely, spending hours with Labo glasses attached to our face is not how we want to play. Still, it was a fun new experience to try and we thought that a small implementation of Ring-Con would work much better.
The most obvious way would be to use the controller as your bow – Link’s Crossbow Training 2, anyone? We’re thinking of a minigame accessed via an NPC on the map, where you pull the ring to load an arrow and shoot a target – Octorok, Keese, balloons, whatever.
Alternatively (and as suggested by the strong contributor to NL Gonçalo Lopes), how about races against NPCs or long-distance marathon courses on interlaced tracks and trails across the kingdom? Holding Ring-Con and running to move – just like you do to run around the world in Ring Fit Adventure – you can race against people or perhaps deliver mail across the kingdom on a series of side missions to win some new prize or the Ring to use as a weapon. Ring Fit clothing, maybe?
Hey, if Link has a Nintendo Switch t-shirt in his inventory, there’s no reason why he can’t win some other cross-promotional gear too! Play in a beautiful sunset and who could resist a run on the cliff?
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Editor: Nintendo / Developer: Nintendo
Wait …, you will never guess this. The Ring-Con … is a steering wheel. Unprecedented! Genius! Revolutionary!
Of course, this has been tried and it even works to some extent. Unfortunately, it is difficult to deflect or fire items while the Joy-Con is locked firmly on top of your Ring-Con in a powerful confluence of controller. If Nintendo patched an official Ring-Con mode to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, at the very least it would be necessary to shake or squeeze based on movement to activate the items.
Still, of all our ideas, this is probably the easiest to implement and the most plausible.
Editor: Nintendo / Developer: Nintendo Software Technology
Splatoon 2 it already has enough weaponry, and we’re sure Sheldon could get his hands on a ring-like shield that absorbed the ink while lifted and threw it back into enemy ink cartridges when pressed. Navigating the world at any speed would be difficult, so it would probably have to be broken in its own way in a smaller arena where everyone had a Ring-Con. The fun would then happen.
Alternatively, how about some kind of PvE mode where the Ring-Con (massively OP) player is standing still and the others must work together to take them down? Pah, this game development business is easy. Next!
Editor: Nintendo / Developer: Next Level Games
Luigi swaps his Poltergust G-00 for a Ring-Con with a funny name – the Vacuum Screamer, something like that – that sucks absolutely everything in a big radius when you pull and spreads ghosts around the room when you push.
Again, simple navigation can be an issue outside of Ring Fit’s on-rails world, so this may work best as an optional cooperative mode; the Ring-Con player sucks up all the money while perching on the back of the main player, who defeats the ghosts and moves normally.
Editor: Nintendo / Developer: Camelot
Quiet please. Tennis rackets are So 19th century – wouldn’t it be more fun if you used a large disk-type ring to blow up floating balls at each other using blasts of air?
It would probably work best as an optional ‘Volleyball’ mode or something, perhaps with a player controlling the character’s body on the court while the Ring-Con player concentrates on making pitches. Anyway, it’s something that we definitely light up and play, oooh, four or five minutes, at least!
