Ring Fit Adventure ships with the Ring-Con and Leg Strap, which have docks to hold the Switch's Joy-Con. These accessories are required to play the game, as the player's interactions with them are tracked by the motion controls built into the Joy-Con.[2]
The game's main mode is a role-playing game in which the player takes the role of a young athlete who meets the sentient Ring and teams up with them to take down the evil, bodybuilding dragon Dragaux.[3] The player moves their character across the game's overworld and into various dungeons, where they encounter monsters to fight. Moving across the game world is similar to a rail shooter; the player moves along a fixed path by running in place, jumps over obstacles by squeezing and releasing the Ring-Con, and can fire projectiles at items by squeezing the Ring-Con in the target direction. When the player encounters monsters, the game uses turn-based combat, in which the player attacks enemies by performing exercises, with the amount of damage they deal based on how effectively they completed the exercise. When monsters attack, the player can defend by pressing and holding the Ring-Con into their abdomen for as long as possible during the attack. Defeating monsters earn the player-character experience points, and as they level up, they can unlock additional exercises that deal more damage. Exercises are classified by color, with each color corresponding to a general part of the body the exercise is geared towards: red for arms, blue for legs, yellow for core muscles, and green for yoga positions. Monsters are also marked by colors, and exercises of the same color are more effective against them, but only after that ability is unlocked early in the game.[2]