OhShape Review

OhShape Review time!

What is OhShape?

OhShape is a unique fitness game that has you moving your full body to match, punch or dodge walls as they float towards you. It is inspired by the Japanese TV show “Hole In the Wall”.

OhShape is a bit different than other VR rhythm games on the market. Instead of slashing with sticks or punching, you use your full body to match the shapes on the wall.

This makes this OhShape more of a challenge than some of the other fitness games out there.

Who Makes OhShape?

Oh Shape is created by developers Odders Lab. They have also made Chess Club VR.

Which Headset is OhShape Available on?

OhShape is available on Steam VR, Viveport, PlayStationVR, Oculus Rift, and Oculus Quest 2.

OhShape Review Gameplay

There is a detailed OhShape tutorial that walks you through the basics.

You will stand and match your arms and legs to the wall coming towards you as the main part of the game. You will also grab gems in lower and upper positions, dodge, and even duck blocks to get some squats in. This is a lot harder than it sounds, especially on higher levels. Depending on the song, you will feel like you are sort of dancing.

Each of the tasks of the game is a different color. All the gems are gold in color. The forms you match on the walls are blue. You punch red walls. You duck and dodge the orange squires.

The main menu offers you a lot of customization options. I fully recommend selecting “No-Fail” like many other rhythm games when you are starting out, so you can at least get through the songs while you are figuring out how things work. There are four difficulty levels, tryout, medium, hard, and expert.

Something different about Ohshape is the amount of play space you will need. There is A LOT of sidestepping in this game and moving your ENTIRE body left and right to match up with the shapes. You can’t just sort of lean one way or another like you can in many other games. You will fail.

BUT if you do happen to have a limited play space, there is a Small Room option that will cut your score potential, but you will not have to do as much side to side. You can also use this option to have a lighter workout.

The background environment of OhShape is pretty plain. It is only a few basic colors. In other fitness games, I’ve given them a lower rating for this, as it gets repetitive. In Ohshape, you seriously don’t have time to be looking around. There is a constant movement going on and you need to be preparing your body for what is coming up next right in front of you.

I will say that this game is pretty difficult when starting out. You have to figure out how the game scores you (like punching red walls harder, gives you a higher score) Even though these things are not mentioned anywhere in-game. You also will have to play around to learn when you match the wall poses, and when you are missing them. There isn’t a lot of haptic feedback in this game to know when you are missing.

Ohshape Songs and Challenges

OhShape also has monthly song-specific challenges. If you want to push yourself, try out some of these challenges! Right from the menu, you will select a challenge that usually has a bunch of modifiers built-in. A fun way to push yourself.

There are currently 32 songs included in the base game of OhShape. There is a wide range of song choices but most are royalty-free music you will not recognize.  There is 1 purchase expansion pack with 8 other songs. There is also the ability to do custom songs.

How Do I Install Ohshape Custom Songs?

OhShape custom songs make working out so much more fun. There is a 3rd party website – Oh Shapes – http://www.ohshapes.com They are NOT affiliated with the main game, but they allow you to download various custom songs that you can then install and play in-game.

There are quite a few OhShape custom songs available like Toss a coin to your Witcher to Believer, and Imagination Dragons. Select and download the songs you are interested in. You need to open the .zip files from the website. There will be a .yml file for each difficulty and an .ogg song file.

Depending on which VR system you have, where you copy these songs will be different. For Quest plug-in via USB, Allow access to the file system. Drag and drop the .yml and .ogg files to /Internal shared storage/OhShape/Songs/

Look on the custom song tab in your game and at the bottom will be the correct directory for you.

What is really neat about OhShape custom songs, is they have a leaderboard built right in for them, including high scores for your country, global, and friends. A nice touch.

OhShape Multiplayer Experience

There is no online multiplayer experience in OhShape. You can not challenge your friends (or anyone else) in real-time. There is a global, country-only, and friend-only leader board, so you can challenge your friends this way, but it will not be in real-time.

There IS a party mode. If you are in the same house as a group of people and you want to pass the headset back and forth and challenge each other, you can do so in OhShape. The party board scores stay visible for 10 playthroughs.

What Games are Similar to OhShape?

OhShape is somewhat unique with its wall-matching fitness style, but there are lots of rhythm VR games to get your heart pumping. Some popular choices would be Dance Central VR, Audio Trip, and Ragnarock.

Can you workout with OhShape? Is OhShape a Fitness Game?

OhShape is definitely a fitness game. It is so intense it might not be suitable for beginners. If you are having trouble, use no-fail mode and perhaps small room mode, to do fewer side-to-side motions.

I personally feel that this title is more intense than many of the other fitness games out there because you are using your FULL body to pose, duck, punch, and grab.

My personal fit watch estimation is that it is similar to a game of Tennis at 6-8 KCAL/Min. On expert levels, I would say it could be even higher.

Does OhShape cause motion sickness?

You play OhShape in a stationary environment as walls come towards you. Some people have experienced a sense of uneasiness as walls come towards them. I did not experience this.

OhShape should cause minimal to no motion sickness issues.

Final Thoughts On OhShape Review