I’m apparently one of the few who actually really enjoyed Wii Sports Boxing.
Using the motion controls to punch and dodge was just good visceral fun! And that might partially be why ARMS hooked me from the get-go.
Because ARMS is essentially a longer-range and deeper version of Wii Sports Boxing boxing, by virtue of featuring characters that have super stretchy & equipable ARMS. Yeah, leave it to Nintendo to take something familiar and make it weird.
Like, really weird. I rest my case. Because of the long-range and relatively slow speed of your punches, ARMS rewards patience and precision much more than, it does randomly flailing about. Learning how to control both ARMS independently and simultaneously, including curving them mid-attack with a twist of the Joy-Con, is essential.
But it’s also a little bit like rubbing your stomach and patting your head at the same time. Especially since you can equip different ARMS for each, well arm, making both function very differently from each other, which can be a little tricky to keep in mind.
Some ARMS are slower, but heavier, and can punch right through an opponent’s, well, punch, others may come in at a steep angle making it harder to dodge, and others yet fire projectiles for some super long-range combat which is saying something in a game like this!
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And that’s not even to speak of the elemental attributes that each ARM can gain by charging up, such as ice that slows down your opponent or electricity that disables their ARMS. Really, choosing your ARMS is just as important as choosing your character--and learning how they complement each other is pretty important.
Speaking of characters, the eclectic cast immediately stood out to me as being among Nintendo’s best yet, featuring unique designs that are fun and iconic, such as Spring Man’s coiled blue hair, or Min Min’s noodle arms and ramen locks.
The attention to detail is truly fantastic, even with the animation, such as how Twintelle walks with clear purpose, or even how the robotic Byte & Barq move stiffly, like an ancient Disney animatronic. These characters really do ooze personality.
And that’s not even to mention how different they play, such as how Ribbon GIrl can control the air with her ability to jump repeatedly, or how Ninjara can briefly vanish from sight to throw off your opponent. And then there’s the complete freak show that is Helix who well.
You can see for yourself between the 10 characters and 30
equipable ARMS, that’s a whole heck of a lot of possible combinations, which
can be a bit intimidating.
Especially since the game doesn’t do a particularly great job of explaining the pros and cons of each ARM, leaving you to learn primarily through repeated exposure.
Which wasn’t much of an issue for me since I found fighting 1 on 1 incredibly addictive at least when facing human players. But the game also features a tutorial mode that’ll walk you through the basics, and then lets you choose specific gameplay elements to focus on, such as guarding, or blocking, grabs.
Of course, you may just want to hop into the Grand Prix to try things out, which is essentially ARMS’ Arcade Mode, but is available for both 1 or 2 players. In it, you’ll fight your way through 10 rounds of opponents in mostly 1 on 1 battles with the occasional sporting event thrown in the mix too, such as Skillshot.
Which is a race to break the targets, B-Ball, which is ARMS version of basketball, except instead of a ball, your goal is to grab your opponent and dunk them instead, and finally, there’s V-Ball, which is Volleyball ARMS’ style, where you want to keep the ball away until it explodes on the opponent’s side of the net.
The sporting events aren’t particularly deep, but are a fun diversion and help mix up the action. Unfortunately, beyond a couple of final challenges I can’t yet talk about, the Grand Prix is remarkably barebones, consisting almost entirely of content from elsewhere in the game.
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The general presentation is pretty lackluster, with no real story at all, and only a brief character introduction before each battle. Even Biff, who had a commanding presence in the ARMS Direct, has lost his voice and instead makes only high-pitched Inkling-like sounds, which kind of sucks the energy out of the otherwise high-octane experience.
Now to be fair, a barebones arcade mode isn’t atypical for fighting games, but I do feel it’s a giant missed opportunity to explore these eccentric characters more in-depth. What you see is what you get. They don’t even get a proper ending. And it’s for that reason that after a couple of playthrough, I was pretty much done with the Grand Prix.
Instead, I’d much rather spend my time online in order to take on actual human opponents and fortunately, ARMS mostly nails it in that sense. So ARMS essentially offers 3 ways to play online. Party Match, Ranked Match, and with Friends.
Party Mode will probably be the primary draw for most people, as it’s available from the get-go, and is slightly more casual in that you don’t earn any kind of rank here. Instead, you’re thrown into a lobby with a handful of other players, which the game then subdivides into different groups for every match, before mixing it up for the next one, and so on and so forth.
And this is simply brilliant, as it not only ensures there’s a constant stream of players to challenge with almost no downtime between matches, but it also gives you the chance to familiarize yourself with some of those players over the course of several battles, without having to take them back to back to back.
It almost fosters a tiny little community--albeit one in which you can only communicate via a shake of the player icon. Furthermore, pretty much every mode in ARMS is up for grabs here, with the game deciding randomly for each group, whether it be a one on one battle, any of the sporting events.
We
mentioned earlier, or some others we haven’t mentioned yet, such as the Hedlok
battles, where everyone works together to take down a common foe, or 3 & 4
player free-for-alls, or the team-based 2 vs 2, which can be both fun, as well
as, completely chaotic.
The sheer variety here ensures no single activity ever gets tiresome, and also helps prevent any one player from dominating round after round, since each game demands a slightly different skillset.
And in a really smart twist, those who do end up dominating for too many rounds in a row, will find themselves handicapped at the start of the next round, with either 75%, 50%, or 25% health, depending on how many times they’ve won.
But to make up for the disadvantage, they’ll be rewarded more coins than normal if they win, which can be used to purchase additional ARMS.
While the automatic handicap it sure to annoy some players, it’s a great way to keep the Party Mode dynamic and interesting, without frustrating those who may not quite be on the same skill level as another.
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But for those who take their online matches a little more seriously, Ranked Battle is where it’s at. This is the no nonsense way to play ARMS--1 vs 1 only, no items, no handicaps, Final Destination. Okay, maybe everything but that last part.
Because it’s catering to a more hardcore crowd, it only becomes available after beating the Grand prix on level 4 or above, which ensures that everyone is at least somewhat competent at the game as a baseline--and your exact skill level will be reflected in your rank, which increases or decreases with every battle.
But unlike Party Mode, there are no lobbies to be found here--instead, the game will Search for a player for you to battle while allowing you to continue to playing the game offline, such as in Grand Prix or Versus mode.
Unfortunately, it was difficult to fully test this during the Review phase due to the lack of eligible players, and as a result I experienced some significant delays when waiting for a match. But that should be less of an issue once more people are playing.
Regardless, I’m not quite sure why Nintendo didn’t just use a lobby system similar to Party Mode, because while it’s pretty cool that you can continue to play the game while it looks for an opponent. I think it’d be preferable if it didn’t have to search at all and just threw me in with those looking for a little more hardcore action.
Finally, there’s the Friend option, which lets you create a lobby for people on your friend list only--and you can even choose to lock it behind a passcode if you want to restrict it even further. Here you can choose exactly which game types you want to play and set the rules however you want, including how many points are required to win overall.
Regardless of which mode I played online, the connections were nearly flawless across the hundreds of matches I played--even when fighting players overseas. I experienced only a couple of dropped connections and maybe a handful of matches that had any noticeable lag was at all.
If I didn’t know better, I might have almost been fooled into thinking I was playing on a LAN, which is remarkable not just for a fighting game--but especially a Nintendo game. And not only is ARMS the most stable online game I’ve experienced from Nintendo, but it’s by far the slickest too.
I love how the game dynamically groups people together inside bubbles, which makes it easy to see at a glance who’s fighting who, and in what stage, with a visible clock hand that counts down the time. You can even track other people’s games as their health bars and status are updated in real-time.
It’s one slick package and certainly bodes well for the future of Nintendo online . But I do have a few complaints. First, I wish 1 on 1 battles were a little more common in the Party Mode, as I’m also not a terribly big fan of the 3 or 4 player free-for-all battles.
Because of how the camera is setup, it’s pretty much impossible to have a good view of what everyone is doing at once, making it way too easy for you to be attacked from off-screen. The additional players also require the use of an additional button in order to switch targets, which feels cumbersome--especially since it isn’t always easy to tell who you’re locked-on to.
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Some kind of on-screen indicator would probably help. The 3 player battles also feel a little unfair since it encourages players to stay out of the fray until one of the other is KO’d, which can be frustrating. Local multiplayer is similarly solid, with the game running at a rock steady 60 frames per second even with 2 player splitscreen.
Although it does take a hit with 3 or 4 players, dropping
down to a steady 30. But no matter which mode played, I had a blast learning
the intricacies of the gameplay as well as getting a handle on the dual Joy-Con
motion controls.
Which is how I primarily played the game. I found them to be reasonably accessible, while also affording an impressive amount of dexterity.
Movement is handled by tilting both Joy-Con in the desired direction, with your thumbs resting on the shoulder buttons that handle Dashing and Jumping. You then punch the air to punch, and twist the Joy-Cons like a dial to curve your punches in the desired direction.
And I truly loved how the motion controls felt...delivering blows and KO’s by punching the air just feels good, and I never felt at a disadvantage to those using standard controls.
That is, until I did... Because once I started facing more challenging opponents, both offline and online, the cracks in the motion controls began to show, as they didn’t quite afford the accuracy or response time that I ended up needing.
One major problem I repeatedly encountered involved Guarding, which is performed by tilting both Joy Cons inward. If done too quickly, it would cause my character to punch instead, which is a MASSIVE problem when trying to block an incredibly damaging special attack, and instead end up eating the entire thing instead.
And since the game lacks any way to remap the controls, I was essentially forced to try to drop my Joy-Cons in favor of a standard controller, where Guarding is performed with a click of the left stick instead, in order to stay competitive.
But besides allowing me to more easily Guard, I was surprised to find that the Pro Controller really might be the superior option across the board, allowing me to move around and steer my punches with even greater precision. Even if I did lose the ability to curve both ARMS independently.
Unfortunately, while the standard controls did make me more competitive, it also took away some of the game’s appeal, as the motion controls were simply a lot more fun to play with and worked well enough, until they didn’t.
Because of this potential imbalance, I wish the game would show you what controller setup your pponents are using. And furthermore, it’d be nice if ARMS took a page from Mario Kart’s book, and allowed you to set up a Friend Room where motion controls are required as an option.
Those complaints aside, I truly had a great time playing ARMS, especially online. The gameplay is unlike anything I’ve played before, and it hooked right from the get-go. I simply could not get enough--especially of 1 on 1--and learning the game’s unique intricacies felt rewarding, both locally as well as online with the game’s fantastic Party mode.
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Oh, and I haven’t even mentioned the game’s eye catching art style and overall great presentation, Grand Prix aside. Even the music is incredibly catchy. So in case you couldn’t tell, I like ARMS a lot.
But as with all fighting games, the metagame is sure to
evolve as time goes on. And sure enough, even in my pre-release play sessions.
I’ve found that ARMS seems to reward a more defensive plays tyle at higher skill levels--which in my experience, often led to some boring battles as both players played keep away, waiting for the other to strike first leaving them exposed.
And that style of play doesn’t excite me quite like the more casual, but faster paced matches I had played before. So it’ll be interesting to see how the game evolves over time. Especially since Nintendo’s promised that more characters and content will be added as well.
Thanks for reading this article and make sure to follow my blog for more reviews and everything else Nintendo Switch as well.
Arms Nintendo Switch : https://amzn.to/34ba1lD
