A farewell to legs
(This
review is spoiler-free!)
I’ve never been a real fighting game
expert. I love me a round of Street
Fighter or Marvel vs. Capcom as
much as the next guy, but I’m most definitely not one of those people who can
master those extended combos and hold my own online.
So along comes ARMS, Nintendo’s first true foray into the classic 1v1 fighting
game genre. Being geared towards a younger audience, this game is much more
simplistic than others (no insane combos for one thing), but that doesn’t make
it any less fun than any other fighter.
ARMS
is set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland where the only thing humans find
enjoyment in anymore is beating the crap out of each other. They have now begun
experimenting with amputating their arms and tying slinky toys onto them
instead in an effort to find new and exciting ways to beat the crap out of each
other.
Okay, no, that’s not true. But the
explanation for how these characters got their stretchy arms is about as
ridiculous as that.
The gameplay of ARMS looks deceptively simple at first, but it’s hiding several
layers of strategy beneath its exterior. The absolute basics of it are
basically a glorified rock-paper-scissors. You have three tools in your
arsenal: punching, blocking, and grabbing. Punching counters grabbing, blocking
counters punching, and grabbing counters blocking. It’s a fairly simple concept…that
is immediately thrown into overdrive once you discover all the little
advantages you can give yourself just by playing smart.
Half of ARMS is the mind games you play with your opponent. One wrong move
can turn the entire tide of battle, so a lot of matches are spent circling your
opponent, trying to decide whether it’s smarter to try and get the jump on them
by making the first move, or waiting for them to throw a punch and try to
maneuver around behind them for a well-placed grab. It’s a strategy game as
much as it is a fighter, and a lot of high-level play online is all about
moving as fast as you can to position yourself in the right spot to take down
your opponent.
You also have plenty of different
characters and arm types to try out for a huge customization pool. Everyone’s
playstyle is represented here, whether you prefer to get up close and personal
or prefer fighting from a distance. Arms also have different elemental types,
such as fire, ice, slime, electricity and more that you can use to slow down
your foes in combat. Each of the characters also have unique abilities they can
use to their advantage. For example, Ribbon Girl has an extra jump she can use
to get the high ground, and Master Mummy heals himself while shielding. While
the characters various abilities don’t really come into play as often as the
various arm types, there are enough of them that it’s fun to experiment with
each until you find one that really clicks with you.
The overall presentation of the game
can only be described in one way: extremely Nintendo. The Big N’s influence is
all over this game, and in the best way. Each character is very distinct and
memorable, from the mech pilot Mechanica to the ramen noodle-inspired Min Min. Each
character has a very fun design, and you’ll quickly learn to recognize their
names and varying abilities over the course of gameplay. The music is also
great, despite being essentially the same song over and over again. The title
theme is one that especially never gets old even after playing for a while.
The game has two separate modes:
online and local. There is a single player mode in similar style to Classic
Mode from the Smash Bros games, but
it honestly feels like something tacked on at the last minute. You don’t get
any special reward for beating the mode (aside from a one-time unlock of online
Ranked Mode for completing it at a certain level), making it feel like
something you do once or twice to experiment with it and then never touch
again.
The real meat of the game is in the
online mode. There are two separate ways to play: Party Mode, which has a bunch
of crazy modes and extra stuff added in, and Ranked Mode, which is strictly 1v1
matches with no items.
Online is a lot of fun, but it does
have a few caveats. Firstly, Party Mode is more of a frustration than anything.
You are more often thrown into a wacky mode (2v2 with a rope attaching you with
a teammate, fighting a boss, and so on) than a real 1v1 fight, making it
annoying if all you want is to face off against another player. And secondly,
there is no ranking system in place in Party Mode, meaning that master ARMS champions and kids who just started
playing an hour ago can conceivably get matched together with none the wiser.
Unless you really want to play the admittedly fun sports minigames online, I’d
recommend spending the time in the singleplayer mode to unlock Ranked as
quickly as possible.
Ranked on the other hand is much more
fun, with only 1v1 matches allowed and a faster matchmaking system because of
it. You’re also only matched with players near your rank, so you are usually
put up against an opponent of similar skill to yours. When I play ARMS online from now on I think I’ll
only stick to Ranked mode if only because it’s my one shot at a fair fight.
There is one issue across the entire
online mode, unfortunately, and that’s what happens when you encounter a player
with poor connection. It’s very frequent that these players begin to lag,
which, in a bizarre twist of fate, gives them superpowers. Laggers will not
only gain speeds that would make Sonic the Hedgehog’s jaw drop, but also
invincibility to any and all attacks you throw at them. All punches will just
phase right through them as if they were a ghost, but unfortunately the same
cannot be said for you. Encountering a laggy player basically guarantees a loss
for you, because it’s not exactly a fair fight when you can’t even touch the
guy. I don’t know if this is just a problem for ARMS (because if the same situation happens again in Splatoon 2 I’d be really concerned for
this service we’re supposed to be paying for starting next year), but if it is
I really hope Nintendo fixes it sometime soon.
ARMS
is a lot of fun. The presentation is great, and I love the deceptively
simple gameplay that prioritizes quick thinking and strategy over mashing
buttons. Despite this, the singleplayer campaign is completely bare-bones and
the online multiplayer’s got a few kinks that need ironing out. I think if you’re
a fighting game fan this is an easy recommendation from me, if only because
there really isn’t anything else like it on the Switch right now.
FINAL SCORE
8/10
Great
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