ARMS (ง’̀-‘́)-------------ง

I spent about three hours playing ARMS last night and I never got tired of the basics of play. I started out playing split screen one on one with my son in Versus mode. I used motion controls and he used the Pro Controller. I never felt like either of us had a specific advantage. It was fairly even the entire time with the character differences and how we exploited them often contributing to victory. After standard fighting we played the other modes. He was better at Volleyball. It was about even in Hoops and I was better in the Target mode.

After he went to play Overwatch with his friends, I played the Party Mode online for awhile. I had some wins and losses as I had the first time I played. I love how Party Mode mixes up all the various game styles and keeps rotating you through different matches and matchups. I feel like I really improve while playing other human players as much as I do in solo play against the AI. You’re earning coins in all these modes to let you play the ARMS Getter whenever you feel like it. ARMS Getter allows you to play target mode with the chance to win new ARMS for your favored fighter. This is where you can get more options to mix and match for any other mode of the game. It’s timed and you get more time depending on how much you spend. If you’ve played Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, it would be similar to the Trophy Rush in that game only with better and more useful rewards.

After online, I messed around in the Versus section. You can enter that menu as 1P only and it offers some extra modes. There is training that does a good job of showing you the various ways to counter different attacks and there’s also 1 vs. 100 mode. That’s a timed fight against 100 Helix-style enemies. I could not get through all 100, but it was fun to try! I made it to 54 I think before I ran out of life. It’s essentially survival mode but with multiple on-screen fighters against you.

Finally, I fought my way through Level 2 of the arcade-style mode. There are Eight difficulty levels and you run the gauntlet of all the game’s fighters until you meet a final boss fighter that I just read will be the first DLC fighter they release. On Level 2, it was a bit tougher than Level 1, but I think I only lost twice on the way to the boss. One of those was Target mode where I was just plain bad. I did try Level 4, which you have to beat to open up Ranked play, and got wrecked by Master Mummy on the first match. I need to get better before I can beat that, obviously. Note that online Party Mode has a lot more variety than ranked so unless you’re really into the competitive scene, you probably won’t care that ranked requires unlocking.

So the question to answer… does ARMS have LEGS? Well, yes it does if you play as Min Min. She has this cool kick she does when you dodge in mid-air. :)

Seriously though… I think this is one of the most unique “fighting” games I’ve played, and I’ve played almost all of them. It has all the trappings of a real fighting game under the hood with the aforementioned triangle of punch, block, grab, but it offers that up in a completely unique setting and gameplay style. It feels like boxing with quick dodging of punches, counter punching, danger of whiffed grabs, and even throws in a “Super” for you to unleash on your opponent as well. There are a variety of really awesome rings to fight in. Last night I noticed that Ribbon Girl’s stage, which has these platforms that rise from the floor, contains powerups IN the floor! You punch that block and out it comes. I got beat in one match because I saw a health canister in the floor and got too focused on setting it off and took a fist to the face because from a leaping/dodging opponent that ended my match. I love the way movement is so integral to the fighting. It’s way beyond the footsies of Street Fighter and into something else entirely. I’d honestly like to see a real boxer who has an interest in videogames play ARMS to see how they would approach the game. Sure, the arms themselves extend to longer ranges, but the fundamentals of boxing are there.

If I have any complaint, it’s that I want even more. It’s a really solid package with a lot of fun stuff to do, but I love the world of ARMS so much (and especially the music!) that I kind of want an even larger backstory to be fleshed out for all these characters and this crazy world they’ve created. Nintendo has said there’s a lot more to come on that side of things and there will be (free?) DLC fighters added to the game. I’m looking forward to that.

One of the best things, and this is something I think I can say of all the Switch games I’ve purchased so far, is that the coding is rock solid. Zelda had a little bit of framerate drop in it and that got corrected in a patch, but beyond that, I just feel like these games are such complete entities. I don’t ever get glitching or weird behavior and I love how solid everything feels. You can tell it’s been tested heavily. I think the core gameplay is so solid and engaging here that I will be playing ARMS for a long time. It reminds me of Splatoon in that way. It’s so fresh and exciting that I can’t wait to play it more and to improve my skill and work my way into Ranked play. You might not want to go that far, but I think with yourself and friends (you can play with one Switch and a single joy-con for each player at home or on the go) as well as Party Mode online, if you dig the idea of punching people out, you’ll play a lot of ARMS.

Well I picked this up. Loving it,surprisingly, so. I’m not ready for online play yet, but totally one to play a person vs a bot.

Try out Party Mode online. I don’t think you’ll feel overwhelmed or beaten down. You’ll also learn a LOT about how to dodge and counter. It’s also just plain fun to play with other people because they’re less predictable!

I love this game. Played with my youngest son last night and we had a fantastic time. My skills had already improved a lot from when I played with my middle son earlier in the week and I won a lot more than I lost. We also went into Party Mode together which was a really fun time. He was using motion controls and I was using the controller this time. It’s so awesome that it really is roughly equal no matter which you choose!

I just love this story for how your kids go off to play other games and a grown man stays to shadow box with his Nintendo. Hah.

Eh… teenagers. They need edgy things until they hit that age where they’re like, “Man, I was really dumb as a teenager.” and then they come back. :)

Exactly. It’s why kids are into Call of Duty, and adults are into Pokemon. ;)

I’m seeing a lot of people saying this is worth ~$40 rather than $60, and I’d probably buy it at the former price, but can’t really do it at the latter when I’ve never liked fighting games.

Played a ton of this yesterday and fought through level 3 and level 4 along with Hedlok to open up Ranked Mode! Understanding range, damage and times to trigger things like your Rush are crucial as the difficulty goes up. It took me a good half hour to beat Hedlok with his six (!) arms at Level 4 with Spring Man. You also learn to understand the strengths and weaknesses of each character as the level goes up. You want to fight at different ranges and with certain arms against specific opponents when you can. It’s important to counter or understand how you’re being countered.

They updated yesterday too. Patch added an Arena mode good for spectating competitive matches. It seems like its specific to allowing streaming of matches from different perspectives.

I only jumped into one competitive ranked match, but I liked the removal of items and the straight up fight. Party Mode is awesome for a fun time, but Ranked gets me fired up to perform.

The first DLC is out. Free.

It’s Max Brass!

Bought this over the weekend after falling in love with the Global Testpunch. I agree with everything Dave said above, particularly how solid it feels. I liken it to Splatoon in that it’s got that flair, energy and identity right out of the gates. Looking forward to playing some more soon, particularly against friends.

It’s an awesome game and an amazing exercise in creating a new property in my opinion. The core conceit of punch, block throw is familiar but the world and the dynamic gameplay is something all new and fun. The music stands out too. It immediately sets the tone for exciting play.

Nintendo has clearly been busy preparing for the release of the Switch for quite awhile.

It’s discounted to about $40 on the eShop this week, so now’s your chance! I picked it up and have enjoyed my first couple hours with it.

I guess we should’ve rezzed the thread before the weekend, but there was a Global Test Punch for this over the last weekend.

The Global Test Punch is kind of weird. They’ve done it before, so I assume it’s always the same format, but you basically play a very quick controls tutorial, and then it drops you into a “party mode”, where you are in a lobby with about 10 other people, and it drops you into one of about 5 different match types with other people in that lobby randomly. Options are things like:

  • 1 v 1
  • 2 v 2
  • 3 v an AI boss character
  • 2 v 2 in a target practice style arena where you play for points
  • 1v1 with a weird basketball theming where you basically get points for knock-downs

It definitely doesn’t do enough to explain the mechanics. The basic controls are demonstrated, but a bunch of stuff (like the “charge” mechanics) is mentioned but not explained.

I guess motion controls are the “intended” experience, but I found the actual button controls to be really hard to grok. Jump, dodge, and attack are on totally wrong buttons compared to most action games, but it still kind of feels like a character-action game, so I wanted the controls to be like, Bayonetta-y. Also, block is L3 (i.e. click the analog stick), which is never the right answer to any control scheme.

I can see it having depth as a fighting game…but I have a lot of issues getting used to the controls, so I doubt I’ll be picking it up. It just isn’t quite intuitive enough to be a mess-around multiplayer experience (and I definitely don’t have the time to put into it to actually play seriously).

You really should have tried the motion controls before the Test Punch ended. They’re excellent and work perfectly. I think the gamepad ones are configurable, but don’t quote me on that.

Both are viable in competitive play.

Here’s the 2018 Online Championship from this past weekend (which was the reason for the Test Punch).

I highly recommend watching some of the above. The final match was RIDICULOUS! I won’t even say why. Just watch.

Motion controls in ARMS are freaking awesome and so much fun!

That’s the only way my son and I play, even if they are less precise than other methods.

I tried the thumbs-up grip briefly, but I couldn’t really get the handle on them either.

I will say that I think there is at least 1 thing that definitely feels better about the motion controls than the buttons. With the controller, you use the analog stick to move around, but when punching, you use the analog stick to curve your punch. If you want to move left, but then curl a punch right, you have to snap the stick back and forth pretty accurately.

With motion controls, you tilt both controllers to move around (Virtual-On style), but to curve your punch, you rotate your wrist in or out. Because these are totally distinct motions, it seems like it would be easier to separate the two.

Yeah, I played with both quite a bit and eventually settled on the motion controls because it just felt natural. It’s like shadow boxing, but the control you have is so precise that you really feel like you’re using those on screen arms. I think the full 3D movement really adds something special too as moving in the vertical plane along with the horizontal one is vital to success.

It’s a brilliantly designed core concept IMO. It’s a fighting game in true 3D in a way no other game has been done before it including Virtual On. which is probably its closest analog. It’s got a little bit of Heavy Metal: Geomatrix to it as well which no one but me has probably played here on Qt3.

I don’t know why, but my brain can suddenly see the thread title for what it is. It’s an old woman, not a young lady!

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LOL. I was going to say that I played this, on account of it being the Dreamcast and being able to…“acquire” pretty much any game from the internet…but I think I might have played Heavy Metal FAKK, and the Spawn game instead, which looks somewhat similar. (3rd person arena-type PvP…we were discussing Anarchy Reigns in another thread, and I couldn’t help but think about that a little bit as well!)

There’s clearly a lot of complexity here, which I’m pretty sure that I would never scratch the surface of…but it’s definitely pretty cool.