To pass some time until Min Min finally is available in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, it's a good idea to take a(nother) look at ARMS, one of Nintendo's newest IPs and fighting games. The title was released in June 2017, about three years ago, and often gets overlooked in the library of the Nintendo Switch, where it now might get some more attention.
ARMS really is Nintendo doing their own thing in a genre, again. When Nintendo does an open world game, you get something amazing like Breath of the Wild. Or when Nintendo does a multiplayer shooter, you get something crazy like Splatoon. And with ARMS it's Nintendo's take on the 3D fighting genre, while also being a spiritual successor to Punch-Out!!.
Gameplay and Controls
The core idea of ARMS is that you're literally throwing your punches, where the "Arms" of your fighter are extending and let your fists travel through the air. You can steer your punches, you can jump, you can dodge, you can block and you can grab, where a grab goes through a block and so on. This offers some traditional "rock, paper, scissors" in its purest sense, where it's all about anticipating your opponent's next move, while also offering a good amount of spacing to react properly in many situations.
It's all very simple, but that's what makes it so good and fun to play. It's not a fighting game, where you have to study frame data, learn complicated combos and perform pixel perfect moves to get competitive. It more feels like a fighting game mixed with a third person shooter. And to spice things up, there are 42 different weapons, also called "Arms", that offer a variety of different projectiles and effects. For example there are boomerangs, which let you attack from behind, or weapons to temporarily freeze your enemy, when they are charged.
Charging is performed by holding either dodge or block and this unleashes the powerful weapon effects for a short time, which include stunning, blinding, blasting or poisoning your enemies. All of this offers some good variety, where you always have to consider your own options and those of your enemy. You can equip your fighter with three different Arms before the match and change them individually for your left and right arm before each round, so that you can use two different weapons at any given time.
In combination with different fighters, who all have unique abilities, there are many things to consider of how you're going into a battle and it might take a while for you to find the perfect combination of Arms for your fighter and yourself. It also adds a lot of depth to the core gameplay of ARMS.
The game is known for utilizing the motion controls of the Joy-Cons, but it can also be played with a Pro Controller. With the Joy-Cons it's easier to steer your punches individually, while the Pro Controller makes it easier to block. In both cases you can fully customize your control scheme, however, to make the game as comfortable for you as possible.
Fighters, Stages and Music
ARMS offers a total of 15 fighters, which all come with their own home stage and music. This might not seem like the biggest number, but it's perfectly fine for a first installment in a new fighting game series. Five of these fighters and stages were offered after the game's launch in the form of downloadable updates. So, a third of the game is DLC, but it's entirely free and with a game like this it was nice to have regular updates for a little while.
Each new fighter reveal was exciting, simply because the character designs in ARMS are absolutely excellent. Some of them might aim at certain stereotypes, e.g. Min Min is your Asian girl, who has a Ramen shop (the Mintendo Noodle House) and noodles with dragon heads for her Arms. But it's all so likable and well made that you really feel the love that the developers have put into these fighters.
Every fighter in ARMS also comes with different stats and one or two special abilities. For example Master Mummy can heal itself while blocking, while Ribbon Girl can jump multiple times through the air and dodge back quickly to the ground. The only fighter on the roster who could be considered to be a clone is Springtron, who is like a robot version of the game's poster child, Spring Man. But even Springtron has a unique ability with his EMP wave, which disables extended Arms near him.
And with the exception of Springtron, who uses the same Arms as Spring Man, each fighter also comes with a distinct set of three different weapons. You can still unlock every weapon with each fighter, however, for an insane amount of combinations. There are so many possibilities here that you probably will never be able to try them all out.
That being said, there is some repetition to be found in the weapons, where it's just combinations of the different weapon effects and projectile types. So, the total of 42 weapons might feel somewhat artificial, where you might quickly determine what specific weapons you want to use...
Each fighter also comes with a stage, where every stage offers something unique as well. None of it is too crazy, it's usually just some smaller stage hazards or quirks, which keeps things interesting. The Ribbon Ring, for example, has platforms in the middle that can be removed with your punches. Some stages simply offer a different shape or layout, like the Buster Beach, which gets smaller around the center, or the Ninja College, where you fight on a set of stairs.
The best about the stages is the music, though. It's a collection of super catchy tunes that never seem to get old, where it's a blessing that nearly all of it now found its way into Super Smash Bros. Ultimate as well. And when you hear the game's title song with its singing, you immediately know what's up. It always makes for a good mood.
Game Modes
You have some solid fighting mechanics, outstanding character designs, 15 unique fighters and stages, 42 different weapons, great music... So, what could possibly go wrong?
Well, at its core ARMS has some solid game types. The standard fights can be played with up to four participants at once, but you can also play team battles, where the two teammates are linked to each other for some hilarious moments. Playing with more than just two players can become very confusing and chaotic, however, and isn't always that much fun.
The teams work better in the various mini-games, which include Volleyball and shooting targets, as well as Basketball, though the latter can only be played 1-on-1. Those can be a fun little distraction from the normal fights, but don't feel that engaging overall.
All of this gets utilized in the game's main "Grand Prix" mode, where you can pick any fighter and play a series of 10 to 12 matches, depending on the seven different difficulty modes. The difficulty levels already offer the first problem here, because there is a very steep curve. Playing on "3" still might be easy enough for you, but then on "4" you will suddenly get destroyed by the AI, which blatantly cheats.
For example, when you throw a punch or a grab you will always remain defenseless until your arms come back. This does not apply to the bots, who can immediately shield even when their arms are still extended, putting them at a ridiculous advantage. Playing the singleplayer Grand Prix often feels unfair and therefore isn't much fun.
And while the fighters and their stages are all very unique, the same can't be said for their singleplayer ladders. It's all the same for everyone with the exception of the two boss characters, Max Brass and Dr. Coyle, who will experience some slight variations. But it's nothing too interesting and there are only few story bits in the form of text, where it all gets boring and repetitive super quickly. And that's a shame, where it's clear that the game's budget primarily went into making the fighters.
Otherwise you can play fights with any rules you want, where this offers some additional modes. One of those is the "Hedlok Scramble", where you fight over a scary power-up, which multiplies your Arms. And there is also a "1-on-100" survival mode, reminiscent of Multi-Man Smash, where you keep fighting "Cells", which are generic clones of the fighter Helix.
In addition there is a party mode, where you keep competing in all of the core game modes, as well as some training modes. The game can also be played online, but its online modes weren't tested for this review. However, it seems to offer some of Nintendo's better online experiences and also has seen many events over the past three years, with the so called "Party Crashes".
ARMS Getter
As already mentioned, there is a combination of 15 fighters and 42 different weapons in the game. But how do you actually unlock all the weapons with each fighter? That's where this additional mode comes into play, called "Get ARMS". To play this mode you will need coins, which you earn from playing all the other modes and unlocking Badges.
But it's basically just another target shooting mode, with prizes moving through background once in a while, which will give you the additional Arms for randomly chosen fighters. At first this is quite fun and feels very rewarding, because you're usually getting a handful of new Arms at once. But you can also get duplicates, where every weapon can be upgraded twice for more damage. So, in total you need to get 123 Arms with every fighter, 1845 in total, if you really want to collect and upgrade everything with everyone.
And this is utterly exhausting. It gets old quickly and turns into a total grind, where it would have been better, if there were a direct way of unlocking specific Arms with every fighter. At least that way you would have a good incentive to play as everyone.
It also makes this game difficult for local tournaments or simply playing it on somebody else's Switch. Since this process takes forever, you have no guarantee that the Arms that you want for a specific fighter will be unlocked and full upgraded. And there's no fast way of getting them, which is a complete disaster, because without the right Arms for your fighter you might end up at a disadvantage.
Badges
If collecting all the Arms isn't enough for you, there are also 360 Badges to collect, based on ingame achievements. This goes even hand in hand, because unlocking Badges will score you a good amount of coins for the ARMS Getter. These reach from basic milestones like "play 50 matches" to some trickier challenges.
Some of the Badges are fixed, others are obtained randomly, where there's a pool of achievements to get them, which means you don't have to do absolutely all tasks here. Still, with the fixed badges there is a good number linked to the online Party Crashes, which therefore can't be obtained any longer, because these events have stopped. And this is a no-go for every completionist, who wants to get into the game now.
Conclusion
If you want a fighting game with some unique mechanics and great characters, then ARMS is certainly a recommendation. However, with its basic game modes and absolute grind for unlockables, it's not a title that can keep you happily hooked for a longer time. But it offers some good fun for in-between, where its charming design and amazing soundtrack make you come back every once in a while.
