The latest update for ARMS is a doozy. Featuring the inclusion of a new playable character, a new stage, and balance changes, this is the biggest shake-up to the game to-date. If you want to see the full patch notes, head over to Nintendo for those. Otherwise, come with me for my breakdown of what’s new!
As a perfect continuation about the miseducation of fighting game players post from a few days ago, a post from Kotaku perfectly highlighted my point about how misinformed opinions can take life and spread. In it, author Cecilia D’Anastasio highlights a common tactic that Ninjara players use in ARMS to score grabs. She even provides an example in the above gif.
Let’s use this as teachable moment to break down how to counter this particular tactic while breaking down the notion that throws are not cheap in ARMS.
Character choice means everything in a fighting game. It’s about the moves that your character has. The strengths and weaknesses they have. Their look. Their back story. All of this ends up being a reflection of you and how you like to play any given fighting game.
For the fighting games I play, this very much applies to me. Characters that I use need to look cool and fit my play style. If they don’t fit both, I have a hard time being effective with them or finding the motivation to get better. As such, here’s my five favourite fighting game characters!
During the Global Testpunch, I thought ARMS was going to be a walk in the park. I was throwing hands like Kimbo Slice, dropping almost every opponent in sight while collecting 100+ coins during each hourly interval. Figured that I would waltz my way to the top of the rankings in no time.
It didn’t take long for reality to smack me in the face with fists powered by springy arms. Everything past rank 6 has been a struggle. I touched rank 10, only to be beat down dozens of times in a row and fall back down to Earth. Just like every other fighting game out there, I’m gonna have to earn it just like everyone else.
I am currently smitten with ARMS. Nintendo’s newest title is a novel take on the fighting game that is one of the most accessible fighters in quite some time. For a brief moment, I thought that maybe this would be the game that magically conquers the genre’s accessibility problem. After browsing online to see the response from players on message boards, Reddit, and Twitter, it was clear that this was not the case.
Just like with any other fighting game, there were complaints about throws being too cheap. About certain characters (coughcoughNinjaracoughcough) being too overpowered. Some were calling the game a mindless waggle-fest or button-masher. You don’t have to look far to find opinions rooted in conjecture. The reality is that getting a wider audience to understand and enjoy fighting games at a satisfying level far more complicated than just creating a simplified game.
Nintendo’s latest fighting game is far from a waggle fest. Players who master the ins-and-outs of ARMS will dominate, while button mashing and arm flailing will almost certainly guarantee defeat. These tips may not make you the Daigo of ARMS, but they should get you on the right track to success!
Nintendo is no stranger to putting their stamp on genres outside of their wheelhouse. Their take on racing gave birth to the legendary Mario Kart franchise. Their foray into the world of real-time strategy gave us the brilliant Pikmin series. Most recently, Nintendo entered the crowded shooter market with their breakout hit Splatoon.
They don’t always hit with their forays into new territory, but their track record of making something great within unfamiliar territory is ridiculous. This time, they’ve struck gold with Arms, a 3D arena fighter with motion controls.
Months before its scheduled release, Capcom has given us access to a story mode demo for Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite. Single player content is not what I come to the genre for, but its importance can’t be understated in a world where NetherRealm has raised the bar with the story modes in Mortal Kombat and Injustice. Furthermore, the lack of single player content at launch was a key factor in Street Fighter V failing to win gamers over, causing the game to sell short of Capcom’s expectations. With that in mind, let’s take a look at what we have in Infinite.
Over the past two weekends, I’ve been participating in as many ARMS Global Testpunch events as I could. At first, it was to see if ARMS was the real deal. Since then, it’s been a matter of wanting to play as much of this game as possible because it’s really fun.
I’ve had a chance to play with all eight of the characters that were available in the beta. Since Kid Cobra and Bark & Byte weren’t available, write-ups on them will have to come later. For now though, here are my thoughts on the characters we got to play with so far.
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Street Fighter II is back! Again! For the last time! Yeah, probably not the last time, but whatever.
After a countless number of iterations over the last few decades (!), Capcom rolls out the latest version of its signature fighting game franchise with Ultra Street Fighter II: The Final Challengers on the Nintendo Switch. Is this a worthwhile addition to the franchise and to your collection?
In Third Person 