How ARMS created a fighting game for everyone
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Fighting games are hard. Ask anyone but the most jaded veterans and you’ll find this a common sentiment. This is something that I’ve found out myself, after I put in several months into learning them this year. Despite that, I can barely even consider myself a beginner.
So when I finally got my hands on ARMS, Nintendo’s newest fighting game for the Switch, I was surprised to learn that it almost effortlessly addressed so many barriers to the genre. In his review for Eurogamer, Martin Robinson called ARMS a game that “does for fighting games what Mario Kart did for driving games”. It’s an apt description. ARMS brings the excitement of fighting games’ 1 on 1 brawls, but builds it in a way that doesn’t require deep, methodical study to enjoy. Key to this are three things: simplicity of control, easing of penalties, and a continued effort to teach through play.
Learning to throw a Punch
ARMS isn’t a game that exists in a vacuum. It’s influences range from the esoteric movements and weaponry of SEGA’s Virtual-On, to the rhythms of Nintendo’s own Punch-Out and Wii Boxing. Wii Boxing in particular is important, thanks to the way ARMS has built its controls. In short, it’s clear that ARMS was built with motion controls in mind. There’s a startup to each punch, and while it can get hectic and fast, the ranged nature of the combat often gives you plenty of time to react while allowing the motion controls to register. Traditional buttons are still supported, but building around motion controls keeps them a viable option. This is something you can see during the 2017 ARMS Invitational, where both the champion and the producer of the game opt for them.
The advantage to this is that motion controls give a more intuitive control method for unfamiliar players. Fighting games often abstract attacks into button presses of various strengths that vary wildly between characters. Attacks might even change completely depending on directional inputs and positioning. Press punch with Ryu in Street Fighter II and you can get a hook, an uppercut and a gut punch. Or maybe you’ll get one of the close variations, or even a throw. All of this off of a single button.
In ARMS you throw a punch by, well, throwing a punch. Curve a punch by tilting your wrist. Grab by sticking both your hands out. Block by tilting together (crossing your arms works also). There are plenty of other, more complicated parts to it, but like Wii Boxing if you know how to throw a punch than you can understand the basics of fighting. And unlike Wii Boxing, the ranged fights mean you’re less likely to be rewarded for furious flailing. It gives starting players an expressive set of actions from simple motions, and makes it clearer how each character and weapon type alters these universal actions.
A Little Bit of Encouragement Goes A Long Way
Like other fighting games, there isn’t a lot in terms of external rewards in ARMS. There’s a single metric to gauge solo progression, which is how many of the weapon variants you’ve unlocked for each character. These are gained through a mini-game that you get access to by spending coins. The important part about these coins is that you get them for doing everything. Playing arcade mode, playing with friends, doing training missions, and especially playing online in casual lobbies. In fact, playing online for extended sessions racks up bonus coins, win or lose. Win enough as well and ARMS will set a handicap for the next match, challenging to win under tougher circumstances and offering a bonus if you do.
There’s also a ranked system for more serious play. Importantly, losing will cause you to lose rank points, but the amount is minuscule, especially in comparison to the amount you earn with a win. Compare this to games like Street Fighter V, which have a similar Fight Money concept, but barely reward you for anything but a win, and don’t give you anything for playing in player lobbies, which are crucial to building up skills. Likewise, the penalty for losing is significant, driving into you the idea that anything but a win is worthless.
The important thing here isn’t the practical realities of how each game rewards you, but how they feel. In practical terms, there isn’t much difference in Street Fighter V between a win and a loss in terms of rewards, and ranking points will often stabilize with more experience. The problem is that the way games like Street Fighter frame losing feels penalizing, and discourages players if they feel they can’t win. ARMS rewards you no matter what, with better, but not drastically better, rewards for victory. Street Fighter V wants you to win, while ARMS just wants you to keep playing. Which is important, as it ties into the next part…
Learning Through Play
The most remarkable aspect of ARMS is how it gives you opportunities to learn without making it feel like homework. As praiseworthy games like Skullgirls and Guilty Gear Xrd might be for their extensive tutorials and training modes, they still often feel like going to school. Worse still, because of the overwhelming amount of information presented, you can often get through them by performing the right actions without actually understanding the concepts behind them (which is accurate to my experience of higher education, if I’m honest).
People within the fighting game scene will point to these as excellent starting points, but having actually shown them to beginners, or even going through them myself, I find that these dry, methodical experiences aren’t very rewarding or effective to anyone not already embedded into the genre.
ARMS’ solution to this problem is simple: make learning part of the game.
While ARMS includes several training mini-games dedicated to practicing certain concepts, I imagine most players won’t do more than dabble with them. The majority of gametime with ARMS is bound to be online, either in ranked mode or in the casual lobbies. These lobbies are where the best work happens. Lobbies have you face off with others in a variety of game types, both alone and with a teammate. There are three mini-games that are most important here: V-ball, Hoops, and Skillshot.
Each of these mini-games require a different skillset in order to win. V-Ball requires good timing and set ups to keep the ball away from your side. Hoops requires you to counter and perform throws to dunk the other player into a hoop. And Skillshot tests you aim and fine control, while allowing you to also hit the other player to prevent them from scoring points.
These mini-games all force you to play a certain way in order to win, and force you to become aware of your weaknesses while giving you a chance to flex your strengths. Most importantly, they do this while still making it a competition. They’re exciting to play on their own, and feel good to succeed at — a far cry from the rote memorization of combo trials and tutorials. Best of all, they’ll actually make you better at the game, without making you feel like you’re doing a term paper.
To be clear: this isn’t a solution that’s actually simple, or even viable to implement for most fighters. This only works because Nintendo intentionally set out to create a fighter aimed at a wider audience, that is built in a way to ease the barrier to entry. ARMS is a unique approach to the genre with its own nuances, but without the technical construction that often makes high level fighting games a spectator event. Still, if Nintendo’s own tournaments and ARMS’ inclusion in the first Japanese EVO tournament are anything to go by, there’s something worthwhile here that other games could stand to take note of.
Until then, I’ll just be happy to have a great fighting game with a colorful cast that I’m excited to return to again and again.
FURTHER READING:
Elastic Energy: What Makes a Parry So Satisfying?
The Spirit of the Arcade
WonderGirl: The Dragon’s Trap and an alternative to the Metroidvania
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Amr is the Editor-in-Chief of deorbital.media (@deorbital), and clickbliss.net (@clickbliss).
