Developers are buzzing about Nintendo EPD's recently released fighting game Arms.
The game's colorful characters, approachable design, and general wackiness merit comparisons to the classic Punch-Out!! franchise. But some claim there are depths to the game's fighting mechanics that rival those of eSports mainstays. Many admire the online multiplayer, which is something that Nintendo has not often been praised for, Some people adore the controls; others are put off by them.
We felt that the game's many bold and fascinating design decisions merited additional discussion. Gamasutra reached out to several developers for their input, and ten of them were willing to share some of their initial impressions and insights.
Edu Cueto Sola (Nubla)
I've been gleefully surprised by the precision of the joycons - It's probably the best game yet when it comes to the potential of the joycons and the Switch. I've always admired Nintendo's capacity to renew genres from scratch and simplify them for more casual players like me.
The Trinity of attack, grab, defense is really smart and intuitive, and gives the players enough options to develop a strategy and play mind games with the other player. I really look forward to the competitive aspects of the game.
Seth Killian (Rising Thunder, PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale)
"You can see opponents' decisions play out at a rate that allows you to easily think about your next move while your current attack is in flight."
One thing I love about Arms is the way it encourages dynamic rock/paper/scissors mechanic, but doesn't isolate the decision about where and how to attack to the series of fast individual attacks you expect in traditional fighters.
By giving players control over the entire time that your attacking arm is in transit, they can try to subtly shift and influence their chances while their opponent is attempting the same dance. It lets you read a lot about an opponents' intentions and habits by allowing players to turn away from or lean into the initial target of their attack. You can see their decisions play out at a rate that allows you to easily think about your next move while your current attack is in flight.
The results of winning one duel also doesn't build into major subsequent advantages as much as they do in other fighters. You can still catch a beatdown, but you rarely get that feeling of "what the heck just hit me?" that can overwhelm new players.
Adam Saltsman (Canabalt, Gravity Hook)
So the Arms meta is still SUPER fresh obviously. I'm hesitant to like dig into balancing since it feels like first week of Overwatch where every other day a different character was OP, etc. I have theories but they're probably bad and wrong but whatever. Even outside that I could probably happily do like 5000 words on how ludicrously clever Arms is. So like let's keep it to the short important stuff probably:
Rebuilding The Fighting Game from scratch a bit. There's recognizable stuff here - blocking, throwing, normals, super meter with i-frames, character-specific traits and abilities, etc. But everything's been boiled down to such a pure state. Your two punches really work more like specials than normals - big commitments with status effects that leave you vulnerable etc. To offset the simplicity there they've made the combat VERY spatial, but spatial with very big granularity. Where in a classical fighting game long range and short range attacks might be a matter of a few pixels, in Arms it's spelled out in like the dozens of meters of distance between the players. The Rush meter incentivizes players to get close and take risks, knowing there will be a little payoff later. The controls are super simple and intuitive. The feedback on what landed and why is mostly perfect. The online works great right out the box with no patches. I mean wtf
Virtuoso character design. A lot of it skews youngish, it definitely takes some willpower to say the word "Ninjara" as an adult I think. Whoever designed Helix should probably be arrested. But otherwise it feels like the same extremely strong and even bold design sensibility from Splatoon, with a little like 90s The Designer's Republic sensibilities slipped in there. It feels like any two of these characters could stand on their own in any normal game, and there's like 10+ crammed in here. And the way the character themes are derived primarily from their titular Arms is just superb. The curled brass spring of a clock, noodles, bandages, DNA, leather belts, anything that can be a convincing spiral is grounds for designing a whole weird new character. It makes me very happy.
That theme song. LORDY that theme song.
Jon Davies (Super House of Dead Ninjas, The Binding of Isaac, Cave Story)
"For a game that, on the surface, looks like nothing more than wacky Rock-em Sock-em Robots, there is a surprising amount of tension in high skill matches."
Thinking about it, it seems to fall in line with Nintendo's standard of easy to play and hard to master, but whereas games like Mario Kart and Smash Bros. seem to rely on a certain degree of random luck to level the playing field, Arms is approachable in how easy to grasp its core fighting mechanics, as well as the developers' understanding of what makes a fighting game tick.
Punches are slow, at least compared to high-octane fighters like Guilty Gear and
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