ARMS - Armsfulls of Joy

My copy has arrived so I'm going to get torn right into GP mode later.

I am so keen to tuck into this. Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow!

My copy is due tomorrow as well!

On a nice note, the game's art director drew the E3 Invitational Champion and the game's producer.

Next month there will be around eleven playable characters in The ARMS.

...yeah I think I might have to be buying this now.

How unfortunate. Join us! Join us!

Got to support those new IPs, Balla.

I see what you mean mas but that shouldn't be the only reason to get this or any game.

My boyfriend got this early yesterday because Amazon supports the LGBT community, I've had a lot of fun with it during the brief periods he puts it down. Ninjara is hands down the best character. His mobility is amazing sure, but he speaks fluent anime so I main him now.

I am not very good at ARMS. Over the weeks to come I aim to raise my skill level to that of a mere dork.

Myself, Jas and Andy had a cracking session tonight - think I'll be sinking a lot of time into this!

I also rattled off the Grand Prix on Level 4 on my first time with Ribbon Girl.

NintenDUCK wrote:

My boyfriend got this early yesterday because Amazon supports the LGBT community, I've had a lot of fun with it during the brief periods he puts it down. Ninjara is hands down the best character. His mobility is amazing sure, but he speaks fluent anime so I main him now.

Sorry Ducky but you are my enemy now - Death to "King of the spam grabbers" Ninjara & hopefully Nintendo delete him from the game soon.   Glad you're enjoying the game though.

Jay wrote:

Myself, Jas and Andy had a cracking session tonight - think I'll be sinking a lot of time into this!

Aye there were some top matches in there even if I am not much of a fan of the free for all fights.

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I've also went through the GP (with Mechanica) on level 4 & was pleasantly surprised at how challenging it is, so doing that with all characters and then tackling the harder settings is going take a really long time.

I've done GP with 5 characters so far, only on level 1 to see which character I like best and play around with all the ARMS then I do level 4 or above with my main and I think I'll be done from a single player point of view.

Then it be about multiplayer where I'll earn coins to play the mini game and this to me will sort of be like a fighting game Overwatch.

Hrrmmm. Here's the thing with ARMS, and by extension the fighting game genre. That problem is the singleplayer. The singleplayer isn't bad, or lacking, or anything like that. It just isn't the game. Fighters are multiplayer games; they're a sport, a system by which two humans can compete.

The feeling of fighting another person - reading their behaviour, reacting and pre-empting, trying to outfox one another - is great. ARMS is brilliant at getting you to that point really early. There aren't complex combos to learn, there's no outside learning required. The basics can be learned really quickly, and everything else is just understanding and applying them better.

There is no AI sophisticated enough to replicate that, and Nintendo certainly haven't created Skynetwithout telling anybody. At the easiest difficulty, ARMS is a breeze, so easy as to be a joke. The enemies do random attacks and I was able to beat it in half an hour without taking a defeat. I barely took damage.

I decided to jump straight to Level 4, and it's a slog. The game is just input-reading. I press an attack, and the opponent is blocking as soon as my thumb hits the button. They switch between attacks, dodges and throws with pinpoint accuracy and speed no human can replicate. If I trick them into starting to block, they switch to a punch as soon as I've pressed the grab input.

I'm still enjoying the game, and I'm getting quicker at doing things myself. By playing through level 2, then 3, 4 is slightly less insurmountable. Nonetheless, hiding ranked play behind a tough singleplayer challenge that scarcely reflects the online game I'm wanting to play feels like bad decision.

Sounds like someone needs to get gud.

I should also mention that like MK8D it doesn't force you to play at all difficulty settings as when you win at level 4 it gives you the crowns for 1, 2 & 3 so when I said I'm looking forward to trying the harder settings I meant 5 and above.

It doesn't force you to, but like with Mario Kart I'd recommend it to anybody who is struggling. After beating 2 and 3, I did indeed git gud enough that 4 didn't feel so insurmountable.

I am struggling to get to grips with ARMS, as I've said both here and on Twitter. I need to unlearn a lot of fighting game behaviour in order to git, as they say, gud: I am not used to losing control of my character once an attack is launched, for example, so I'm pressing punch (Punch Left, Punch Right, Punch Both) and then pressing a direction to steer my static fighter out of the way of the oncoming fists of fury/fate... and steering my flailing fist(s) in a random direction as I stand, statue-like, to accept punchy justice from my opppnent. It's a more tactical affair than it might seem. For the record, I have got to the fourth fight on difficulty setting 2 with my main, La Fille De Ruban. One day I will be brave enough to go online and get tonked, flattened, wapunga'd... but today is not that day.

In other news, delighted that all the female fighters are wearing cycling shorts, trousers or mechs - no unsavoury peeking at their skimpy underwear as they scrap. *cough* Chun Li *cough*

Possibly going to trade in Street Fighter V, Rainbow Six Seige, and Bloodborne (I will pick this up again when I fancy going through the DLC) in order to pick up ARMS tomorrow. Game's website is really helpful for trade-in valuations as it says all are worth £0.00 I'm guessing they'll combine to knock around £30 off the price of the game, which is fine.

Drunkalilly wrote:

It doesn't force you to, but like with Mario Kart I'd recommend it to anybody who is struggling. After beating 2 and 3, I did indeed git gud enough that 4 didn't feel so insurmountable.

I disagreed heavily with your previous post, but it seems like you've had a bit of a turnaround here so I won't bother with my meticulously drafted response full of such wanky fighting game terms as "neutral" and "footsies".

At its core ARMS is about patient play. I tried to have a few rounds half-cut tonight and found myself throwing far too many punches. It's all about evasion and punishing mistakes. I hope that at the deepest level of play that doesn't end up translating to inaction, to be honest. I'm concerned it could end up that way, especially considering the lack of any particularly safe options of attack. It feels like everything leaves you open to a brutal punish at this stage.

I still maintain that the singleplayer AI doesn't improve in the way a human does. I have seen moaning online that it straight-up cheats, but I think a lot of people are just, like myself, struggling to get their heads around the invincibility frames after knockdowns and things like that. It's slightly harder to read than it is with a side-on fighter.

ZeroJones wrote:

In other news, delighted that all the female fighters are wearing cycling shorts, trousers or mechs - no unsavoury peeking at their skimpy underwear as they scrap. *cough* Chun Li *cough*

I'm not sure if it is true but if you want to beat the game on level 7 to see the actual credits, people have been using likes of Min Min with two dragon ARMS then just spamming the firing of them.

Managed to just take out GP mode level 4 with the forum favorite, Ninjara!!! now I don't have to play as that scrub again

I managed to perfect Meek Mahon during that run as well, although I really struggled against headerzz. Until my third go, then I wiped the floor with him by using some sneaky jabs.

The main problem I have with ARMS at the moment is that it feels like several of my shots should have hit, but they wiff. It's probably because I'm not used to fully 3-d fighters but it has made me say bullshit more than any other Nintendo game I've played, and I've only done 1 GP

I'm sure it's just the nature of the beast, but you're right when you say it doesn't feel very Nintendo. Their design is generally so tight.

When I did level 4, I absolutely breezed Hedlok . . . then realised it was a proper best-of-three fight, not just one round, and somehow lost the other two.

Good to read that other people are toiling a bit too. I don't think I've ever played a game that I'm so completely shite at. I'm getting my arse handed to me in the party matches, in the minigames, even on the Level 2 Grand Prix. If I stick at it, I'll be playing the Ranked Matches by the time ARMS 5: Zip Lash comes out. I'm even shite at the training mode!