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ARMS - Nintendo Switch (Motion [optional] controlled boxing, Nintendo, Spring 2017)

To show the curves of punching better, here's one video sample at around 27 seconds in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MltVQxQoxKE

*sorry for the large gif guys*
1JKzdOk.gif


Look at this player's arms and then his character on the left part of the screen. He dashes to the left but punches with his right hand and also quickly curves the controller to the right which hits the opponent. The reaction from player to character was almost instant which shows how well the Joy Con responds. Then you see him curves his left hand all the way to the left which causes it to curve more than usual. If he didn't have the Chakram glove on his left arm, it probably would've hit the other player instead of coming back at the end.

Just this small part definitely shows precision in the motion controls and how well it works. Also like people said, the timing of "when" you curve affects your punches the most. If you curve it too quickly, it most likely will completely whiff the opponent. However if you punch straight and then curve it as it is near the opponent, your hit success rate is much much better. Still it's not gonna be easy hitting the opponent since the movement of this game is pretty mobile with all the dashes/jumps.
 

Regiruler

Member
What I don't like so far is that all the arms, save for mummy, seem to just be reskins of the springs from spring man. We could use some more visual variety.
 
To show the curves of punching better, here's one video sample at around 27 seconds in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MltVQxQoxKE

*sorry for the large gif guys*
1JKzdOk.gif


Look at this player's arms and then his character on the left part of the screen. He dashes to the left but punches with his right hand and also quickly curves the controller to the right which hits the opponent. The reaction from player to character was almost instant which shows how well the Joy Con responds. Then you see him curves his left hand all the way to the left which causes it to curve more than usual. If he didn't have the Chakram glove on his left arm, it probably would've hit the other player instead of coming back at the end.

Just this small part definitely shows precision in the motion controls and how well it works. Also like people said, the timing of "when" you curve affects your punches the most. If you curve it too quickly, it most likely will completely whiff the opponent. However if you punch straight and then curve it as it is near the opponent, your hit success rate is much much better. Still it's not gonna be easy hitting the opponent since the movement of this game is pretty mobile with all the dashes/jumps.
Man, that looks so cool. The core gameplay to this seems great, just give us enough content and you've got a new franchise, Nintendo.
 

Mista Koo

Member
So I was thinking of reasons why Spring Man was a better design than both Ribbon Girl and Ninjara, and why I can see him in Smash and not the other two. It all boils down to colors.
Spring Man's colors pop well, making him stand out even in a game with 3 other blue haired characters. Ribbon Girl's colors are so safe and boring, another blonde girl wearing pink. Just looking at her in a different color palette highlights how well utilized the ribbon motif in her design. Ninjara has a bigger problem that is easier to fix: he's too green. He looks like the green member of a sentai team. Making him less green makes him the ninja guy not the green ninja guy.


I don't think it's easy to pick up for people not used to dual stick movements though, I definitely was fighting the controls to remind me that I have to tilt both of the joycons in the same direction for movement. It also feels a bit weird that you can't simultaneously attack and move at the same time because punching would negate your movement input. I definitely had to wrap my head around that instead of kept wondering why I wasn't moving fluidly. I'm definitely curious how that works without motion controls because there's nothing stopping me from tilting left on the analog stick while still pressing punch buttons.
Huh, so I am guessing the non-motion controls would be exactly the same but with the analog sticks replacing the motion.
 

Harpoon

Member
I think part of the whole point is that all of the characters are supposed to kind of echo a Sentai team in that they have their own colours. Spring Man is blue, Master Mummy is purple, Mechanica is yellow, Ninjara is green, Ribbon Girl is pink, and I expect that will continue for the rest of the cast (which does raise the question of how big it can really get). So replacing a bunch of Ninjara's green with yellow like that feels... off.

I also don't think that Ribbon Girl stands out as much as her current colours, but that might be because she's put right next to a Ninjara who has pretty much the same colour scheme.
 
So I was thinking of reasons why Spring Man was a better design than both Ribbon Girl and Ninjara, and why I can see him in Smash and not the other two. It all boils down to colors.

I think it boils mainly down to the fact that Spring Man seems to be the lead promotional character. Apparently he's the default choice on the CSS.

He's basically the Ryu of this game.
 

Speely

Banned
Preordered this today - I got Power Stone vibes for reasons I'm not able to articulate.

I can get behind this. The dynamics of both games aren't entirely different despite the perspective. Power Stone was a very lateral movement-based projectile-heavy game.
 

Crayon

Member
Preordered this today - I got Power Stone vibes for reasons I'm not able to articulate.

I just watched the treehouse segment. The rhythm of it is like powerstone. The control scheme is like virtual on. And the upgrades are like robo pit. And the character designs are along the lines of the Splatoon new school. This looks like a winner and I'm definitely getting it.
 

Speely

Banned
I just watched the treehouse segment. The rhythm of it is like powerstone. The control scheme is like virtual on. And the upgrades are like robo pit. And the character designs are along the lines of the Splatoon new school. This looks like a winner and I'm definitely getting it.

I think you just summed up why this game has gotten me so hype. Makes sense. Thanks!
 

DashReindeer

Lead Community Manager, Outpost Games
Nintendo really needs a Direct focused solely on this game. They really need to dig into the feature set and whether there are robust online modes as well as what the single-player experience looks like. I also want them to highlight the ability to play this game sans motion controls and what that might look like for people who are turned off by motion gaming (especially in competitive multiplayer games). There are too many questions about this game right now for me to be 100% sold on it, but I am a little more positive on it than when I first saw it in the presentation.
 

Josh5890

Member
Nintendo really needs a Direct focused solely on this game. They really need to dig into the feature set and whether there are robust online modes as well as what the single-player experience looks like. I also want them to highlight the ability to play this game sans motion controls and what that might look like for people who are turned off by motion gaming (especially in competitive multiplayer games). There are too many questions about this game right now for me to be 100% sold on it, but I am a little more positive on it than when I first saw it in the presentation.

Considering that there is a Fire Emblem direct next week already, I would imagine we will see quite a few of these going forward. I'm sure that there will be one for ARMS.
 

Speely

Banned
Buddies: Can I get an AMEN on being hype about Nintendo taking chances on creative new IPs? Splatoon could have been written off as an experiment, but Arms shows that Ninty is serious about creating unique new franchises.

Sorry, I am just hyped for this game in a way that hearkens back to my Dreamcast launch hype. I see huge promise (on hopefully a more successful platform.)
 

Doorman

Member
I can't think of a more Dreamcast game than this Arms. Help me GAF.
Given how things turned out with the Dreamcast, I'm a little afraid of this analogy being brought up. :p

Buddies: Can I get an AMEN on being hype about Nintendo taking chances on creative new IPs? Splatoon could have been written off as an experiment, but Arms shows that Ninty is serious about creating unique new franchises.

Sorry, I am just hyped for this game in a way that hearkens back to my Dreamcast launch hype. I see huge promise (on hopefully a more successful platform.)

AMEN! I think the people that have been questioning why this wasn't just made into a Punch-Out or Wii Boxing sort of game are selling the game, its playstyle, and its potential short, and it's extremely reminiscent of those who said Splatoon should have just been a Mario paintball spinoff or somesuch. One Punch-Out opponent having extendable arms I could see, but Punch-Out isn't built primarily around Vs. play anyway, and the rangey nature of these battles gives it its own distinct feel. I'm glad for more new settings, characters, and IPs in this vein, especially something like this that has a style of character design kind of unlike anything else Nintendo has. That being said...I do wish the characters' names were less cliche. "Spring Man" is the best you can come up with for the cover character? The ninja character is "Ninjara?" That's the sort of stuff you'd expect a little kid to come up with.



Is it way too early to place my hopes on the OT subtitle being "Literally throwing hands"?
 

Speely

Banned
Given how things turned out with the Dreamcast, I'm a little afraid of this analogy being brought up. :p



AMEN! I think the people that have been questioning why this wasn't just made into a Punch-Out or Wii Boxing sort of game are selling the game, its playstyle, and its potential short, and it's extremely reminiscent of those who said Splatoon should have just been a Mario paintball spinoff or somesuch. One Punch-Out opponent having extendable arms I could see, but Punch-Out isn't built primarily around Vs. play anyway, and the rangey nature of these battles gives it its own distinct feel. I'm glad for more new settings, characters, and IPs in this vein, especially something like this that has a style of character design kind of unlike anything else Nintendo has. That being said...I do wish the characters' names were less cliche. "Spring Man" is the best you can come up with for the cover character? The ninja character is "Ninjara?" That's the sort of stuff you'd expect a little kid to come up with.



Is it way too early to place my hopes on the OT subtitle being "Literally throwing hands"?

I like it a lot. However, the previously-mentioned "Spring Release" is also strong.
 

ReyVGM

Member
Anyone recorded that great ARMS music remix heard during the Japanese stream on saturday?

I'm not talking about the rockband that played, but the music played during the intermissions between segments.
 

DashReindeer

Lead Community Manager, Outpost Games
Given how things turned out with the Dreamcast, I'm a little afraid of this analogy being brought up. :p



AMEN! I think the people that have been questioning why this wasn't just made into a Punch-Out or Wii Boxing sort of game are selling the game, its playstyle, and its potential short, and it's extremely reminiscent of those who said Splatoon should have just been a Mario paintball spinoff or somesuch. One Punch-Out opponent having extendable arms I could see, but Punch-Out isn't built primarily around Vs. play anyway, and the rangey nature of these battles gives it its own distinct feel. I'm glad for more new settings, characters, and IPs in this vein, especially something like this that has a style of character design kind of unlike anything else Nintendo has. That being said...I do wish the characters' names were less cliche. "Spring Man" is the best you can come up with for the cover character? The ninja character is "Ninjara?" That's the sort of stuff you'd expect a little kid to come up with.



Is it way too early to place my hopes on the OT subtitle being "Literally throwing hands"?

Your Splatoon comparison is pretty apt. People were quick to be down on that game during the E3 in which it unveiled, calling the art style uninspired and saying it looked like a f2p mobile title, but that turned into one of the most popular new IPs Nintendo has released in decades in large part due to the fact that it was not merely a Mario spin-off title.

While I am still not 100% sold on ARMS, I think it would do the game a disservice if it was merely a Punch-Out or Wii Boxing sequel.
 

StayDead

Member
Played this today at the Nintendo UK Switch Event and I loved it. I must've played about 20 matches overall. It's so much fun and there's so much meat. Every game I played it felt like I was learning new strats and I found on the trampolines (well my friend found) that if you jump as you hit it, you go much, much higher.

Ninjara is kinda broken right now though, you have to play super turtley against him.
 
I'm sure there are some negative ARMS hands-on impressions floating around, but Lord knows I haven't found them. If this game has enough content to justify its $60 asking price, it's going to be an early success story for the console.
 
To show the curves of punching better, here's one video sample at around 27 seconds in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MltVQxQoxKE

*sorry for the large gif guys*
1JKzdOk.gif


Look at this player's arms and then his character on the left part of the screen. He dashes to the left but punches with his right hand and also quickly curves the controller to the right which hits the opponent. The reaction from player to character was almost instant which shows how well the Joy Con responds. Then you see him curves his left hand all the way to the left which causes it to curve more than usual. If he didn't have the Chakram glove on his left arm, it probably would've hit the other player instead of coming back at the end.

Just this small part definitely shows precision in the motion controls and how well it works. Also like people said, the timing of "when" you curve affects your punches the most. If you curve it too quickly, it most likely will completely whiff the opponent. However if you punch straight and then curve it as it is near the opponent, your hit success rate is much much better. Still it's not gonna be easy hitting the opponent since the movement of this game is pretty mobile with all the dashes/jumps.

Well, this is cool! Certainly not the dumb waggle from the Wii
 
Since the thread about ARMS being the next big eSport was closed before I clicked Submit on my post, I guess Ill post it here. So think it has some things going against it.

1. A huge barrier is that it's 1v1, not team based, like pretty much every big eSport. In fact the only major ones I can think of that aren't are Starcraft.
2. We don't know what types of modes it has, whether you can spectate, etc
3. It's limited to just the Switch, which shrinks it's potential base

I have no doubt Nintendo will continue releasing content for it. They've shown with Smash they definitely know how to hype up new character releases, so that isn't an issue, and between that, MK8 and Splatoon, they understand the different means of releasing new content to keep a game fresh. However, I think fighting games have a sort of limit when it comes to popularity, that prevents them from reaching the highest peaks of eSport popularity

And I think another major reason is

4. Nintendo still hasn't quite figured out how to capitalize on their big multiplayer titles. At the moment they have Smash, Mario Kart and Splatoon, each which have huge potential to be big, but they've yet to quite figure out how to do so. I think that would be an interesting thread to have (I might make it actually)
 

Speely

Banned
Played this today at the Nintendo UK Switch Event and I loved it. I must've played about 20 matches overall. It's so much fun and there's so much meat. Every game I played it felt like I was learning new strats and I found on the trampolines (well my friend found) that if you jump as you hit it, you go much, much higher.

Ninjara is kinda broken right now though, you have to play super turtley against him.

Bless you.
 
Buddies: Can I get an AMEN on being hype about Nintendo taking chances on creative new IPs? Splatoon could have been written off as an experiment, but Arms shows that Ninty is serious about creating unique new franchises.

Sorry, I am just hyped for this game in a way that hearkens back to my Dreamcast launch hype. I see huge promise (on hopefully a more successful platform.)

Amen! Whoever wishes this game was a punch out game instead of a new IP... well, let's just say i don't think very highly of them.
 

DooMAGE

Member
To show the curves of punching better, here's one video sample at around 27 seconds in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MltVQxQoxKE

*sorry for the large gif guys*
1JKzdOk.gif


Look at this player's arms and then his character on the left part of the screen. He dashes to the left but punches with his right hand and also quickly curves the controller to the right which hits the opponent. The reaction from player to character was almost instant which shows how well the Joy Con responds. Then you see him curves his left hand all the way to the left which causes it to curve more than usual. If he didn't have the Chakram glove on his left arm, it probably would've hit the other player instead of coming back at the end.

Just this small part definitely shows precision in the motion controls and how well it works. Also like people said, the timing of "when" you curve affects your punches the most. If you curve it too quickly, it most likely will completely whiff the opponent. However if you punch straight and then curve it as it is near the opponent, your hit success rate is much much better. Still it's not gonna be easy hitting the opponent since the movement of this game is pretty mobile with all the dashes/jumps.

That's some impressive stuff, hope for single player content?
 

bomblord1

Banned
Has there been any confirmation of the resolution and frame rate of this? Because it seems to be the first demanding, built from the ground up game for the switch available and I'm really curious what it is. It should give us the first real taste of the system power.
 

Neiteio

Member
Has there been any confirmation of the resolution and frame rate of this? Because it seems to be the first demanding, built from the ground up game for the switch available and I'm really curious what it is. It should give us the first real taste of the system power.
I wouldn't be surprised if it's 1080p 60fps. Everyone says it's sharp and smooth. With limited things happening onscreen (1v1), they might be able to hit those numbers. The same dev is hitting 1080p 60fps with MK8DX.
 
I'm so sold on what I see that I just need reassurances there'll be lots of content. Until then, I feel restless!

Yeah, if the price is indeed already fixed at 60$, I would definitely want both a larger roster and/or a great story mode that somewhat gives characterization to our characters.
This has potential to become another legitimate new IP for Nintendo, but Nintendo's new gold standard Splatoon also needed to have great care taken for it to succeed.
 

Neiteio

Member
Nintendo can add some HYPE accelerant to the HYPE fire by giving us some lore for context. Like are these fighters robots? Amputees? We had some context for Splatoon at E3 2014 and it helped pull us into its world faster. :)
 

Speely

Banned
Nintendo can add some HYPE acceleration to the HYPE fire by giving us some lore for context. Like are these fighters robots? Amputees? We had some context for Splatoon at E3 2014 and it helped pull us into its world faster. :)

There's almost no getting around a macabre setup. They are literally amputees. This game is dark.
 
Nintendo doesn't have much time. With Splatoon they had a whole year. This time they only have 4 months. They'll have to give it its own Direct, like they did for Splatoon, or just have it in direct listing more features and modes.
 

Speely

Banned
Nintendo doesn't have much time. With Splatoon they had a whole year. This time they only have 4 months. They'll have to give it its own Direct, like they did for Splatoon, or just have it in direct listing more features and modes.

They'll be fine. Splatoon was a great, GREAT new IP releasing on has-been hardware. Arms is releasing in a window that's very much more advantageous on fresh hardware.
 

Alrus

Member
I honestly almost wrote this game off due to the initial trailer but it looks like it's much deeper than I thought.

I feel going with the Wii style advertisement won't be very effective or at least they should not exclusively focus on that. Give context, make the characters interesting, stuff like that. Would probably do a lot to make it feel more interesting.
 
It's cool to see a unique take on the fighting genre after seeing not much innovation or newness in it for a while. If they promise depth and longevity to this, I'm in. I'm pretty firm on denying their online fee until they do more to beef up the package so I probably won't be playing this online.
 
I honestly almost wrote this game off due to the initial trailer but it looks like it's much deeper than I thought.

I feel going with the Wii style advertisement won't be very effective or at least they should not exclusively focus on that. Give context, make the characters interesting, stuff like that. Would probably do a lot to make it feel more interesting.

They haven't gone with Wii style advertising in years
 

Speely

Banned
I honestly almost wrote this game off due to the initial trailer but it looks like it's much deeper than I thought.

I feel going with the Wii style advertisement won't be very effective or at least they should not exclusively focus on that. Give context, make the characters interesting, stuff like that. Would probably do a lot to make it feel more interesting.

Agreed. I feel like the game itself is far more interesting than Nintendo's marketing has accounted for... And they have shown off a lot.

Ghah... This is my most wanted Switch game.
 

Neiteio

Member
The trailer's really good, but you appreciate it more after immersing yourself in gameplay footage

Think we'll get amiibo??
 

Alpha_eX

Member
I played this so much at the event, really want to play some more. Loved this game, it reminds me of summer and that frisbee game. Quick short rounds just leave you wanting more.
 

AKC12

Member
I can't imagine any button layout for traditional controls working well without it being overly complex unless movement is done with the controller's gyro sensors. That would allow the independent curving of punches to the control sticks, and then everything else is standard.

Splatoon nailed gyro aiming, so I'm sure movement with gyro will work perfectly fine.
 
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