A few weeks back, the ARMs Global ‘Test Punch’ went live on the Nintendo Switch at 1 pm, 7 pm and 1 am on Saturday the 27th and 3rd along with Sunday the 28th and 4th and I poured as many hours as I could into it. With the game releasing on the 16th of June, it had quickly become one of the top games on my to buy list for the Nintendo Switch along with ‘Splatoon 2’ and ‘Sonic Mania’ to place alongside my current small collection of ‘The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild’ and ‘Disgaea 5 Complete’.
ARMS for Nintendo Switch Review
ARMs gameplay is relatively simple, using a unique cast of 10 characters, eight of which were playable in the demo, and a combination of 2 ARMs, weapons which attach to the stretchy limbs of the characters to deliver long range punches you would duke it out with a fellow player and enemy alike. Each character has unique traits to themselves, such as ‘Ribbon Girl’ being able to jump four times without touching the ground and ‘Ninjara’ being able to disappear for split second, placing these two as some of the best characters simply due to mobility and in Ninjara’s case, invincibility frames.
The matchmaking system is fast and fluid, allowing for the change of characters quickly and easily on the fly while out of a battle and features a large range of fun modes to play in. To begin, there’s the standard battles which come in Variety’s on 1 on 1’s, 2 on 2’s and 3 players free for all’s – These are the generic fighting mode which often pops up and is a blast to play, while strangely never getting too repetitive. Then there are hoops, in which both players have to attempt to grab the other and throw them into the hoop and the far end of the stage, earning points for doing so. When the timer get’s to the last 10 seconds, however, all shots are worth 3 points instead of 2 and the winner is either the highest point bearer at the end of the first to reach 12. Then, there’s the ‘target break’ mode, in which you and an opponent, with a possible partner fire through targets to gather points, with a chain increasing the total point count and stage hazards appearing. Finally, of the ones which appeared in the Testpunch is the fights against ‘Headlok’, a metal tiki head like an enemy who with the body of one of the regular characters uses six arms, a meteor blast special and titanic health pool to combat a team of three players. This mode, while appearing the least, is the most challenging by far to the point where I haven’t beaten it once. (Though I got a draw through time out when we were just about to defeat him one time.)
In conclusion, from the parts I played, my experiences with are outlined above and the parts I have seen of the full game, I can (somewhat preemptively) say that, while maybe not on the level of Splatoon, ARMs is a fun, fresh and exciting ‘Nintendofication’ of the fighting game genre and am looking forward to picking it up on the 16th.
This has been Jake 15 from Umeandthekids, and thanks for reading.
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