Fireantus 8

TL;DR - Fun. Whimy. Frustrating. ARMS is a really goodf, fun game, that offers superb audio and visuals delight, extremely quick and TL;DR - Fun. Whimy. Frustrating. ARMS is a really goodf, fun game, that offers superb audio and visuals delight, extremely quick and adrenaline-pumpin' gameplay and sterling Online Party mode. Yet, it's often Nitendo Hard, it's frustrating to learn and often makes you wanna wail in outrage.



Problem for me in ARMS comes from me sucking at it big time. I am terrible at this, unable to dodge, unable to duke it out, unable to grab... I don't pull this game grade down because I suck, it happens. But I have to say that lack of any proper learning curve is a bit frustrating. Nothing really is explained except basic of controls. It's not inherently bad! I like games that doesn't hold my hand through everything in the game, but still in a technical game like ARMS, where mechanics are the key, I'd love to know things beside the control sheme - like what's the delay between movement options and hits, how to negate grab attempts, what items dropping on the arena do and mostly what each ARM does - because fluff text express it in some way, but I'd rather have hard stats telling me how much damage, how fast and what gimmick an ARM offer to the player.



Thanks to extremely quick matches and the arena combat it is hard to learn from your own mistakes, because it's hard to see what you did wrong. In a single match I can completely win one round without being hit only to lose two next rounds being completely destroyed, as all hits suddenly miss, all opponent grabs land no matter what I try to do and in the rapid anarchy on the field it is very hard to pinpoint the areas in which I failed and need to practice. This issue grows expotentially for me due to assymetric characters, each having a very different lag between moves, movement lenght and speed and so on, and so on.



But the frustration and steep, confusing learning curve is pretty much the game only flaw. Everything else is spotless and I can see how you can really love this game when you learn the mechanics and technical gameplay of combat. Music is upbeat, fun, energetic. Visuals are splendid! Colorful, bright, with fantastic light effects and very tacticle feeling behind every punch you throw. Characters are nice, whimsy and fun in their own way. Game mods? Solid bunch. Grand Prix offer very back-to-the-roots grand championship tower, where you climb up difficulty and all players in the roster to fight a boss and win. Versus is bread and butter of this game - duking it out with a friend is an absolute, blood rushing, laugh inducing delight. And online party mode? Glorious. Sure, some mini-games are unispired, but it works like a charm. Even waiting in the lobby is fun, and it's so dynamic, so fast, that when you enter the party mode you can just sink yourself into the game for hours just bouncing between random fights with random folks online. … Expand