A Year Later | ARMS | Is This Game Dead?

If the title isn't enough indication, it's time to take a look at a game that I reviewed a year ago to this day: ARMS. A lot can change over the course of a year, including one's opinion. ARMS was also promised to receive multiple updates over the course of 2017, so the game itself has also change quite a bit over the past year. Many people thought that ARMS' online community would be dead not long after launch, and even to this day, people still wonder: "Is this game dead?" The answer is simple: no. The game is still very much alive and well. Since launch, the game has received five new fighters, twelve new Arms, five stages, a new game mode, and several other goodies.

Max Brass, the game's final boss fighter, was the first character to be added. After a full charge, he gains super armor and his punches speed up for a limited time. He can also emit shockwaves similar to Spring Man, and he stays pumped, er, buffed when he's at 25% health. I find it funny how some people thought that Max Brass would make Spring Man obsolete, but in reality, they play completely differently. Some time later, Lola Pop was added, who is a candied clown fighter with the ability to move forward and backwards while guarding and perform high-jump and long-jumps. She is by far my favorite of the five new fighters, and she's my second ARMS "main" - along with Min Min.

After only a week or so of teasers, Misango was added before his name or face was even know. Contrast this with Lola Pop, who felt like she was an eternity away from her reveal, Misango kind of just came out of nowhere, which was kind of surreal. Misango's abilities revolve around his unnamed spirit companion. After guarding for a moment, the spirit will float out in front of Misango and form a pillar that blocks enemy attacks. Should he dash into this pillar or perform a full charge, Misango will dawn the spirit as one of three masks - red, blue, or yellow - depending on what color the spirit was at that moment. The red mask is aggression-oriented and grants abilities such as super armor at the cost of movement speed; the blue mask is focused on speed, which comes at the cost of Arm size and throw damage; and the yellow mask is Rush-centric, which comes at the cost of both movement speed and throw damage.

Some time later, Springtron was added. While effectively a robotic clone of Spring Man, Springtron has enough to differentiate himself from Spring Man beyond aesthetics. He can produce shockwaves like Spring Man can, but he doesn't gain a permanent charge at 25% health like he does. Instead, when he fully charges, Springtron sends out a powerful shockwave that knocks down any outstretched arms and temporarily gains a substantial dash speed boost and constantly charged Arms for around 9 seconds. If he sounds like a pain to deal with, congratulations, you are correct! He totally is!

Lastly, we have Dr. Coyle, a mad scientist with many quirks that set her apart from other fighters. Most notably, she does not jump, but rather float around the ring. What's this good for?... Well, I don't know that myself, but it's certainly interesting and makes her quite fun to play with. Upon fully charging, Dr. Coyle gains a third Arm, copying either the Arm on her left or right arm at random, allowing her to easily put pressure on her enemy. Finally, Dr. Coyle can temporarily turn invisible, making it harder to read what she's going to do next - which is scary in this game, since reading your opponent is vital.

Of course, each new fighter came with their own set of Arms and their own stage (except Springtron). I'm no ARMS strategist, so I'm not going to go over the ins and outs of each Arm and Stage, but I will say this: the developers have done a great job making each Arm viable and each stage, well... not terrible, at least. Again, I don't know enough about the technical aspects of the stages to say which ones are the best, but I can at least say that there is only one "bad" stage, and even that one isn't so much "bad" as it is more "awkward." As for Arms, each one is balanced to their point where there really isn't a strong "meta" to the game. There are common strategies, sure, but that's a given for any competitive game. When I play online, I see a variety of Arm setups from other players. I've even heard from one player who thought that using two Guardians would be ridiculously unusable, but found it to actually be a sound tactic and became one that he plays with quite frequently.

Here's where I'm going to talk about bosses. This is technically spoiler territory, so if you'd like to avoid such, skip this paragraph. In my review of ARMS, I expressed how I hated the final boss, Hedlok, and explained why I think he's a terrible boss. After more time with the game, I no longer think Hedlok is a bad boss. Hedlok is very much designed to teach the player to play to the extreme. As in, if they're going to be defensive, they need to be very defensive. If they're going to be aggressive, they need to be very aggressive, et cetera. Hedlok's many arms serves as a lesson in finding an opening for a counter-attack. On the contrary, the game did receive a new secret boss fight against Springtron, and that is a truly unfair fight. As previously mentioned, Springtron is a huge pain to deal with due to his arm-disabling shockwave and intense speed when fully charged. I find Hedlok way more manageable on Level 6 than Springtron is on Level 4.

Thankfully, if one does manage to defeat one of the bosses on a high difficulty setting - or even the lowest - they will be rewarded for it, which didn't happen in the past. Now, players are rewarded for accomplishing certain tasks with Badges, which are small icons that they player can set to appear next to their name when they play online. Some Badge designs are random, while rarer Badges have set designs. For example, your Badge for throwing 100 total punches may be different from mine, but we'd both have the same Badge for defeating the final boss for the first time. Each Badge achievement also comes with a in-game currency reward, making it much easier than it was in the past to earn currency to unlock Arms with. It rewards players with so much, in fact, that fans went from complaining that it's hard to obtain the currency to complaining that there's nothing to spend it all on.

Max Brass

Lola Pop

Springtron

Misango

Dr. Coyle

Eventually, that something to spend the excess currency was added in the form of the Gallery, and this effectively killed two birds with one stone. In addition to desiring something to spend excess currency on, fans also clamored for some sort of story mode - or at the very least an in-game way to view the snippets of lore that the official Japanese ARMS Twitter account shared on occasion. This Gallery satisfied both of these requests; players can spend their in-game currency on unlockable images with accompanying text that provides some extra insight into the game's underlying story.

Somewhat disappointingly, ARMS only ever received two completely new modes: Hedlok Scramble and Party Crash. Though, both of these modes are good, so one can't really complain. Hedlok Scramble is a basic fight with an added twist. At the start of the match, a capsule is spawned, which can be broken open to unleash an item known as "Hedlok," which will grant one player four extra Arms, increase their throw damage, and replace their Rush attack with a powerful projectile attack for a limited time. Once time runs out, Hedlok disappears and respawns in another capsule after a short amount of time. If a player with Hedlok is knocked down, Hedlok comes loose and other players are given a chance to steal it to use for themselves.

Party Crash is effectively ARMS' version of Splatoon's Splatfests, except Party Crash offers exclusive game modes within it, whereas Splatfests are merely the game's basic online mode. Party Crashes happen at specific dates and are given themed votes for the player to choose from. For example, Star Power Showdown was the theme for one that asked players to choose between the popstar Ribbon Girl and the movie star Twintelle. Once the Party Crash starts, players cast their votes by playing as the fighter they wish to support; whoever they play as the most between the two determines their vote. Though, players are not outright forced to play as either fighter, they are rewarded with more points for it, as well as fighting with one or both of the Bonus Arms that rotate every 15 minutes of the event. Gathering points will level up the player's Party Crash level, which determines what Badge rewards the player will receive at the end of the event.

After ten minutes, a Bonus Event occurs, which will determine what game modes pop up for the next five minutes and increase the amount of points players receive. These Focuses can be anything from "So Much Rush" which gives players infinite Rush for every match, to "Bombs Away" which makes bombs constantly fall during each match, to "One Hit Wonder" which makes each and every hit a one-hit knockout. While there are few Bonus Events that you can't set up in local play yourself, they do throw in a nice amount of variety to online play, and in tandem with playing with a fighter and Arm set-up that you're unfamiliar with, makes for a good bit of chaotic fun.

Overall, I think ARMS has become worthy of a full 5 out of 5. Everything that's present is absolutely solid. The only room for improvement the game has is for the addition of new content. The developers have done an excellent job keeping the game balanced and listening to what the community has to say, such as adding button-mapping, improving 2v2, and removing Snake Park from Ranked mode. If you are interested in ARMS and still haven't picked the game up yet, you certainly should. The game has gotten nothing but better since launch. If you have played before and you dropped the game, in may be worth checking out the new features and fighters.

Image Source:

ARMS Institute: https://armswiki.org/