ElvenBenzene Arms Review

ARMS is a massive waste of time, for reasons that make almost no sense whatsoever. It's a shame, because the game has so much potential, but is bogged down by questionable design decisions. Playing with motion controls in this game feels horrible, you move left and right by rotating the JoyCons, which feels unresponsive. You can play with a controller, but you lose the ability to individually aim punches, which is very important, as being able to resize your grab is integral to playing the game competitively. The motion controls are a disappointment precisely because Nintendo managed to nail them in Splatoon, with the gyro controls feeling incredibly responsive and actually enhancing the game feel. By far the most frustrating part of this game is unlocking ARMs. Each fighter starts with 3 arms, with the player having to unlock the rest. But after that, you must unlock every arm again. Doing this can take between 40 and 60 hours, per character. And because the upgraded ARMs give you an active advantage in competitive play (because you deal more damage), it means you will likely need to spend hundreds of hours grinding before you even think about attempting to play competitively. Each character has their own charge mechanic which fundamentally changes how they play, but you should just play Kid Cobra all the time because he's the most fun (and the most annoying to fight). The single player content in the game is actually quite fun, but you will need to play it a lot to unlock everything, and because of that it will get repetitive. It will end up overstaying its welcome, and will make you hate the grind. Overall, I was really disappointed by ARMs and wish it was better than it is.