Arms Reviews
In ARMS, players will find the same texture of game design that has made Mario Kart and Smash Bros. so beloved and enduring worldwide. For a brand new multiplayer game, there can be no higher praise than that.
Fighting titles have long been the most competitive and often hardest for new players to get into, but ARMS enters itself extremely well to the genre by feeling like nothing that has ever been played before.
Nintendo delivers a new twist on Punch Out for The Switch and it already feels like the foundation of a new franchise.
ARMS is the first new Nintendo IP on Switch, an unusual fighting-game competitive and entertaining. The character design is beautiful and the game mechanics are well balanced, even if some abilities are easier to use than others. The only problem is the single-player offer, which is not as interesting as the multiplayer one.
Review in Italian | Read full review
It's difficult to describe just how good ARMS is. The best analogy I can come up with is that it is to fighting games what Splatoon is to third-person shooters. ARMS is a bright, colorful, and welcoming game. Newcomers can easily hop in and enjoy most of the matches and modes available. Meanwhile, the more dedicated will find themselves developing complex strategies based on characters and ARMS loadouts and captivated by the opportunities to challenge others online. I would not be surprised to see it spawn multiple successful successors.
ARMS staying power will depend on its ability to form a community around this punchy little title. Currently, Nintendo has plans to release additional stages and fighters for free. This DLC will help the title keep its legs underneath it while the Switch install base grows and the ARMS community grows with it. The early success of the Switch and the level of detail that Nintendo has crafted into ARMS assures that this is a great franchise with huge potential for growth that is fun for newcomers and veteran fighting game fans alike.
If you own a Switch, this is a must buy, especially if you already bought up everything for MK8D. It's Nintendo reminding us they know how to do fun, even if the online community is still lagging behind. If you're on the fence about investing in Nintendo again, I'm starting to feel like now is the time to get in.
With incredible visuals and a unique gameplay experience, it is an exemplary example of what the Nintendo Switch is capable of
I had a lot of fun playing the game in small bursts at a time, but it's hard to keep invested when all I'm doing is beating someone up for each and every round. Let's hope that ARMS will continue the path that Splatoon laid before it by giving players new content and new things to do via free game updates. I really hope so, because I really want to see this game in a more fleshed out form!
Whether on your TV with motion controls or in portable mode with buttons, ARMS is a blast to play.
Arms is Nintendo at its very best. It keeps things simple enough to be fun for the casual player but nuanced enough to satisfy hardcore fighters.
ARMS has potential, but Nintendo's done its best to bury it under neon colours and a catchy theme tune.
It's a rarity these days that you come across a game which feels like nothing you've ever played before, but ARMS is exactly that. It's fresh, vibrant and genuinely a lot of fun to play. It's a fighting game with depth, which even non-fighting enthusiasts can get into. I have some concerns about how long it will take for the game to become stale in its current state, but I'm equally excited to see where Nintendo takes the franchise.
Nintendo has done another impressive job overall, but I would not consider this a must-have title for all Switch owners.
Although ARMS may not be perfect, it's a really good time playing both online and locally with friends. Its single player offerings are underwhelming, and more story content to experience and the removal or refinement of the three bland mini-games would have pushed ARMS to near perfection.
The colors pop. The theme song burrows its way into your dreams. Were Nintendo to take Arms away now, it would still exist as a part of our collective memory, a phantom limb we remember having always, even if we're just now getting the hang of this fascinating new appendage.
ARMS is an original fighting game in the genre. Casuals will appreciate simple gameplay mechanics and more experienced players won't have it easy to master it.
Review in Polish | Read full review
ARMS may not appeal to one crowd in particular, but its vibrant visuals, punchy soundtrack and satisfying combat will undoubtedly be a hit with the masses.
As one of Nintendo's first truly new IP for the Nintendo Switch, ARMS‘s first impression might lend itself towards being no more substantial than the games we saw in Wii Sports: fun for short bursts of play, but lacking in substance. Instead, the game manages to make that simplicity its greatest strength with surprising levels of depth on top of it. More often than not, ARMS pulls no punches in being one of the standout titles in the Switch's early lineup of games for the summer.