{"id":16780,"date":"2017-08-18T00:01:22","date_gmt":"2017-08-18T00:01:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/?p=16780"},"modified":"2017-08-06T17:13:47","modified_gmt":"2017-08-06T17:13:47","slug":"the-fighters-of-arms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2017\/08\/18\/the-fighters-of-arms\/","title":{"rendered":"The Fighters of ARMS"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>ARMS is Nintendo\u2019s newest fighting game on Switch.\u00a0 Originally I wasn\u2019t going to get this game for a while, but I found a sale where it was ten dollars off.\u00a0 Doesn\u2019t sound like much, but considering Nintendo\u2019s first party games hardly ever go on sale, I decided to take the plunge.\u00a0 ARMS has a lot of interesting fighters, so I\u2019ll do what I usually like to do with these kinds of games.\u00a0 Here\u2019s a blog about each of the ARMS fighters!\u00a0 Nintendo has said that more will show up as DLC, so I also posted my own ideas for original fighters and existing characters, too!<\/p>\n

But first a mini-review of the game.\u00a0 ARMS is essentially Wii Boxing expanded enough to be its own game.\u00a0 Each character has stretchy arms, so you have more control over where your punches go.\u00a0 They\u2019ve also added nearly a dozen colorful characters and stages, and some pretty creative side modes like volleyball and basketball.\u00a0 You can equip all sorts of punching gloves to your fighters, giving a lot of variety and customization.\u00a0 You can choose to play with or without motion controls, which is nice.\u00a0 It\u2019s a fun game, I just don\u2019t think it\u2019s worth 50 or 60 bucks.\u00a0 Like Splatoon, it\u2019s multiplayer centric and doesn\u2019t have as much single player content.\u00a0 Plus I kind of wish Capcom or Namco would had made this game for Nintendo, as those two companies are great at putting that \u2018arcade sheen\u2019 on their home console fighters.\u00a0 Heck, Namco even helped make the last Smash Bros. and Pokken Tournament games, and those are much better fighters than ARMS.\u00a0 Anyway, enough of that, on to the fighters!<\/p>\n

Spring Man<\/strong><\/p>\n

He\u2019s kind of your typical main character.\u00a0 He has spring arms, and wants to be the best ARMS fighter around.\u00a0 Not really much interesting about him, but I do like how colorful he and the other characters are.\u00a0 Each character has their own themed stage, and many of these stages really reflect the personality of the characters and some stages are more interesting than the fighters themselves!\u00a0 Spring Stadium is just your typical square arena, but I do like how the edges of the field are lined with jumping pads you can use to spring up high!\u00a0 Also to note is that in each stage there is a cheering crowd, and if you look closely, you\u2019ll see the audience is wearing hats and shirts with the competing fighters on them, which is a nice touch.<\/p>\n

Ribbon Girl<\/strong><\/p>\n

It seems like many fighting games have two characters who are very similar.\u00a0 Ken and Ryu, Morrigan and Dimitri, etc.\u00a0 Well Ribbon Girl is like that to Spring Man.\u00a0 Her arms are ribbons and even her hair looks like ribbons.\u00a0 She can double jump in the air, and she\u2019s supposed to be a pop star and is the typical perky female teenager character.\u00a0 Keeping with the pop star theme, her stage looks like a night club dance floor, and raised platforms will appear from time to time.<\/p>\n

Ninjara<\/strong><\/p>\n

Other than having a ponytail shaped like a ninja star, this ninja character is pretty standard stuff.\u00a0 He disappears when he dashes and his arms are made out of chains.\u00a0 His stage, \u201cNinja College\u201d is the stairs leading up to a Japanese temple.\u00a0 So it\u2019s always a battle to get the high ground.<\/p>\n

Master Mummy<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hey isn\u2019t there already a mummy character with stretchy bandage arms in Darkstalkers?\u00a0 I forget his name, though.\u00a0 Master Mummy may not be a very original name, but it is easy to remember.\u00a0 This big bruiser is slow, but he won\u2019t get knocked down after being punched.\u00a0 And he can heal himself while guarding.\u00a0 It\u2019s easy to guard with motion controls, but I can\u2019t remember how to do it with button controls.\u00a0 Anyway, his stage is the spooky themed Mausoleum, and it\u2019s a round stage with a cracked floor in the center.\u00a0 If you manage to break the floor, a giant spider web will be under it that you can use to jump on like a trampoline.<\/p>\n

Min Min<\/strong><\/p>\n

She\u2019s fighting in the ARMS tournament to help promote her mom\u2019s ramen noodle shop.\u00a0 Min Min has long noodle arms, ramen for hair, and her stocking cap resembles a ramen bowl.\u00a0 Her default boxing gloves, like the fire breathing dragon, are hard to use, however.\u00a0 But she is probably my third favorite character in the game, though.\u00a0 Her stage, the Ramen Bowl, is concave and resembles an empty bowl of noodles.\u00a0 Around the edges are all sorts of noodle shops and it has kind of a Chinese market theme.\u00a0 There is even a gong that you can punch to make it sound.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t do anything to affect the fight, but it is a nice bit of stage interactivity.<\/p>\n

Mechanica<\/strong><\/p>\n

Before I knew about Twintelle, Mechanica was my favorite character.\u00a0 She\u2019s a little girl who doesn\u2019t have stretchy arms herself, but she does drive a mech that does.\u00a0 She reminds me a lot of Tron Bonne from the Mega Man Legends series.\u00a0 Heck, she even looks like her!\u00a0 Her stage, the Scrapyard, is full of junk piled up for uneven terrain, and there are even pillars of junk to knock down!<\/p>\n

Twintelle<\/strong><\/p>\n

She\u2019s my favorite character now.\u00a0 She doesn\u2019t have stretchy arms, but fights with her long pigtails instead.\u00a0 She\u2019s supposed to be a rich and famous movie star with her own line of fragrances and stuff.\u00a0 I just like her design.\u00a0 She looks really strong and tough, and has a nice boot\u2014ah, never mind.\u00a0 She\u2019s just cool.\u00a0 Her stage, Cinema Deux, looks like a rounded driveway in front of a mansion or big movie theater.\u00a0 Parked outside are four limos that you can hop on to jump higher.<\/p>\n

Byte & Barq<\/strong><\/p>\n

They\u2019re a robot policeman and robot dog duo.\u00a0 Byte looks more like a clockwork robot with stretchy arms while Barq looks like a dog toaster on a wheel.\u00a0 Barq will sometimes stick out his tongue as an extra attack, and you can also jump on Barq to gain some extra height.\u00a0 It\u2019s a bit unpredictable though, as I\u2019m not sure if Barq will stick out his tongue randomly or if you can control it somehow.\u00a0 Usually you can jump on Barq if he\u2019s nearby, but if he gets punched, he\u2019ll be out of commission for a bit.\u00a0 When you do your special attack, they\u2019ll combine together, too!\u00a0 They really remind me of something out of Mega Man Legends.\u00a0 Unfortunately, their stage isn\u2019t near as interesting as they are.\u00a0 It\u2019s called Buster Beach, but it\u2019s just a patch of concrete with a small raised platform in the middle.\u00a0 If you look past the bleachers you can see palm trees and sand, but that\u2019s it.\u00a0 I think a better stage for them would\u2019ve been a busy city street or something.<\/p>\n

Kid Cobra<\/strong><\/p>\n

He has a skull helmet and snake-like arms, and he\u2019s a skateboarder, er, \u2018snakeboarder.\u2019\u00a0 So his character is all over the place and not one of my favorites.\u00a0 But I will say I love his stage!\u00a0 It\u2019s called Snake Park, and as a skateboard park, in the middle is an empty pool with lots of hills and valleys.\u00a0 But on each side are little tops, called \u201cSnakeboards\u201d that you can ride on.\u00a0 Kind of reminds me of the tops from Sonic 3\u2019s Marble Garden.\u00a0 It\u2019s also kind of like Beyblade.\u00a0 While on these tops, your speed greatly increases and you can bump into the other player.\u00a0 I both cheer and wince when I\u2019m on this stage because while it\u2019s fun, it also changes up the fights enough that it can get hard sometimes.\u00a0 But it\u2019s still really cool.<\/p>\n

Helix<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is an experimental blob guy with DNA strands for arms.\u00a0 He\u2019s pretty tricky to use as his default boxing gloves are a bit awkward and he doesn\u2019t really jump that much, just elongates his body.\u00a0 He kind of reminds me of the blob from ClayFighter for some reason, too.\u00a0 I love the crazy noises he makes when he gets hit or wins a match, though.\u00a0 His stage, the DNA Lab, has lots of test tube pillars to break, and kind of reminds me of Devil\u2019s Lab from Final Fantasy 6 for some reason.<\/p>\n

Max Brass<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lastly, Max Brass is the final boss.\u00a0 Even when you play as him, you have to fight him in the end.\u00a0 Which doesn\u2019t make sense, but storyline isn\u2019t a big priority in ARMS.\u00a0 Max Brass is a huge hulking musclebound dude with a fist on his helmet.\u00a0 His stretchy arms are made up of championship belts.\u00a0 Even his stage, the Sky Arena, has championship belts lining the ring.\u00a0 He has the power to fully charge his gloves when he\u2019s low on hit points.<\/p>\n

And those are all the fighters in ARMS right now.\u00a0 Nintendo said they may add more as DLC, but we\u2019ll have to see.\u00a0 Just because I like to use my imagination sometimes, I came up with my own ideas for possible DLC characters.\u00a0 Some are original, and some are from other games.\u00a0 Some of my original ideas include a pizza man with stretchy melted cheese arms, or a meatball monster with spaghetti arms.\u00a0 Of course, the noodle arms thing has already been done.\u00a0 Maybe I was just hungry when I came up with those ideas.\u00a0 Hey, I didn\u2019t say they were very good ideas!<\/p>\n

Another idea I had isn\u2019t really an original character, but have you ever heard of the toy Stretch Armstrong?\u00a0 It was an action figure with stretchy limbs.\u00a0 It came out in the 1970s, but I know they re-released it in the 90s as well because he got a new pet dog named Fetch Armstrong who was a weiner dog who could stretch, too.\u00a0 My brother Jeff had Fetch when he was little.\u00a0 Anyway, I thought it would be fitting to have Stretch (and maybe Fetch) to be in ARMS.\u00a0 Maybe as a toy promotion, huh?<\/p>\n

So aside from \u2018original\u2019 characters, I also thought of some characters from video game companies who would be good candidates for ARMS fighters.\u00a0 So I\u2019ll conclude by going over those ideas as well.<\/p>\n

Nintendo<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nintendo themselves has some pretty fitting ARMS contenders in their roster.\u00a0 The first I thought of was Lanky Kong.\u00a0 He was a playable character in Donkey Kong 64, and he was an orangutan with stretchy arms he could use to punch long distance baddies, among other things.\u00a0 With a DK themed jungle stage with the Kong crew cheering in the background, I think Lanky would be a good fit for ARMS.\u00a0 It would be cool to give Lanky some attention since DK64 was the only game he appeared in.\u00a0 Plus, it wouldn\u2019t be the first time a DK character would be in a boxing game, as DK himself was a secret character in the Wii version of Punch-Out!<\/p>\n

Another idea I had goes WAY back into Nintendo\u2019s history, when they made toys in the 60s.\u00a0 One of those toys was a stretchy grabber hand called Ultra Hand.\u00a0 Ultra Hand has reappeared in games like WarioWare and even had its own game on the Wii called Grill Off with Ultra Hand.\u00a0 Of course, since it\u2019s just a toy, you\u2019d have to have a character to operate it for ARMS.\u00a0 The obvious choice would be someone like Mario, or maybe go back into more classic territory with Mr. Game & Watch.\u00a0 But I think a better fit would be Nintendo\u2019s own fanboy character, 9-Volt from WarioWare.\u00a0 His colorful design would fit perfectly in ARMS.\u00a0 His stage could be from WarioWare or even a room filled with other classic Nintendo memorabilia.<\/p>\n

Capcom<\/strong><\/p>\n

So I mentioned before that I think ARMS would\u2019ve been better if it were made for Nintendo by an arcade fighting veteran like Capcom or Namco.\u00a0 The obvious character from Capcom to be in ARMS would be Dhalsim from Street Fighter, but I came up with someone else.\u00a0 Spring Man!\u00a0 But wait a minute, you might be thinking, there\u2019s already a Spring Man in the game.\u00a0 Well, yeah, but in real life, people can have the same names as one another, so why not here, too?\u00a0 Anyway, Spring Man was a boss from Mega Man 7.\u00a0 He had long spring arms he could use to punch Mega Man from a distance.\u00a0 His stage in ARMS could be modelled after his level from Mega Man 7, with lots of springs to hinder and help you.\u00a0 One cool thing about Spring Man in MM7 is that if you used the electric weapon against him, he would turn into an electro-magnet and pull Mega Man toward him.\u00a0 It would be cool if in ARMS, if you punched him with an electric glove, he would do the same thing and pull metal characters like Mechanica or Byte & Barq toward him, too.\u00a0 And it wouldn\u2019t be the first time Spring Man showed up in another game, as he was a playable racer in Mega Man: Battle & Chase!<\/p>\n

Namco<\/strong><\/p>\n

And lastly, Namco has a classic arcade character with stretchy limbs, too.\u00a0 His name was Bravoman, and he starred in a goofy side scrolling super hero game.\u00a0 The arcade version was only in Japan, but TG-16 owners may remember his US release.\u00a0 It\u2019s not a very good game, but it is memorable for being so wacky.\u00a0 Bravoman has made appearances and references in games like Namco X Capcom and Soul Calibur.\u00a0 And even recently, a few years ago an online comic company called ShiftyLook made comics and cartoons based on Namco characters, and Bravoman was one of them.\u00a0 The book collection of Bravoman comics even won a children\u2019s book award in Canada, and the Bravoman web cartoon was very well made, and even had some famous voice actors in it like Rob Paulsen.\u00a0 It\u2019s a shame that ShiftyLook is no more now.\u00a0 But whether Namco uses the classic arcade Bravoman or cartoon Bravoman, I think he would be great in ARMS.\u00a0 Especially if they could get Rob Paulsen to voice him!<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s all for now!\u00a0 Let me know what you think of my character ideas, and tell me your favorite ARMS characters, too!\u00a0 Later!\u00a0 –Cary<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ARMS is Nintendo\u2019s newest fighting game on Switch.\u00a0 Originally I wasn\u2019t going to get this game for a while, but I found a sale where it was ten dollars off.\u00a0 Doesn\u2019t sound like much, but considering Nintendo\u2019s first party games hardly ever go on sale, I decided to take the plunge.\u00a0 ARMS has a lot […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":16779,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16780"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16780\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16782,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16780\/revisions\/16782"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}