So I've been a bit hooked on ARMS after deciding to go in on it at the last minute. I was kind of iffy about it on reveal because it seemed like a Fighting game - not a genre I've ever really liked for all the typical noob reasons. Like, Mortal Kombat is cool for its story and content, but was still only able to entice me to learn a few special moves and kind of stumble around with the basics. Something like Street Fighter or more is a lost cause.
I've read the common advice from people on GAF that "actually, fighting games are about spacing and fundamentals, combos aren't that important", but it doesn't really matter much when you go online and get stomped by special moves and combos and you just want to do that too. Memorizing special moves takes more discipline than I'm really willing to put in, which sure, is my own fault - but the dreaded "Move List" being a constant interruption to gameplay just kind of sucks.
And man, I don't want to pick a main. I want to mix it up and try a bunch of these characters and that just means more things to memorize. Let me hop around a bit without the Move List and watching a tutorial online about what a "charge character" is.
So anyway, enough about my hangups with fighting games. ARMS though - isn't this a perfect fit for the sort of "fundamentals" fighting games are about? Your attacks boiled down to literally two buttons, left and right punch (dude, don't get started on how unintuitive "light/medium/heavy punch/kick/etc." are on most controllers and what those even mean in gameplay), and the game being all about blocking, jumping, dashing - ie. footsies, and your offence game being all about aiming and timing your basic attacks mixed in with grabs & charged punches. It's beauty in simplicity. Every character plays the same* on a basic level with only some in your face different traits, so you can jump characters and still have the fundamentals down. The real complexity comes from the different types of ARMS weapons, and they still just come down to the same two button control scheme with variations in aiming and charging.
Like, as I improve I'm understanding it's all about positioning and timing - worrying about the execution of input is not a thing in this game. So why do fighting games do this? Is the "special move" an anti-pattern that's just too ingrained in the industry? Is there an advantage to the arcane invocations I'm not thinking of? Like cheat codes you need to memorize and execute in gameplay, they just don't usually have intuitive meaning beyond "well, I guess a quarter circle is kind of like pulling back your hands?".
Obviously to go along with the title, the Super Smash Bros. series is similarly intuitive in a way most fighting games aren't, with its two attack buttons mostly based on what direction you want to attack in. Switching characters is no headache. It's again more about positioning and timing than execution of input (though still a bit more traditional than ARMS in this sense).
So who else does games like this? Am I being a Nintendo fanboy here? What other attempts have been made at (sort of) traditional Fighting games that ignore the requirement of "special move" inputs?
*Helix probably messes with this a bit tbh
I've read the common advice from people on GAF that "actually, fighting games are about spacing and fundamentals, combos aren't that important", but it doesn't really matter much when you go online and get stomped by special moves and combos and you just want to do that too. Memorizing special moves takes more discipline than I'm really willing to put in, which sure, is my own fault - but the dreaded "Move List" being a constant interruption to gameplay just kind of sucks.
And man, I don't want to pick a main. I want to mix it up and try a bunch of these characters and that just means more things to memorize. Let me hop around a bit without the Move List and watching a tutorial online about what a "charge character" is.
So anyway, enough about my hangups with fighting games. ARMS though - isn't this a perfect fit for the sort of "fundamentals" fighting games are about? Your attacks boiled down to literally two buttons, left and right punch (dude, don't get started on how unintuitive "light/medium/heavy punch/kick/etc." are on most controllers and what those even mean in gameplay), and the game being all about blocking, jumping, dashing - ie. footsies, and your offence game being all about aiming and timing your basic attacks mixed in with grabs & charged punches. It's beauty in simplicity. Every character plays the same* on a basic level with only some in your face different traits, so you can jump characters and still have the fundamentals down. The real complexity comes from the different types of ARMS weapons, and they still just come down to the same two button control scheme with variations in aiming and charging.
Like, as I improve I'm understanding it's all about positioning and timing - worrying about the execution of input is not a thing in this game. So why do fighting games do this? Is the "special move" an anti-pattern that's just too ingrained in the industry? Is there an advantage to the arcane invocations I'm not thinking of? Like cheat codes you need to memorize and execute in gameplay, they just don't usually have intuitive meaning beyond "well, I guess a quarter circle is kind of like pulling back your hands?".
Obviously to go along with the title, the Super Smash Bros. series is similarly intuitive in a way most fighting games aren't, with its two attack buttons mostly based on what direction you want to attack in. Switching characters is no headache. It's again more about positioning and timing than execution of input (though still a bit more traditional than ARMS in this sense).
So who else does games like this? Am I being a Nintendo fanboy here? What other attempts have been made at (sort of) traditional Fighting games that ignore the requirement of "special move" inputs?
*Helix probably messes with this a bit tbh