ARMS is currently out now for Nintendo Switch (read our review!), and players are diving deep into this interesting and unique take on fighting games. Truly there hasn’t been anything like ARMS before. Even past Nintendo fighting games like Punch-Out! and Smash Bros. don’t compare to this. It makes you wonder how the game came to be.
Well, according to Kosuke Yabuki, the Producer of ARMS, it was one of many prototypes that Nintendo was making, and they could tell early on that this one had potential. But as in all games, they had to then make it unique, and for them, that meant unique characters. So, how did they decide to go about making them unique? Well, Yabuki notes to Gixel:
“The most important thing is that you get an idea of what the game is meant to be at a glance. We wanted to make sure that the arms of all the characters were actually very expressive. Also, because you’re viewing the whole thing from behind your character’s back, we wanted to make sure that they all had a lot of personality, even when you’re just looking at the back of their head and torso. You need to be able to get a feel for who they are, even if you can’t see their face.”
The other question that has been filling players minds is that of the lore of the world. A lot is not known about the characters, why they have the arms they do, and so on. Yubiki says that some more detail is coming, but maybe not in the places you expect it:
“We’re doing a bit of that right now. So far it’s only happening on Japanese social media, but it’s starting to provide some background on where the arm abilities come from, and we’ve started to talk about why people have stretchy arms in the game. That’s the kind of thing we’re creating to bring a greater sense of reality to the game. We’re hoping to do a lot more of that as time goes on. That said – if you really want to know why they have stretchy arms? The real answer is: because Nintendo.”
