Although the Nintendo Switch launch lineup ended up being slightly more compelling than we expected, interest has begun to wane somewhat as Switch owners wait patiently for something more substantial than a port of a NEOGEO classic or an indie game that has been available on other consoles for years.
Unfortunately, Splatoon 2 won’t arrive until this summer and we’re going to have to wait until the holidays for Super Mario Odyssey. Save for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, the only true exclusive to tide us over in the meantime is Arms — a fighting game that takes advantage of the Switch’s unique Joy-Con controllers.
Set to launch this spring, Arms is the first totally original property from Nintendo for the Switch. This week, the company shared two new gameplay videos showcasing the characters and weapons that players will find within the game. First up, let’s take a look at the five fighters that will duke it out on the Switch:
Now that you know what the characters look like, check out their titular “arms”:
Each character has his or her own set of standard arms, but you can mix and match to your heart’s content. It’s still hard to tell how deep this fighting game will be in comparison to other popular games in the genre, but it appears that much of the depth will come from learning how to best match up sets of arms with characters and which loadouts will effectively counter other loadouts from opposing players.
Having not had a chance to play Arms yet, I don’t want to get my hopes up. But based on what I’ve seen, I think Arms could be for the Switch what Splatoon was for the Wii U — a welcome breath of a fresh air.
