The Esport Nintendo Abandoned - What Happened To ARMS? 

In light of accounts that have come forth from the ARMS community about the player Gore Magala, we want to make it clear that we do not support or condone the alleged behavior of this individual and wish the best for all affected parties.

I'd kill for an Arms 2 announcement. Anything to get the scene running again. 2018 was so fun.

I feel that I was drawn to ARMS mainly because of the unique and ingenious character designs. Basing their arms off of objects that are seemingly extendable was simply brilliant!! I don’t know if anyone else feels the same way, but that’s just me.

Arms is a very fun game, but it kinda stood always in the shadow of Splatoon, a game way more supported than Arms. Think Nintendo just was not ready for ESports, but when you see Smash and Splatoon... Btw a Splatoon 2 Video would be very cool.

Today I learned that ARMS e-sports was a thing.

I think Nintendo should have pushed this game more. Had we got an arms rep when smash bros first started people would have probably become more attached to the series maybe.

I really admire fgc community and the dedicated fans that still try to this day. Ngl, if i get a switch I really want to play this game.

I wish they gave the characters unique supers instead of "flurry of punches". It would have probably made their personalities shine through more, made the fights more diverse, and would have been easier to control.

ARMS is really a great game, really underrated

ARMS is an incredible game and I can't thank you enough for preparing this community retrospective for its third-year anniversary. I'll be looking forward to playing in many tournaments to come until I can hone my skills enough to be the best in the world. The player I am focused on defeating now is Asqew, the best Min min player in the world.

alternate title: why you should play arms

"I don't wanna bring my own switch"..... a console designed as a handheld portable platform thats like the size of a tablet. People bring bigger and heavier and more expensive arcade sticks to lan events.

Say what you want about ARMS, but the soundtrack still BOPS

freak, I literally got chills at the end; great job Akshon.

I remember playing arms during the free week they did after the smash announcement. Beat arcade mode on max difficulty and felt the game was fun, but it really had too little content to buy it at full price, if it was a 20usd game, it will be amazing. Would totally be in if they did a sequel though.

Reminds me of pokken. A vid about that underrated game would be nice

It didn’t fail to make bank at least.

Holy crap I felt like I just came out of a mini movie with how in depth you went in about arms

Aight so who's here after the Min Min reveal trailer in Smash?

Can we appreciate how well made this video is? Apart from the content ( which is great, as always ), the graphic design quality is through the roof!

Dude, ARMS was just chilling in Sakurai’s house

I never stopped loving the game, but going into that “dark age,” as the community shrunk, you could feel the tension rising, and the whole atmosphere became way more toxic. These two examples are really what did it for me. •The owner of one of the biggest Discord servers is so committed to her “family friendly” brand, she’ll threaten to cut ties with any player or server that doesn’t uphold that image 24/7. •Recently, the most prominent TO (a white woman) completely banned a black player from entering all her future tournaments because he made a joke she decided was racist. (how very ironic) But I do miss “the good old days” so much. My hope is that if the community is revitalized, those toxic people get drowned out by the flood of welcoming new and returning players. See you in Arms 2

I remember when arms first released I just didn’t know enough about the game to buy it and when they had the free week of the game I played it and realized “oh this game is super good I wish I had this game when it was still getting updates” and now It’s getting minmin in smash and I just want more arms

Yo. I thought this video was really well made and well researched. It represented the competitive scene really well and I appreciated the interviews with pro players giving more insight. And it was fun reliving moments from my favorite majors. I especially appreciate the section with Pega, my favorite player. It can be pretty hard to explain what makes him so special that I would watch every tournament just to see him play, when his character, Max Brass, to me is the worst part of the ARMS meta, highlights the flaws of the game's engine, and is generally unfun to play against. He's just so good and likeable that I didn't even care, lmao. I discovered you guys from the well made Lethal League Blaze video (And I think a GOATS video?) and after watching this and a couple others, I think you guys might be one of the best "eSports pop journalism" channels outs there.

I guess they just didnt feel like it was good enough for them. ARMS was like Splatoon 2s little brother. Always getting casted aside and forgot about. ARMS got alot of characters being added, And then they just stopped. I dont think they were ready to go full E-sports yet. Since smash came down the road.

It may have failed as a tournament fighter, but it isn't quite a failure. It sold 2 million copies as of September 2018, (no updates since then) but for a console exclusive fighter, that's still pretty amazing. Street Fighter is arguably the most recognizable fighting game series of all time, and it sold only about 5 million copies as of September 2019, despite releasing on three platforms. Which evens out that per system, Arms sold about the same, or better, then the latest entry in one of the most respected fighting game series. (They both had mid 70's ratings on Metacritic for reference.)

Have you played ARMS before? Despite being one of the best selling titles on the Nintendo Switch, there hasn't been much support or upkeep from Nintendo to help keep the competitive scene growing.

11:22 Gora magala? let me guess he puts the crowd into a “frenzy”

arms is one of the most underrated games on switch

"There's a mentality that if you stray outside the box of traditional 2D or 3D fighters, your game doesn't belong." It doesn't help that almost all of those arena fighters are absolutely awful.

For a 2 Million sold Fighting Game it dont feel failed.

This is the interesting type of stuff I love to see keep it up! :)

Had a good feeling this video would get a boost in views shortly after Min Min's reveal.

What is it with Nintendo not supporting competitive modes in their games? Why neglect such a huge portion of the community and ultimately push people away from your game or even company

Very well done! I remember being part of those discussions on its validity as a fighting game among my friend group and had a good time with it. Didn't go into tournaments or anything so seeing a brief history of the community was very interesting. I mained mechanica along with min min so im glad to see her in smash and the franchise getting the love and attention it deserves. and yes a sequel would be much appreciated.

Ngl, I'm impressed you were able to make the arms smash reveal have alot more weight to it

Arms is one of the first games I would want to get if I ever got a switch

Arms has some of the smoothest online I've ever played in a fighting game, the ranked mode is also great to boot. I really hope it gets a sequel

Incredible video. Top notch editing, pacing, mixing, length, information density. GOOD F-ing JOB!

This was really in depth. Good on you guys!

This is such a cool video. I’d love to see you guys do more gaming history videos like this in the future!

Ngl, I think I like using *motion controls* more, just because you feel more _involved_ with the fight _itself._ No doubt it'd probably be hilarious to see that one player in _competitive_ using it, and probably discouraged just since everyone is _expected_ to just be seated in front of the screen.

Love these type of videos! It’s really interesting to re-examine why a game did or did not succeed

Awesome video! Thanks so much for having me on to chat about ARMS and the scene's amazing journey. Here's hoping to Nintendo making ARMS 2 something really special. I'll be eagerly awaiting! - RESOLVE

I play arms with friends and it's always a good time

ARMS doesn’t have much of a following anymore, but I still love that game and play it today.

Great video. I had totally forgot about this game but I kinda want to watch old tourney vids now

when your failed fighting game character become dlc for a successful fighting game

Arms was a lot of fun - I enjoyed playing it online and from a casual players perspective it wasn't hard to understand the nuance between characters and arm combinations. If Nintendo is to support a sequel more long term then it probably needs a more robust single player experience like smash and splatoon have. If casuals aren't playing Nintendo's games, then Nintendo more or less ceases to support it - for obvious economic reasons

I was today years old when i found out you could play arms without the motion controls. i feel like i missed out now

Wow I really admired Sol's mac back in the day! Honestly such a cool guy, I'd check out his streams. The variety of his games played and his personally are quite fun.

Stopping by to show some support nice vid 🙏🙏

18:00 No way, that's me crouching there in the bottom right! This was at 2GG: Hyrule Saga, where I place 17th in ARMS. It feels like I am in ARMS history now!

2 million copies sold. That's a failure? Far from it. They definitely recouped their costs.

Please do more of this explained videos theyre so good

ARMS is so great, I enjoyed this video a lot, thanks for making it. I do handheld mode mostly. Glad I'm not the only one who sees Max Brass as All Might.

2:50 I was right! This game really did take way too much from Virtual-On. (That game needs a bigger community man, its a lot harder then it looks!)

When I seen this character had been announced for smash, I had zero idea this game even existed. I think that says quite a bit about what Nintendo thought about/did to support it

This was really well put together. Suscribed

This was a sick video man nice work

Got high hopes for a ninjala esport scene

Everyone would love to see Nintendo support a Smash but they are doing stuff like having a Pro Controller as a first place prize

Awesome coverage! 2018 was fun, although as player from South East Asia, the community here is even smaller, even when considering the Oceania (who we got matched up in ranked). But it still bring me joy playing ARMS and watching the competitive scene unfolds in other part of the world. We do try to keep some competitive scene alives somewhat in this part of the world. I even tried organizing some online tournament, but nevertheless, is never easy and not many turn around. Of course, as time went on, most people moved on, including me. I still fired up the game from time to time though. And I'm so happy to see Min Min (my main) in Smash. :)

I got an unbelievable amount of chills at 17:20 when I heard until. I'm so happy that ARMS got a rep in Smash, and I really hope it leads to many more competitive players. Thanks so much for making this video, especially since I was really wondering if anybody still cared about ARMS.

Arms didn't fail in sell numbers. But in competitive nature

You touched on Splatoon for a bit when talking about E3, and I would love to see a video on it. As someone invested in its competitive community for 5 years, it would be awesome to see it!

Amazing video, greatly informative

You should do MvC next. They haven't got a lot of support recently but the community is still super strong. Great video got my sub!

I feel like arms could have had a better competing lifespan if there was more casual appeal. There wasn’t much to keep a new player in, with the low amount of party modes and the small roster. The game is fun, but there was no reason for a casual player to want to explore the game’s depth because there wasn’t much content that kept casuals interested. I think at least a good story mode would be nice. Also, this is just a personal nitpick, but maybe there should be higher damage to prevent most rounds from going to timeout. Also, about what you said for smash being competitive because it’s popular, I have to disagree. The Budokai and Ninja Storm games weren’t competitive because they didn’t have any depth, not because they weren’t as popular as smash. There was nothing to discover, and you could rarely outsmart your opponent. Smash, other platform fighters, and traditional fighting games allow you to express yourself in way that arena fighters just don’t allow.

You should do something on Splatoon 2, my fave game! :D

This content is fantastic, really sparked my interest in the game

I did NOT expect this video to be so high quality. I was expecting you to say everything that went wrong with it and why it sucked but I was really pleasantly surprised :)

What yall talking about I love ARMS its fun to play online

10:35 what did you do to Africa!!!

Love the energy brought here! Really made arms feel like any other game in the FGC with its own history and love and now I’m gonna go give it a shot!

I just recently joined the competitive scene for ARMS (or what's left of it at least), it was nice getting to see sime of my friends and companions in their prime. Back in 2017/18 i was too scared to join online competitions and would just be amazed when I would hear of the achievements of those seemingly unpassable monsters of Rank 20...and later completely decimated by them when matchmaking decided to test my resolve to get good at the game. I took a long break for pretty much all of 2019, rarely opening the game at parties but no one wanted to play with me anyways, it made me feel sad and alone. Towards the beginning of this year a random spark of inspiration mafe me seek out the ARMS community, and I stumbled upon casualARMS in what might have been one of the happiest days in my history of olaying games; I got to talk to people I remembered having amazing fights against back when Ranked was THE mode, I got to play this game and share some nice memories with my new friends, I got to get better-I got to have the most fun I've ever had playing this game that I love! ARMS is far from perfect, and it still hurts that it felt as if Nintendo had left it to die. However ARMS is not dead, we may be few and very far apart, but us ARMS players truly love this game with a passion hotter than Brass's Roasters and more stupidly large than a Ramram's hitbox. I genuinely screamed and teared up when I saw the 2020 NA Open being announced, and felt extremely proud of making it all the way to Quarters in my bracket, hell I felt proud to see that someone from my bracket won the entire thing (GGs to Astro)! If anyone reading this is thinking of getting this game, don't let the voices saying the game sucks and is dead deceit you. We're here, and our community welcomes everyone with open ARMS (hehe). Come play with us! Hope to fight you later, and if not, there's always the sequel ;) Thanks for reading ~ Lachesism&c.#7384

ARMS didn't fail

Nintendo really are missing a trick by not supporting games and nurturing them into true eSports. Splatoon, Smash Bros, ARMS, even Mario Kart 8. They could all be "ESPN Grade" eSports, in my opinion. And Nintendo would earn a fortune from doing it, but sadly they're out of touch and they desperately need to improve the Nintendo Online experience, which they clearly have no interest in doing. They want to focus on their games being casual, family friendly and accessible. They don't realise you can have both at once. Just take a look at the Pokémon series. Little kids can play Pokémon casually, but there are also huge tournaments hosted every year with massive prize pools and even scholarships.

This video is put together well!

Awesome video. I'd love a video like this on Splatoon and/or Pokken Tournament.

Seeing this game again reminds me of Etika 😢. He was so excited for this on telease

It's honestly sad to see a game die after being an amazing hit. Look at splatoon. It was amazing But after the final splatfest, It died. Also it was on the Wii U So, it died with the Wii u

Solid video. I had played Arms for quite a long while during it's time it was having updates. My main personal concerns at the time was that the game had too much health for the general match-up and the length for each round. I felt like if every fighter had 750 health, there'd be fewer time-outs and just enough punches, grabs & rush-attacks to not feel uninteresting to the spectators, but that's just me. I cannot wait to see who the rep is going to be for Smash this Month.

From the tournaments I’ve seen, for a game called arms it’s got the best footsies I’ve seen it’s really cool to me since you can get tense buzzer beater moments

This is one of the most criminally underrated games of all time.

10:43 Why is Africa so far away from Europe?

Well done content!

Arms is in the same vein as Skullgirls and Lethal League. A fighting game with a beautiful art direction, godly music, fantastic characters and stages, a mountain of lore, and tight and unique controls. Yet, no matter how hard they tried, no matter how much it deserved it, it could not find an audience larger then a few devoted fans.

It's a failed fighting game!? Hah I love it!!

Well, not that much of a failure if they're adding a character in smash

What a great video, good job ! I always felt like arms needed a better official support from Nintendo. I'd also love to see a video about rocket league esport !

This is a well done video. 👏

The Japanese scene is better, tell me some thing new

Why do people still say "Ha-Doe-Can"? Ryu, Akuma, and Ken say "Ha-Do-Ken". Its just annoying

It must be nice to be part of most fighting game community, i almost never play fighting game but i loved it the only fighting game i played for a long time is streetfighter x Tekken for only 1 year

I love ARMS. I has this intensity that I just can't get enough of. It's really brilliant in a way. They wanted to create a behind-the-back 3D fighting game, but the problem was judging distance. So instead the developers made combat happen at a distance, an put the skill around your ability to move around the arena. In that sense, ARMS really emphasizes the "3D" nature of it's combat similar to how Smash emphasize the platforming aspect.

Don't act like Nintendo participates in any esports they just started giving smash a little bit of attention

As someone who's been a fan since ARMS' beginning. I got a little emotional when you got to the smash announcement. You could really feel the people coming back and checking it out after that direct. The subreddit that day was up 600% from normal traffic.

Jo 2022 here , sad to say nothing happened yet...

I really would love to see the MinMin announcement bring some life back to the ARMS competitive scene.