Friday's Switch reveal might have been dominated by unpleasant surprises - the Switch's slim launch line-up for one, and heaven knows what Nintendo's thinking when it comes to the extortionate pricing of the games - but there were some more savoury ones, too. Chief among them was Arms, an all-new Nintendo IP that shows that, after the 14 year wait between Pikmin and Splatoon, the company now has a healthy appetite for creating something from scratch. And, just like Splatoon before it, Arms is looking like an absolute treat.
As with Splatoon, Arms is all about Nintendo turning its attention to an existing genre and adding in some of its own magic. This is an exquisite take on the fighting game, if not exactly sanitised then certainly softer, more approachable yet still capable of some delicious depths. I was lukewarm on Arms for the first couple of plays, but it was only after getting acquainted in a longer session that everything clicked into place. Like Splatoon, this could be something seriously special.
Perhaps the first thing that obscures the potential is the motion control Arms is built around. After a generation in which waggle has been largely absent, there's something retrograde about being asked to wave your hands in the air all over again, although Arms is more refined than the likes of Wii Sports - even if its motion control is slightly more intrusive than something like Splatoon's gyro controls. With a Joy-Con in each hand, a small jab is translated into a spiralling punch in Arms.
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