This Is a Call (Back) to ARMS

ARMS got announced with the Switch, and it launched with the Switch, and it's been both passionately loved and broadly ignored. Lucio was late to the Switch party, and thus late to the ARMS party, but he's been pretty taken with the game. We've played together a bunch, and had about as much fun as we've ever had with a 3D fighting game. Almost a year and a half on, what exactly is ARMS' place in the fighting game scene, in Nintendo's oeuvre, and in games more broadly? What's its place anywhere? Why didn't it make more of a splash when it was new, and what might it signal about what we expect from games—as in, how much do we expect games to change after release, and how long do we expect them to stay relevant, whatever that means? ——— • Here's that immortal moment in Street Fighter Alpha 3 history. • "Tripping probably lost me 2 games or so in a span of 6 years playing the game competitively, and probably won me 3 games or even less. But in Smash 4, rage is a much, much worse mechanic." • You actually see about 11 minutes of football when you watch a football game on TV, apparently. • Here's that video about Super Smash Bros. Melee as a spectator sport. • Splatoon was indeed the last new series that Iwata insisted on Nintendo proceeding with. • That line from I Only Listen to the Mountain Goats is actually about treasuring the unknown, not cherishing it, but you get the idea. • The original Animal Crossing did come out on the N64, but only in Japan. It was remade for the GameCube soonafter, and that's the version that made it stateside. • Dillon's Dead-Heat Breakers is that very strange 3DS game I was thinking of. • ARMS has sold about 2.1 million copies, or 0.276 Ocarinas of Time, worldwide. ——— "All The People Say (Season 2)" by Carpe Demon. "Here Are My Arms" by Les Baxter and Bob Russell, performed by Al Martino and [an] Orchestra conducted by Les Baxter. "Let Me Linger Longer in Your Arms" by Cliff Friend and Abel Baer, performed by the Peerless Quartet. Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.