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I rarely play fighting games, and, man, I did not expect them to be this soothing. Arms is violent for sure - enemies are pummelled, the ground judders with impacts, and a last-minute defeat can still throw me into an internal rage. But rages, internal or otherwise, are actually fairly rare here - far rarer than last-minute defeats for sure. Most of the time, when I think of Arms - and I am in that honeymoon phase where I think of it constantly - I think of a game that presents itself as a series of nested delights. There's the music at launch, and its theme of wordless bellowing joy. There's the way the UI slides in and out in vibrant bursts, like the screen furniture for the best sporting show ever. There are the badges that you collect instead of Achievements, all neatly laid out in their treasure box screen, and there's the Get ARMS mode in which you cash in in-game money for the chance to earn new and surprising fists to hit people with, by means of a pacey shooting gallery that is rewarding you with stuff while secretly teaching you how to curve punches.Mainly, though, it's the gloriously rubbery cast of characters, all of them distinct and memorable and ready to stretch and lunge across a series of beautiful stages. Yeah, it's those characters and one very special side mode that I cannot stop playing.
Hoops. Hoops is basketball inside a fighting game. Hoops is basketball that feels like fighting. Hoops is not strictly soothing, but I am convinced that it is impossible to be annoyed while playing it. Hoops is pure therapy: whatever your mood going into Hoops, you always come out feeling elated.
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