Did you know there’s a secret way to change outfit colors in the upcoming Switch fighting game Arms? Because there totally is.
If you’re getting ready to play in one of the betas this weekend, you should definitely take the time to look your best. To that end, if you read through the game’s help menu, you’ll find this tip:
Mysterious! Turns out changing your outfit color requires just a bit of finagling during character selection. First, move the cursor over your desired character as usual. With the cursor over the character you want, click the thumbstick in and hold it. With the thumbstick still clicked in, push it left, right or down and hold it in that position. Now press A to lock in your selection along with one of three alternate outfit colors. Pressing up on the thumbstick selects the character’s default outfit color.
I’ve been playing the full game over the past week and have been having a lot more fun than I thought I would. (For the record: I currently prefer manual controls.) Here are a few tips based on my time with the game:
- Start out defensively. Start out circling and on the defensive. This is a good way to feel out your opponent and tell whether they know what they’re doing.
- Only try to throw if they give you an opening. Never go in for a throw when your opponent hasn’t already committed to a punch or throw of their own. Unless they clearly don’t know what they’re doing, or they’re spamming Master Mummy’s block heal.
- Same goes for your rush. Never rush on an opponent unless they’ve committed to an attack. If both of their arms are up, it’s really easy for them to block your rush and counter you.
- You can dodge when getting up. If you get knocked down, hold the stick (or tilt the controllers) to the left or right and your character will dodge in that direction as they spring to their feet.
- Know your arm weight. Different arms have different weights, which you can usually tell by looking at them. Weight governs how quickly an arm moves and most importantly, whether it’s able to counter an incoming punch in midair. You’ll actually find yourself throwing punches into your opponents’ incoming punches more often than you might think. Heavy arms can’t be stopped by lighter arms, and light arms can be blocked by everything. I usually like rolling with one lighter arm and one heavier arm, unless I’m going for a pure speed or tank build.
- Don’t ignore healing items. Sometimes restorative items will drop from the sky, charging up your rush or health if you can stay within their radius. Don’t ignore them—they can make or break you in a given fight. Obviously your opponent will be thinking the same thing, so be ready to hit them with a heavier punch and knock them away as you both close on the item’s radius. When you’re within the active radius, it’ll throw up a lot of visual interference that can make it harder to see incoming punches. Use that to your advantage.
- Charge up! It took me a while to figure out that I could charge up my arms to get an extra elemental attack. You can charge by holding block for a bit, or by holding down the dodge button after dodging. Some characters can also charge up by jumping. If you’re fighting with uncharged arms, you’re at a disadvantage.
Other than that, my main tip is to try to punch them more than they punch you. Good luck.