With New Update, 'ARMS' Will Feature Button-Mapping Accessibility

[Danika]

With 'ARMS,' at least, players will have a chance to remap every button on the controller.

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This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://waypoint.vice.com/en_us/article/qvvgmw/with-new-update-arms-will-feature-button-mapping-accessibility

[anon91731644]

@Danika

Nintendo is starting to get wise to the needs of the very large number of folks who’d like to enjoy its games. Motion controls may seem natural, but they just don’t work well for many players. Accessibility options like these should be the new normal across development.

So much this. Options, options all the way is what I say.

[robowitch]

I, obviously, really welcome this, particularly as an option for people who had substantive difficulties with the original controls.

I do think it’s an interesting contrast to the (much-mocked, I think rather unfairly) argument advanced by Jordan Amaro in the interview that Glixel did with him:

But in Japan, everything is tailored. You’ve probably heard Sheena Iyengar’s TED talk, in which she went to a restaurant in Japan and tried to order sugar in her green tea. The people at the cafe said, “One does not put sugar in green tea,” and then, “We don’t have sugar.” But when she ordered coffee instead, it did come with sugar! In Japan, there’s a sense of, “We’re making this thing for you, and this is how we think this thing is better enjoyed.” This is why, in Splatoon, the maps rotate every couple of hours. And the modes change. “I bought this game. Why can’t I just enjoy this game the way I want?” That’s not how we think here. Yes, you did buy the game. But we made this game. And we’re pretty confident about how this game should be enjoyed. If you stick with us, and if you get past your initial resistance, you’re going to have the time of your life with this game. You’re really going to love it.

At least for me, it would be easy to see how this sentiment would apply equally as much to the control scheme in ARMS. Imagine: ‘no, trust us, you’d love this control scheme if you stuck with it.’ I’m not sure whether, in real terms, it applies 1:1 in the eyes of Japanese game developers (at least, how Amaro represents how they see their work) or whether the accessibility issue potentially trumps a preference for a rigidity of experience, but I do think it’s interesting.

And absolutely, for sure, welcomed by me. Good on Nintendo for adding this.