Congratulations, Min Min! ARMS character(s) for Smash discussion

[SwitchButton]

brass....give me brass...

Brass would have so much spunk. I think Minmin or coyle would have better gameplay but man Brass would destroy both in terms of charm and personality.

BRAAAAAAAASSSSS

 

[pupNapoleon]

But protagonist/mascot/face first. That's how it always goes.

When have they went with important to lore/stories characters first above protagonist/mascot/face?

....
Protagonist/Mascot/Face- those are all different things.

And I need to remind you, that in a character based game, what you are describing develops OVER TIME.
Pokemon's Mascot is Pikachu, and it was not planned to be him from the start. It took the Manga and some time.
Animal Crossing's Mascot is Isabelle, and that took years to develop- she wasn't even in the first several.

As for fighting games-
Scorpion is the face, and not the lead. He became the fan favorite as the games went on.
The mascot of Soul Calibre is the villain, Nightmare.
Tekken- the villain Heihachi.


The singluar reason Springman is the starting character of ARMS is because the series was new and Springman is a character that, by name, by visual, is bland enough to explain what the game is simply. That's it. Marketing- yes- to show what the game is. That's why he is the mascot.

ARMS is very much a character driven game- we won't know who the big character is until we see subsequent series. That said, I'd argue we already see Twintelle and Min Min becoming the stars, as they have the most popularity.

 

[fogbadge]

Brass would have so much spunk.

that means something else in america right?

 

[pupNapoleon]

that means something else in america right?

Spunk- that can be a sexual euphemism, yes.
It can also just mean- chutspah. Or edgy charm.

 

[fogbadge]

Spunk- that can be a sexual euphemism, yes.

things do tend to be ruder in britain

 

[Guybrush20X6]

things do tend to be ruder in britain

Everyone thinks of the the UK as posh but in reality every county has it's own set of rude words.

 

[fogbadge]

Everyone thinks of the the UK as posh but in reality every county has it's own set of rude words.

yeah and its only england thats posh

 

[KirbyWorshipper2465]

yeah and its only england thats posh

Even then, it has quite a few naughty terms, never mind Monty Python in general.

To vaguely get things back on track, is Byte patterned after a bobby officer from that country?

 

[GolisoPower]

Even then, it has quite a few naughty terms, never mind Monty Python in general.

To vaguely get things back on track, is Byte patterned after a bobby officer from that country?

He certainly looks the part. Also,

Byte: "00100111 01000101 01101100 01101100 01101111 00101100 00100000 00100111 01100101 01101100 01101100 01101111 00101100 00100000 01110111 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100111 01110011 00100000 01100001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00101100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 01101110 00111111"

 

[fogbadge]

Even then, it has quite a few naughty terms, never mind Monty Python in general.

To vaguely get things back on track, is Byte patterned after a bobby officer from that country?

just because their posh doesnt mean they swear all the time

he does seem to be, i mean i cant think of anything else with that helmet

 

[KirbyWorshipper2465]

just because their posh doesnt mean they swear all the time

he does seem to be, i mean i cant think of anything else with that helmet

I was just saying that they got as much swear words in their lexicon/dictionary as much as anywhere else, not that they're sailors...

 

[fogbadge]

I was just saying that they got as much swear words in their lexicon/dictionary as much as anywhere else, not that they're sailors...

im saying theyve got way more

 

[kirbsmash]

Getting back to arms...Kirby hats. Go.

 

[Rie Sonomura]

Getting back to arms...Kirby hats. Go.

If Twintelle's the ARMS rep, Kirby just gets Twintelle hair while he keeps his stubby lil arms and the B move controls the hair punches.

 

[osby]

Getting back to arms...Kirby hats. Go.

I can see Kirby copying the masks, aside from the hairstyles. They're kinda important to design philosophy of ARMS given how everyone has their own.

 

[RetrogamerMax]

Everyone thinks of the the UK as posh but in reality every county has it's own set of rude words.

Conker's Bad Fur Day for example. The British doesn't play around with words. The British just like Americans or anyone else can have very colorful language.

 

[fogbadge]

Getting back to arms...Kirby hats. Go.

whatever it is itll probably be adorable and im willing to bet itll show up in KirbyWorshipper2465 's avatar

 

[chocolatejr9]

Rate Their Chances has started its weekly ARMS ratings. Today they're rating Spring Man, Ribbon Girl, and Ninjara.

 

[Perkilator]

Getting back to arms...Kirby hats. Go.

I can see Kirby copying Min-Min’s mask, hair and hat, along with having an Ultra Hand-like device to replicate the ARMS.

 

[KirbyWorshipper2465]

Getting back to arms...Kirby hats. Go.

whatever it is itll probably be adorable and im willing to bet itll show up in KirbyWorshipper2465 's avatar

Surprisingly enough, I've done some research earlier and it's really hard to find Kirby hat art for anyone that isn't Spring Man, Min Min, Twintelle and Mechanica (and I'm really stretching it on that last one, they just drew regular Kirby piloting her mech). If the ARMS fighter isn't either of those, Kirby hat fan artists are likely to be caught off guard.

 

[Perkilator]

Surprisingly enough, I've done some research earlier and it's really hard to find Kirby hat art for anyone that isn't Spring Man, Min Min, Twintelle and Mechanica (and I'm really stretching it on that last one, they just drew regular Kirby piloting her mech). If the ARMS fighter isn't either of those, Kirby hat fan artists are likely to be caught off guard.

I searched for some Min Min Kirby hat fanart and found jack squat. Odd.

 

[GolisoPower]

I searched for some Min Min Kirby hat fanart and found jack squat. Odd.

I got you, fam. Found one.

 

[Kalaam]

Coming from the Isaac thread to tell you guys: Nice.

 

[The Stoopid Unikorn]

Getting back to arms...Kirby hats. Go.

Only the hairstyle/hat/helmet/whatever

The ARMS don't show up as long as Kirby doesn't neutral B

 

[RetrogamerMax]

So how different is Mini Mini from Spring Man and Spring Girl? I never played Arms before but Mini Mini looks like the coolest looking character to me.

 

[Perkilator]

So how different is Mini Mini from Spring Man and Spring Girl? I never played Arms before but Mini Mini looks like the coolest looking character to me.

She can kick in any direction by air dodging, negating all enemy attacks.

 

[The Stoopid Unikorn]

So how different is Mini Mini from Spring Man and Spring Girl? I never played Arms before but Mini Mini looks like the coolest looking character to me.

What Perkilator said, but also, she has the ability to keep her left ARM permanently charged, making it stronger, as long as she isn't knocked back.

 

[RetrogamerMax]

She can kick in any direction by air dodging, negating all enemy attacks.

She sounds like a martial artist. But than again, she looks like one too.

 

[The Stoopid Unikorn]

She sounds like a martial artist. But than again, she looks like one too.

Given that she's clearly Chinese, this was very likely intentional.

 

[Glaciacott]

Haven't been active in a while, but the hype around Arms character DLC has had me lurking all over and watching endless speculation videos around it. June is still so faraway though, so I wanted to write a nice long post on what character we could get.

First thing is that I don't believe we'll be getting a mixed character in the same fashion as Hero or Bowser Jr. It makes more sense to me for them to pick one character to represent Arms in smash than to try to shove multiple in there and risk either the characters animating and feeling out of character or spending unnecessary cost developing animations for multiple different skins.

Second thing is that I don't think Assist Trophies or Spirits will factor into the decision, assuming they were added into the base game. The logic here being that decisions being made for the second fighters pass likely took place after the base game was completed, so if Nintendo/Sakurai wants a specific fighter available they won't stop themselves just because the character is already in in a different form. Especially for Spirits since having a png of the character in the game shouldn't impact new content.

Last thing is that character popularity is something I don't find to be a reliable metric outside of certain circumstances (more on that below), and I think most people's take on who the most popular is depends on when their awareness of this game started.
From pre-release I would argue Twintelle and Min Min were the most popular following the hype of their announcement. Twintelle in particular was noted by devs following her reveal as being received with lots of love and them being pleased. However, after the game came out I recall the popularity of certain characters rising significantly (Ribbon Girl, Ninjara and Kid Cobra in particular), and I believe across different patches the devs shared use-rate and win-rate of the different characters. And now since several youtubers who were initially hyped about Twintelle and Min Min pre-release are jumping at them as likely, we see people who just now are getting into arms suddenly leap at these characters as "most popular".

So, what I expect to have been the obvious choices for the rep:

Min Min
For biased and unbiased reasons I think she's by far the most likely. The main unbiased reason ultimately comes down to devs and the party crash bash.

Min Min being one of the favorites of Mr. Yabuki and other Arms devs tells me she likely came up as an option during the conversation of what Arms rep to add (and how). I think that in itself gives her a boost.
Then you begin to think about the timing of the last party crash bash. It feels too convenient to me that in mid-2019, months before we learn there's more DLC packs, we get the "final" party crash bash as a tournament to decide who is the Arms champion among all the characters. While I don't think this in isolation would decide the character, I highly doubt that it wasn't intentionally planned as a way to gauge popularity among active players in a way that's highly visible and easy to push and reference in future Arms content.

As for my biased opinion, I think she also has the strength of being able to mechanically adapt to Smash better than other characters while still representing core arms concepts. Her kicks adding to possibilities for aerials and tilts while being in character is a freebie. Her dragon arm giving you charge indefinitely until you get knocked down could work very easily in smash as a way to integrate the mechanic of charging arms in a visual and intuitive way for Smash. And then you have the fact her default arms like the dragon translate well to being a special move that further focuses the character into long-range focus and spacing, which is apt for an Arms rep.

Spring Man
Probably not necessary to explain why I think he's likely. The main thing that feels off to me about Spring Man as a rep is that it would be kind of lame to tease and arms rep like they did and they just toss in Spring Man after giving everyone else hope. That said, it feels like it would be a very "Nintendo" thing to do and I don't put it past them.

Everything else positive applies to him. Even though not the "champion" of Arms by any means, he still seems fairly beloved by the Arms devs, is super recognizable, and has character traits that make him work well as an Arms rep.

Aaaaand, that's it. I think it's one of these two.
I could see a universe where they go Ribbon Girl since Spring Man is already an AT, but it doesn't seem as likely as the above.
Twintelle is "popular", but as mentioned I don't think she particularly wins in any actual metrics we know of. Devs know people liked her when she was revealed, but I don't know to what degree that lived on following release. The title of the bash between her and Min Min implies she was considered a fan-favorite (Fight over Fans), but... Min Min won, so it would be weird imo to go for Twintelle instead.
Ninjara is super popular.... but his mechanics wouldn't make sense in Smash for an arms rep.
Max Brass is probably one of the more likely ones, but I don't think he has as much recognizability as Min Min or Spring Man. Unless he gets in smash, then he'd work perfectly as a rep of the Arms League.
Dr. Coyle is a super cool choice... but I don't think her flying around and going invisible particularly represent Arms. I do think Hedlock would be an excellent stage hazard or final smash for an Arms rep and their stage though.
The rest are not very noteworthy imo. Helix and Lola Pop would be mechanically super fun but would be niche choices. Misango has interesting lore potential, but his core mechanic adds too much complexity that doesn't necessarily represent "Arms". As for Biff, I wouldn't consider him a fighter.

Lastly, I don't think we'll get an Arms 2 rep. I think it will be one of the characters shown during the last direct, doing anything else would be strange. If there is indeed an Arms 2, and I think there is, I think it's more likely that they'll add Min Min/Spring Man with a new render and possibly new movement or character features that will later make sense once Arms 2 gets shown. Kind of like how Luigi was shooting plungers in the Simon trailer and smash before we even knew this was a Luigi's Mansion 3 mechanic. Personally, I would love to see Min Min revealed as the standing champion in Arms 2 that the player has to defeat, and to have the belt as part of a new design for her, with her classic look as an alt.

 

[meleebrawler]

Haven't been active in a while, but the hype around Arms character DLC has had me lurking all over and watching endless speculation videos around it. June is still so faraway though, so I wanted to write a nice long post on what character we could get.

First thing is that I don't believe we'll be getting a mixed character in the same fashion as Hero or Bowser Jr. It makes more sense to me for them to pick one character to represent Arms in smash than to try to shove multiple in there and risk either the characters animating and feeling out of character or spending unnecessary cost developing animations for multiple different skins.

Second thing is that I don't think Assist Trophies or Spirits will factor into the decision, assuming they were added into the base game. The logic here being that decisions being made for the second fighters pass likely took place after the base game was completed, so if Nintendo/Sakurai wants a specific fighter available they won't stop themselves just because the character is already in in a different form. Especially for Spirits since having a png of the character in the game shouldn't impact new content.

Last thing is that character popularity is something I don't find to be a reliable metric outside of certain circumstances (more on that below), and I think most people's take on who the most popular is depends on when their awareness of this game started.
From pre-release I would argue Twintelle and Min Min were the most popular following the hype of their announcement. Twintelle in particular was noted by devs following her reveal as being received with lots of love and them being pleased. However, after the game came out I recall the popularity of certain characters rising significantly (Ribbon Girl, Ninjara and Kid Cobra in particular), and I believe across different patches the devs shared use-rate and win-rate of the different characters. And now since several youtubers who were initially hyped about Twintelle and Min Min pre-release are jumping at them as likely, we see people who just now are getting into arms suddenly leap at these characters as "most popular".

So, what I expect to have been the obvious choices for the rep:

Min Min
For biased and unbiased reasons I think she's by far the most likely. The main unbiased reason ultimately comes down to devs and the party crash bash.

Min Min being one of the favorites of Mr. Yabuki and other Arms devs tells me she likely came up as an option during the conversation of what Arms rep to add (and how). I think that in itself gives her a boost.
Then you begin to think about the timing of the last party crash bash. It feels too convenient to me that in mid-2019, months before we learn there's more DLC packs, we get the "final" party crash bash as a tournament to decide who is the Arms champion among all the characters. While I don't think this in isolation would decide the character, I highly doubt that it wasn't intentionally planned as a way to gauge popularity among active players in a way that's highly visible and easy to push and reference in future Arms content.

As for my biased opinion, I think she also has the strength of being able to mechanically adapt to Smash better than other characters while still representing core arms concepts. Her kicks adding to possibilities for aerials and tilts while being in character is a freebie. Her dragon arm giving you charge indefinitely until you get knocked down could work very easily in smash as a way to integrate the mechanic of charging arms in a visual and intuitive way for Smash. And then you have the fact her default arms like the dragon translate well to being a special move that further focuses the character into long-range focus and spacing, which is apt for an Arms rep.

Spring Man
Probably not necessary to explain why I think he's likely. The main thing that feels off to me about Spring Man as a rep is that it would be kind of lame to tease and arms rep like they did and they just toss in Spring Man after giving everyone else hope. That said, it feels like it would be a very "Nintendo" thing to do and I don't put it past them.

Everything else positive applies to him. Even though not the "champion" of Arms by any means, he still seems fairly beloved by the Arms devs, is super recognizable, and has character traits that make him work well as an Arms rep.

Aaaaand, that's it. I think it's one of these two.
I could see a universe where they go Ribbon Girl since Spring Man is already an AT, but it doesn't seem as likely as the above.
Twintelle is "popular", but as mentioned I don't think she particularly wins in any actual metrics we know of. Devs know people liked her when she was revealed, but I don't know to what degree that lived on following release. The title of the bash between her and Min Min implies she was considered a fan-favorite (Fight over Fans), but... Min Min won, so it would be weird imo to go for Twintelle instead.
Ninjara is super popular.... but his mechanics wouldn't make sense in Smash for an arms rep.
Max Brass is probably one of the more likely ones, but I don't think he has as much recognizability as Min Min or Spring Man. Unless he gets in smash, then he'd work perfectly as a rep of the Arms League.
Dr. Coyle is a super cool choice... but I don't think her flying around and going invisible particularly represent Arms. I do think Hedlock would be an excellent stage hazard or final smash for an Arms rep and their stage though.
The rest are not very noteworthy imo. Helix and Lola Pop would be mechanically super fun but would be niche choices. Misango has interesting lore potential, but his core mechanic adds too much complexity that doesn't necessarily represent "Arms". As for Biff, I wouldn't consider him a fighter.

Lastly, I don't think we'll get an Arms 2 rep. I think it will be one of the characters shown during the last direct, doing anything else would be strange. If there is indeed an Arms 2, and I think there is, I think it's more likely that they'll add Min Min/Spring Man with a new render and possibly new movement or character features that will later make sense once Arms 2 gets shown. Kind of like how Luigi was shooting plungers in the Simon trailer and smash before we even knew this was a Luigi's Mansion 3 mechanic. Personally, I would love to see Min Min revealed as the standing champion in Arms 2 that the player has to defeat, and to have the belt as part of a new design for her, with her classic look as an alt.

Twintelle and Ribbon Girl being listed as "fan-favorites" is more of an in-universe thing, referring to their main careers of movie and pop-star respectively, which both tend to amass fan followings by their nature.

 

[Glaciacott]

Twintelle and Ribbon Girl being listed as "fan-favorites" is more of an in-universe thing, referring to their main careers of movie and pop-star respectively, which both tend to amass fan followings by their nature.

Not sure what part you're responding to since I don't recall mentioning Ribbon Girl being listed as fan favorite. The fight over fans crash bash was between Min Min and Twintelle, so it'd be weird if the reference there is regarding in-game fans since Min Min lore-wise isn't particularly famous.

 

[DonkaFjord]

Well tbf those are like splatfests where its popularity but also skill. So only the devs know the amount of playtime per character etc. Also the amount of Switch profiles using the ARMS characters, etc.

I could see them going with the Party Crash winner especially because Min Min does lend her design well to Smash.

I still personally want Twintelle. I also think in terms of gameplay and themes Lola Pop would be a lot of fun.

 

[Michael the Spikester]

Well tbf those are like splatfests where its popularity but also skill. So only the devs know the amount of playtime per character etc. Also the amount of Switch profiles using the ARMS characters, etc.

I could see them going with the Party Crash winner especially because Min Min does lend her design well to Smash.

I still personally want Twintelle. I also think in terms of gameplay and themes Lola Pop would be a lot of fun.

Bu-b-but protagonist/mascot first...Its gotta be Spring Man...

 

[KirbyWorshipper2465]

If they want the ARMS fighter to be a total surprise, they could easily ignore all those that already appear in Ultimate in some form. With this "Super Smash Bros. and Guess Who?" case for ARMS, we've never had a potential situation like this before, and it's hard to tell if it would ever happen again.

In the end, we can't do anything about the final outcome for this. Whoever it is will have to be accepted, since it's the only shot we'll have for an ARMS character for a good while.

 

[fogbadge]

Whoever it is will have to be accepted

not happening in this fandom

 

[Dibble]

If they want the ARMS fighter to be a total surprise, they could easily ignore all those that already appear in Ultimate in some form. With this "Super Smash Bros. and Guess Who?" case for ARMS, we've never had a potential situation like this before, and it's hard to tell if it would ever happen again.

Well that's true, but I don't think they're going to choose the ARMS fighter based on how much it will surprise people, especially if it's just one fighter representing the ARMS universe. I think this is something Sakurai himself said, that it's all well and good to make a surprising character, but the shock only happens once while the actual fighter and his moveset become the only important thing.

 

[KirbyWorshipper2465]

Well that's true, but I don't think they're going to choose the ARMS fighter based on how much it will surprise people, especially if it's just one fighter representing the ARMS universe. I think this is something Sakurai himself said, that it's all well and good to make a surprising character, but the shock only happens once while the actual fighter and his moveset become the only important thing.

Exactly. At any rate, it really doesn't matter who they'll choose, just the fact that they can stretch their limbs is enough to make them stand out.

At least they can "stretch" the surprise aspect for as long as humanly possible before we get to June's Big Direct Day.

 

[DonkaFjord]

Bu-b-but protagonist/mascot first...Its gotta be Spring Man...

As others have said, it is a fighting game with an ensemble cast. Sometimes the mascot changes as the series continues. Hell, with the party crash I could see it affecting any titles in the future (ala Splatoon's Splatfests affecting Splatoon 2's story.)
I do see Spring Man and Ribbon Girl as the mascots, but they might take more of a back seat as the series continues. I also say this as someone who loves Spring Man from a design and Voice acting perspective. I think ARMS has amazing character design and I was pretty bummed when we didn't get much from it in Smash- I knew it was a bit late to include, but was hoping for music at least (The assist I really liked.)

 

[The Stoopid Unikorn]

I do see Spring Man and Ribbon Girl as the mascots, but they might take more of a back seat as the series continues.

So like what Terry does in King of Fighters?

That sounds... possible, actually.