Hey
Could be worse
The west is a lot more neutral to Min Min than Japan is. Japan hates her after she made online hell.
Can confirm, I'll get into that in more detail in the writeup.
5 days remaining
Min Min: The Ramen Bomber from the Mintendo Noodle House
After months of speculating of which ARMS character is going to be chosen, our answer was Min Min. The character upgraded from base spirit and it was either her or ninjara.
. Yabuki's favored daughter and one of the most popular ARMS characters overall. The guessing game. Broke the Spirit assertion.
"謝謝!" ("Thank you!")
She was initially met with quite a lot of praise and interest (partly since the guessing game was finally over and done with, but also since her trailer came as a bit of a fresh air) although the reception to the gameplay seemed lukewarm amongst more casual fans. Her positive reception has since petered out a bit due to how her gameplay's been recieved - especially in Japan - but her inclusion gave ARMS some much needed momentum. Especially in the West where Nintendo had gone AWOL on promoting that game at all before the guessing game and Min Min's reveal.
Her competitive successes followed soon after her release: while the reaction from pros was initially mixed quite a few saw immense potential with her. It wasn't long before
Protobanham - a Japanese top level talent known for his aggressive Lucina - picked her up alongside his Lucina and became Min Min's standard bearer quickly. Protobanham even won the Japanese supermajor Kagaribi 4 with mainly Min Min, making her the first FP2 character to take home a supermajor. Stateside, she has two prominent players: Dabuz and Pink Fresh*. The former added her to his character arsenal alongside his Olimar and Rosalina. While Dabuz is shaking off some rust he's gotten some promising results with her as well. Pink Fresh has gotten really close to upsetting several prominent players - MKLeo included - with Min Min and he's well known for developing another certain character:
. Currently Min Min's seen as a "top tier gate keeper" generally and has quite a lot of notable players behind her.
Yeah, I've gotta get to this: Why she is hated in Japan. Her competitive results and really polarized matchup spread are two reasons, especially since Japan's competitive scene does not play for money generally (old gambling laws and their lingering effects) and thus has a lot more character specialists. Arguably the biggest reason is online though: Not only has Japanese streamers like MKR Channel
clickbaited their way into showing off stuff like the Scholar's Mate (B-Throw at ledge -> Dragon Laser, which could OHKO back when she released), she quickly became pretty infamous for edgeguarding the ledge with zero commitment. I'm pretty damn sure it's why Sakurai and co. nerfed the time she can hold charged Smashes and Dragon Laser's knockback. Her online successes extend to the more Serious Business side where her players have seen extremely strong results in the Japanese ladder Smashmate.
It's legit to the point where
Protobanham is worried about her getting additional nerfs, as he admitted when Larry Lurr interviewed him.
Her moveset is extremely potent, and her Specials plus her unique mechanics fuel this. She has Mega Man's jab-while-walking / jumping trait and different ARMS attached to the A / B buttons respectively, allowing her to approach, retreat or react to opponents with impunity. ARMS Change, her Down B, is active on Frame 1 - allowing her to swap between RamRam, Dragon and Megawatt freely to help complement her always-Dragon left ARM. RamRam's arc excels at catching jumps, discombobulating reckless approaches and edgeguarding really safely, Dragon not only gets powered up by successful grabs, but its Laser is excellent at pushing opponents further back should she need it. Megawatt is slow and relatively short-ranged but lingers for seemingly ever and is the strongest ARM by none, making it very good at KOing. ARMS Jump - her grounded Up B - is a good if commital way to follow others aerial approaches or retreat, while ARMS Hook is a tether recovery that can kill surprisingly early.
Her remaining normals consist of kicks, and they complement her ARMS really well. She has legit one of the best anti-air capabilities in the game, not just thanks to her ARMS but also since her U-Tilt is really quick, her Up-Smash is a contender for the best Up Smash in the game period. Besides what
Cutie Gwen said, that Up Smash is as fast as Fox's - and pre-nerf it was faster than Fox's. Wat. Dash Attack and D-Tilt are good at clearing the way or even starting combos situationally. She also has a strong sets of grabs and throws - not just since her reach is impressive, but also since B-Throw in particular sends at a particularily favorable angle for her.
Min Min's weaknesses do keep her from being overwhelming. She has a really, really bad disadvantage state - her only defensive options once she's hit is to situationally N-Air / D-Air or airdodge. Her Up B also has pretty good vertical reach - but not a whole lot of horizontal reach. She's as such extremely vurnerable to getting comboed / juggled / carried horizontally towards the blast zone. Due to her more unique traits she is much more at risk of move staling than most characters, and she can have trouble with characters that have multiple fast projectiles or who can safely clank through her ARMS. Since her ARMS are relatively committal - even if she can throw out two - she has to play carefully vs. characters who can close in quickly on her. While she can cover most cardinal directions extremely well, she has a massive blindspot diagonally below here.
Casually she's in a pretty weird place. FFAs pose more of an issue to her since there she has to worry about not just more opponents potentially ganging up on her, but also items, ATs and whatnot blowing her up. While her ARMS allow her to claim the corner the character's atypical control scheme can also cause some major hiccups to newcomers just looking to try her out. Still, she can work within a FFA environment if she's played carefully.
Min Min's Challenger Pack is pretty solid. I'm kinda wondering why they didn't go with Min Min's home stag- Oh wait, maybe it was the percieved need to market ARMS again that made Spring Stadium the choice. We'll have to see. Anyhow, it can be a fun casual stage with the springs and what not, my only real issue are the pillars that can prevent kills or even cause janky ones. The music likewise is really good, no complaints there. The only missing Spirit is Dr. Coyle if you ask me - otherwise they did a really great job showcasing ARMS' colorful cast of characters.
All in all, she's a very solid if polarizing character - but then again, any ARMS character would be polarizing just by the nature of ARMS itself. She's definetely happy to be here (especially after being vaporized by Galeem and turned into paper) and that is what counts in the end.
(Weird character interaction sidenote: Min Min has some weird interactions vs. characters that excel in the air - kinda mirroring ARMS' own gameplay where the aerial battles tend to be surprisingly extensive.
/
are really noticeable cases of this, but
and
can also partake in extended aerial battles with her and result in some really volatile outcomes.)
(Yeah, she can be annoying to fight against - but a small tip I can give to help make things a bit easier is to try and be unpredictable in your approaches as possible, and she in particular punishes burnt double jumps like no tomorrow. Save your double jumps, they're gonna be needed.)
*(Thanks
NotLiquid - without your posts in the competitive thread I would not have known that Pink Fresh did this well with the character before his near-upsets.)