Official Newcomer/DLC Speculation Discussion

[UberPyro64]

The mascot rarely ends up being the most popular character, and that's usually because they're specifically designed to look average or capture the overall theme of a game. Spring Man is a boxer, which is what ARMS is supposed to be - a boxing game. The game isn't about pop stars, ninjas, noodle vendors, or movie celebrities.

I really don't see a point in Nintendo ditching Spring Man and jumping over to Min Min or Twintelle just because they're more popular. They really don't capture the essence of ARMS as well as Spring Man does.

And yet, it looks like they're going to pick someone for Smash who isn't Spring Man.

1. They wouldn't have made it a guessing game if it were merely Spring Man.
2. He's already an Assist Trophy, I highly doubt there will be promotions within the same game.

I think the Ultimate Championship was probably a deciding factor for Smash and since Min Min won that, she'll be the Smash fighter. The Championship might also effect ARMS 2 though.

I think we can compare ARMS to Darkstalkers and Mortal Kombat. Demitri and Liu Kang were their respective protagonists and fit the bill as such, but it's clear that Morrigan and Scorpion/Sub-Zero were the popular ones that ended up becoming the mascots in the long run.

 

[Eldrake]

Maybe I once thought of certain characters as impossible, but now that I live in a timeline where the impossible could happen with the ARMS character and Half-Life 3 might actually happen, I don't think anything is impossible anymore.

 

[True Blue Warrior]

If Spring Man could get this much hate in this thread, I wonder how much hate Geno is going to get in this thread should he be a playable character.

 

[Wunderwaft]

I mean... he kind of is compared to Luigi at this point?

You're kinda missing my point. I was saying that complaining about the protagonist being bland is a dumb complaint and it has no merit when representing the franchise they're coming from. Like, look at Link, the ************ does not talk whatsoever and is the epitome of bland, people still love him and enjoy seeing him in crossovers. Same with Samus to a degree before the 2000s.

Protagonists being bland does not mean these characters don't have fans and they are not worthy of representing their franchises in crossovers. Hell even some of the third parties that people support are bland. Ryu Hayabusa is kind of bland (at least if my memory serves me right), I remember him being a stoic no nonsense ninja that is all serious and stuff, does that mean he would be terrible to include in Smash? Hell no!

These "this character has no personality" complaints are utterly worthless in the scheme of crossovers and Smash, they just seem to me as someone whining that they don't like the game the character is from or they hate the character THAT badly. Either way I don't think they're legitimate complaints when it comes to discussing character picks.

 

[Deleted member]

I'm just gonna avoid talks about which ARMS character will be in Smash for the time being because the silver lining to FP6 being a Nintendo character is the likelihood of a special Mii Costume coming with an additional track. It's no guarantee, but I'm certainly curious to see the next round of Mii Costumes coming to Smash when FP6 releases.

 

[King Sonnn DeDeDoo]

TBH speculations is gonna get REAL boring for the next 3 months. I know it wasn't exactly stellar before, but now it's just narrowed down to like a handful of choices from a single series revolving around the same old "Do spirits/assists decomfirrm" discussion thats gonna get repeated over and over again.

 

[Guybrush20X6]

Between The Stretchers and Good Job it looks like Nintendo is bringing back the smaller eshop developments. Wonder if either of those will make the jump (and validate my threads.)

 

[Deleted member]

TBH speculations is gonna get REAL boring for the next 3 months. I know it wasn't exactly stellar before, but now it's just narrowed down to like a handful of choices from a single series revolving around the same old "Do spirits/assists decomfirrm" discussion thats gonna get repeated over and over again.

Good thing I'm busy writing a novel so that discussion ain't my thing.

 

[Kokiden]

So, ARMS reveal, I'm a tad bit late, but what do you guys think?

Underwhelming yet indifferent since this is the first I've heard of the series.

 

[Faso115]

Maybe I once thought of certain characters as impossible, but now that I live in a timeline where the impossible could happen with the ARMS character and Half-Life 3 might actually happen, I don't think anything is impossible anymore.

Anything is possible

Except Little Mac being top tier

 

[Deleted member]

So, ARMS reveal, I'm a tad bit late, but what do you guys think?

Perfectly fine with me.

 

[Captain Shwampy]

It's either Brass or Spring Man with Min Min, Ribbon, and Ninjara as alts since they could easily fit in Spring Mans build.

I'm gonna assume the ladder and special attacks will use different equipabble weapons and punching gloves from the games so it doesn't just feel like Spring Man only.

 

[Guybrush20X6]

So, ARMS reveal, I'm a tad bit late, but what do you guys think?

I'm hyped. It's a great game and it deserves some more eyes on it.

Also it's exciting that the character might not be the entry level Main character. I like you Spring Man but you're not Min-min, Helix or even Ribbon Girl.

 

[Michael the Spikester]

Honestly if they were going to going to add Spring Man eventually now that they have the opportunity he shouldn't of been made an assist trophy to begin with.

 

[True Blue Warrior]

You're kinda missing my point. I was saying that complaining about the protagonist being bland is a dumb complaint and it has no merit when representing the franchise they're coming from. Like, look at Link, the ************ does not talk whatsoever and is the epitome of bland, people still love him and enjoy seeing him in crossovers. Same with Samus to a degree before the 2000s.

Protagonists being bland does not mean these characters don't have fans and they are not worthy of representing their franchises in crossovers. Hell even some of the third parties that people support are bland. Ryu Hayabusa is kind of bland (at least if my memory serves me right), I remember him being a stoic no nonsense ninja that is all serious and stuff, does that mean he would be terrible to include in Smash? Hell no!

These "this character has no personality" complaints are utterly worthless in the scheme of crossovers and Smash, they just seem to me as someone whining that they don't like the game the character is from or they hate the character THAT badly. Either way I don't think they're legitimate complaints when it comes to discussing character picks.

Spring Man’s only “boring” in the context of ARMS, where he’s designed as the basic all-rounder compared to all the quirkier side characters. In the context of Smash, him being a stretchy-armed boxer with blue spring hair would make him just as weird and bizarre as any other Smash character, and thus in this context certainly would not be the “normal” one.

 

[CapitaineCrash]

Honestly I can't imagine how Ninjara and Min min could be skin for Spring man and Ribbon girl. Sure they have similar body I guess, but Ninjara's gimmick is teleportation and Min min have her dragon arm. I don't think that would fit really well Spring man.

 

[Cosmic77]

And yet, it looks like they're going to pick someone for Smash who isn't Spring Man.

1. They wouldn't have made it a guessing game if it were merely Spring Man.
2. He's already an Assist Trophy, I highly doubt there will be promotions within the same game.

I think the Ultimate Championship was probably a deciding factor for Smash and since Min Min won that, she'll be the Smash fighter. The Championship might also effect ARMS 2 though.

I think we can compare ARMS to Darkstalkers and Mortal Kombat. Demitri and Liu Kang were their respective protagonists and fit the bill as such, but it's clear that Morrigan and Scorpion/Sub-Zero were the popular ones that ended up becoming the mascots in the long run.

They promised us a character from ARMS, and Spring Man still fulfills that promise.

Why didn't they go ahead and reveal the character now? No clue, but saying the character definitely isn't Spring Man is risky, especially when he's one of the most logical choices.

Honestly if they were going to going to add Spring Man eventually now that they have the opportunity he shouldn't of been made an assist trophy to begin with.

They couldn't have known there would be a second pass back then. There was once a point in time when Byleth was our last character.

 

[GoodGrief741]

Honestly, assuming the composite ARMS character was Springoninja: Ramen Edition, it's not like their special attributes would be particularly strange to see another character perform:

• Ribbon Girl has multiple jumps. Whoever gets in is gonna have that anyways.
• Min-Min has aerial kicks, those could easily be worked into a moveset as n-air or up-air without it looking weird or detracting from the stretch. Dragon Arm will probably be sacrificed, but it could still be a special move if they really wanted it
• Spring Man gets auto-charge on his arms at low health and can parry moves. Parries are already built in through perfect shielding, and his auto-charge mechanic can be applied to all (if the ARMS fighter even has a charge mechanic).
• Ninjara is probably the toughest one. It would be kinda strange to see Spring Man or Ribbon Girl teleport, but it still wouldn't look that weird. Vanishing in and out of a white cloud fits fine with the aesthetics of the other characters.

The Ninjara vanish could just be a visual effect that happens if you're playing with a Ninjara alt when dodging, for example. For the other alts, they just move to the side (or give a hop in Ribbon Girl's case for extra jumpiness). And they could all have pretty good horizontal movement when air dodging.

I'm saying that ARMS doesn't have to commit to Spring Man moving forward and that they could pivot to more popular characters at this point like Twintelle or Min Min as a mascot for future titles and move Spring Man back. Sort of shift off of Spring Man like Tekken did. Once you're an established icon, it's harder to argue including someone else, but ARMS is so new it doesn't have to be absolutely committed to Spring Man like Street Fighter does with Ryu or any number of other examples.

But at the same time, what do they gain from not keeping Spring Man and Ribbon Girl as their mascots? You can't really remove them from the series, they still have a lot of fans. And it would be weird to underplay them when they used to be the faces of the series. This isn't a story based fighting game like Tekken or Mortal Kombat where you can canonically kill a character to take them out of the roster.

Plus, I'm not sure having someone like Min Min or Twintelle as the face works. The reason main characters are so generic is that they have to be able to easily convey the point of the game without confusion. What's Street Fighter about? You look at Ryu, and you'll figure out that it's about martial arts - if the mascot was Sakura, or Cammy, or Vega, the impression would be much different. Same with Tekken, you could hardly have Yoshimitsu or King be the mascot. What's Mortal Kombat about? Well, looks like it's kinda like magic plus fighting, because there's a bunch of ninjas in color coded outfits. And so on and so forth. Spring Man and Ribbon Girl are great at conveying through their designs the basics of ARMS. You can't really do that with Twintelle because that'll just confuse people.

And really, I doubt the complaint of "The main character is too generic!" is exclusive to ARMS, or that it in any way affects the series' sales prospects. So I don't see any reason whatsoever to change course.

 

[Michael the Spikester]

They couldn't have known there would be a second pass back then. There was once a point in time when Byleth was our last character.

They should have waited it out before having done so then. That's why if its him he's going to feel so underwhelming and if he was never an assist I'd actually find it exciting as basic as he might look.

 

[Captain Shwampy]

Honestly I can't imagine how Ninjara and Min min could be skin for Spring man and Ribbon girl. Sure they have similar body I guess, but Ninjara's gimmick is teleportation and Min min have her dragon arm. I don't think that would fit really well Spring man.

Lucas and Ness use their party member attacks too. Shouldn't matter at this point

Just let spring man and ribbon teleport and use Min min dragon arms. Who cares.

 

[Deleted member]

Honestly if they were going to going to add Spring Man eventually now that they have the opportunity he shouldn't of been made an assist trophy to begin with.

Perhaps the same thing could be said about any other AT( and Spirit).

 

[zferolie]

I think part of my reasoning for not jumping on the anti-Spring Man train is that this was the same conversation people had about Byleth and the house leaders.

Edelgard drives the story, she uses an axe, Dimitri is cool and uses a lance, Claude uses a bow. All cool and true, but we got Byleth.

I still think Min Min could work, as she’s the pick that is evidently most popular. Still thinking it’s a Hero type just based on the reveal today. If it were Spring Man, why not just show his render or something? If it were any one character, just show the render?

But you build up hype around the game, get people talking about it, and then lead them on. Trailer starts with Spring Man, then, after he whoops some ass, have Ribbon Girl, Min Min, Ninjara, all show up to challenge him and resume gameplay.

I could be wrong, but I can totally see it.

Exactly. Them not showing anything makes it feel its not spring man, at least not by himself.

 

[PSIGuy]

It's sort of offensive how everyone assumes an Arms fighter could just be Springman + alts. That'd be like saying "the F-Zero rep should just be a brawler moveset with different racers as skins". They're all unique designs with unique abilities and different parameters, they're not going to shoehorn them all into one slot. I don't really care who it is but it's not going to be "all of them at once".

 

[MisterMike]

If Spring Man could get this much hate in this thread, I wonder how much hate Geno is going to get in this thread should he be a playable character.

I don't think it'd be all that grand, really. Aside from a few salty sardines, I think most everyone will either welcome him into the game with open arms or just be glad that they wouldn't have to hear about him in speculation anymore.

 

[GoodGrief741]

Honestly if they were going to going to add Spring Man eventually now that they have the opportunity he shouldn't of been made an assist trophy to begin with.

Honestly if they were going to add Dragon Quest Guy eventually now that they have the opportunity they shouldn't have skipped him in Smash 64 to begin with.

Like, I get it, Sakurai's cool and everything, but I don't understand why everyone praises him when he doesn't think 5 years ahead when making decisions.

 

[King Sonnn DeDeDoo]

It's sort of offensive how everyone assumes an Arms fighter could just be Springman + alts. That'd be like saying "the F-Zero rep should just be a brawler moveset with different racers as skins". They're all unique designs with unique abilities and different parameters, they're not going to shoehorn them all into one slot. I don't really care who it is but it's not going to be "all of them at once".

Honestly having other suitable F-zero racers as skins sounds really cool to me, I'd love to play as Beastman or Phoenix

 

[volbound1700]

Not surprised about this pick and it was a good one. However, I get the feeling that Spring Man was not intended to be the first character. I think COVID-19 messed up the original character because they could not make the proper travel arrangements during development process. Third-parties might get pushed back and could even end up in another FP all together due to COVID-19.

 

[Michael the Spikester]

Honestly if they were going to add Dragon Quest Guy eventually now that they have the opportunity they shouldn't have skipped him in Smash 64 to begin with.

Like, I get it, Sakurai's cool and everything, but I don't understand why everyone praises him when he doesn't think 5 years ahead when making decisions.

Bad comparison. That was the first game in the series and so it made sense for all the characters to be Nintendo. Third parties weren't considered until Melee given Snake. Again if its Spring Man and were going to add him eventually they should had waited it out. If it is him the update should remove him as an assist trophy then.

 

[Wunderwaft]

It's sort of offensive how everyone assumes an Arms fighter could just be Springman + alts. That'd be like saying "the F-Zero rep should just be a brawler moveset with different racers as skins". They're all unique designs with unique abilities and different parameters, they're not going to shoehorn them all into one slot. I don't really care who it is but it's not going to be "all of them at once".

The main reason why people think we're getting alts of other Arms characters is because Nintendo is being coy about the identity of the character which could mean multiple fighters as one. If we're getting only one Arms character then I think it's Spring Man, but with how roundabout Nintendo acted it leads me to believe it's more than just one fighter.

 

[Cosmic77]

It's sort of offensive how everyone assumes an Arms fighter could just be Springman + alts. That'd be like saying "the F-Zero rep should just be a brawler moveset with different racers as skins". They're all unique designs with unique abilities and different parameters, they're not going to shoehorn them all into one slot. I don't really care who it is but it's not going to be "all of them at once".

I mean, they obviously won't add all 15 as unique characters either. If the characters who weren't chosen don't get in as an alt, then they probably won't get in at all.

I'd rather see a few get in without their signature abilities so we can have options to choose from instead of only one fighter getting in and the rest being delegated to background characters and Spirits.

 

[MagnesD3]

Not surprised about this pick and it was a good one. However, I get the feeling that Spring Man was not intended to be the first character. I think COVID-19 messed up the original character because they could not make the proper travel arrangements during development process. Third-parties might get pushed back and could even end up in another FP all together due to COVID-19.

I kinda get that feeling too, I think the arms rep might have been supposed to be an e3 character announcement along with ARMS 2 maybe. I doubt they would have started this pass with such a wimper normally.

 

[Michael the Spikester]

Are people forgetting the ARMS characters have different dimensions, heights and proportions? The Bowser Jr. treatment can't work the same here.

Most I could see is the Hero treatment.

 

[SMAASH! Puppy]

The Ninjara vanish could just be a visual effect that happens if you're playing with a Ninjara alt when dodging, for example. For the other alts, they just move to the side (or give a hop in Ribbon Girl's case for extra jumpiness). And they could all have pretty good horizontal movement when air dodging.

That would make him objectively better than the others though.

 

[Sid-cada]

I think that's why Spring Man gets so much flak compared to others. There's no reason he has to be the protagonist at this point.

Honestly, this is quite funny to me. Everyone saying Spring Man isn't the mascot is just a bit ignorant about ARMS. Spring Man's personality is honestly more like a checklist for Shonen Protagonist traits.

Serious fighter?
Wants to win just to prove they are the best?
Tends to make unexpected comebacks?
Known to be a goofball off the ring?
Loves kids?
Has a trademark favorite food (in pizza, in his case)?
Loves to eat, and known to eat massive amounts of his favorite at once?

Heck, he even has a Mentor-like figure in Max Brass, whose abilities are mostly the same as his, and an evil twin in Springtron, chosen by the main villainess Dr. Coyle precisely because he showed more potential than other fighters. Counting his pseudo-rivals in Ribbon Girl and Ninjara, that's 40% of the ARMS roster. When you have that many connections, I don't think you can just dismiss him that easily.

Let's face it, there's too much going for him to be seen as anything but the main character. He was built from the ground up to be one to the point that it's almost a parody.

 

[MagnesD3]

It's sort of offensive how everyone assumes an Arms fighter could just be Springman + alts. That'd be like saying "the F-Zero rep should just be a brawler moveset with different racers as skins". They're all unique designs with unique abilities and different parameters, they're not going to shoehorn them all into one slot. I don't really care who it is but it's not going to be "all of them at once".

It’s funny I kinda feel that wouldn’t be a terrible idea either for f Zero, especially since none of them will probably ever be playable otherwise (although black shadow should be a full one).

 

[PLATINUM7]

Are people forgetting the ARMS characters have different dimensions, heights and proportions? The Bowser Jr. treatment can't work the same here.

Most I could see is the Hero treatment.

The Koopalings had different dimensions, heights and proportions.

Not that I'm saying Arms characters are comparable.

 

[GoodGrief741]

Bad comparison. That was the first game in the series and so it made sense for all the characters to be Nintendo. Third parties weren't considered until Melee given Snake. Again if its Spring Man and were going to add him eventually they should had waited it out. If it is him the update should remove him as an assist trophy then.

There's zero reason not to add the AT. They probably wanted to add an ARMS character down the line, but didn't know whether they'd be able to. That way, if they did, great! Lots of ARMS love for everyone. If they didn't, then they wouldn't be snubbing the biggest new IP they created this console generation so far. With the AT all bases are covered.

Are people forgetting the ARMS characters have different dimensions, heights and proportions? The Bowser Jr. treatment can't work the same here.

Most I could see is the Hero treatment.

The Hero treatment is exactly the same as the Bowser Jr. treatment. They're both alts without gameplay differences.

That would make him objectively better than the others though.

The range of movement and invincibility frames for all the alts would be the same, Ninjara would just have the vanishing as a visual effect with no gameplay effect. It's so quick that I don't think there would be much of an advantage.

 

[TheShiningAbsol]

Bad comparison. That was the first game in the series and so it made sense for all the characters to be Nintendo. Third parties weren't considered until Melee given Snake. Again if its Spring Man and were going to add him eventually they should had waited it out. If it is him the update should remove him as an assist trophy then.

They literally had no plans to add any ARMS characters. They were too late for the project plan. There was no guarantee DLC would even happen way back when they planned the initial roster, and even then, ARMS didn't exist yet when they did.

 

[Cosmic77]

I kinda get that feeling too, I think the arms rep might have been supposed to be an e3 character announcement along with ARMS 2 maybe. I doubt they would have started this pass with such a wimper normally.

Didn't people say the exact same thing about Byleth though? That Byleth was switched over to the first pass so the second pass could start off with a really amazing third-party?

Are people forgetting the ARMS characters have different dimensions, heights and proportions? The Bowser Jr. treatment can't work the same here.

Most I could see is the Hero treatment.

Wait, what? I don't understand what you're getting at.

Bowser Jr. and Hero are exactly the same. The Koopalings and other Heroes wouldn't have gotten in if the proportions weren't almost completely identical.

 

[SMAASH! Puppy]

Are people forgetting the ARMS characters have different dimensions, heights and proportions? The Bowser Jr. treatment can't work the same here.

Most I could see is the Hero treatment.

?

That's the same situation. There's just less alternate costumes in Hero's case.

The Koopalings had different dimensions, heights and proportions.

Not that I'm saying Arms characters are comparable.

The difference between ARMS characters and the Koopalings in this regard is that the Koopalings used to be slightly edited versions of each other, and that they're all in a Koopa Clown Car.