ARMS: Who is Coming to Smash Ultimate?

Whether if you saw the previous Nintendo Direct Mini or got here from the article talking the 15 fighters, the big question that will be going through everyone’s mind for the next few months will be this: Which ARMS character is coming to Smash Ultimate? Rather than putting up a big introduction, let’s just get right into it and talk about what we can expect to see by cutting out the unlikely choices and focusing on one thing that many seem to overlook when looking at who it could make the cut.

Possible Spirit Fights

While it would be nice to see all the fighters in Smash Ultimate, they can still see some representation within the Spirit Board. The funny thing here to consider is how we can use Spirits as a possible way to help cut down a fair number of fighters if we already have a similar fighter in the cast already to represent them. Also, it is fair to guess that with ARMS as a fighting game, all fights would be Stamina Battles. So here are a few possible ideas we could see happen:

Master Mummy as Ganondorf- As mentioned previously, Master Mummy and Ganondorf would hit it off as being the hard hitters of their games. You could have it where Ganondorf favors his fists more than his feet or sword, but you can also give him Mummy’s ability to regenerate health too. A simple and straightforward fight can be a fun way to showcase Master Mummy’s power.

Byte & Barq as R.O.B. & Duck Hunt- As a dual character, it would make sense that a robotic patroller and its robotic companion would be represented as the Robotic Operating Buddy and a dog to back it up. Not much else to say here, but because it would seem unlikely for Byte & Barq to become playable, this would be the next best thing.

Misango as Shulk- If you read the description for Misango, chances are you could have drawn some comparisons to Shulk and his ability to augment his status with the Manado. While it wouldn’t exactly be 1:1, it would be as a simple means to showcase his ability to adjust to different situations and have an answer to anything coming his way. That and you can probably give Shulk the ability to apply poison to his attacks too.

Existing Spirit Fights

It would be fun to speculate Spirits for everyone in ARMS, but we already did get a couple of them in World of Light that would likely carry over to the ARMS Spirit Board when we get our next fighter. Here is the quick recap of those characters who already got their 15 minutes of fame.

Twintelle as Bayonetta- It does make sense to choose Bayonetta to represent her for reasons you can probably guess (such as using their hair to punch people). Nothing really would change here, but it would still be nice to see if Twintelle gets to join her fellow cast.

Min Min as Corrin- So it might be a bit on the nose to have a character who can transform her arm into a dragon to be represented by a character who can turn herself into a dragon. Still, there’s no arguing how this does strangely make sense with Corrin also having the ability to turn her arms into things like a draconic mouth, a spear so kudos there for the forethought, Sakurai.

Who is joining Smash Ultimate?

So after everything said about the 15 fighters in ARMS and trying to sort out who is likely in and out, who will be in Smash Ultimate come June 2020? That in itself is hard to say. Really, you can pick anyone here and have a 6% chance of getting it right. You’d think it would be easy just to get rid of Spring Man, Ribbon Girl, Ninjara, Twintelle, and Min Min because they already got representation into Smash Ultimate, but there’s still a part that says to not dismiss them quite yet.

As mentioned in the previous article, ARMS was officially announced at the time when the base roster for Smash Ultimate was already planned. Of course, it isn’t to say the Downloadable Fighters was completely taken care of since one could have doubts about the protagonist of Three Houses would be there too, but that’s beside the point. There was still an interest in representing ARMS in the game, and thus, we got Spring Man as an Assist Trophy, he and Ribbon Girl as Mii Attires, and a few more spirits off to the side. But with this sudden announcement, would they really pick a character who isn’t the mascot? It’s possible, but if we were to make an honest and fair guess as to who it could be, here are a few likely possible guesses.

The Three Fighters with the best chances of getting in

Ribbon Girl- It might seem hard to believe, but one can argue that Ribbon Girl is just as much of the mascot character as her springy counterpart. Hell, we saw her Arms before Spring Man’s back in the announcement trailer for their game. Considering how we still do not have a female DLC character yet (if we don’t count Byleth), Ribbon Girl could fill out that quota while enabling her unique playstyle that would be best fitted for an ARMS Representative.

Max Brass- When you have a character who almost comes off as Captain Falcon if he had belts for Arms, it feels like it would be a cool idea to toss him in. You can implement plenty of his abilities into his specials while also giving players the chance to enjoy a heavyweight who has a scary range in their attacks. It might not be an ideal update, but one that is likely to happen.

Spring Man- As mentioned earlier, ARMS came into existence at a time when Smash Ultimate’s roster was ready to go. As such, it wouldn’t be too hard to say that Sakurai would want to add in characters that came after 2017, such as Byleth from Fire Emblem Three Houses. Even if Spring Man is an assist Trophy, Sakurai could update the game to make it where Spring Man becomes playable, and a Springtron (or really any other ARMs fighter) could replace him so that he can Smash with the best of them.

And then there’s Option Four:

ARMS Fighter

Consider how many characters we have who share a slot with each other. Whether if we are talking Olimar and Alph, the Dragon Quest heroes, or the Koopalings being alternatives to Bowser Jr., it could be possible to make an ARMs character where you have the main characters and then have other ARMS characters share the same slot as alternative outfits. There is just one slight issue with this approach, though: the majority of the case is fairly unique to themselves. Yeah, we did point out how Spring Man, Max Brass, and Springtron did share the same abilities, but it isn’t like you would see all three of them together under the same moveset. Or at least not Max Brass anyway.

If we were to take into account of characters who could share the same kind of body type, it would be easy to point towards Spring Man and Springtron because of obvious reasons. So if you take both of their four attires from ARMS and toss them into Smash Ultimate, you’re set to go, right? What if that combination is Spring Man and Ribbon Girl? Perhaps you would take away Ribbon Girl’s aerial advantage, but you can make her and Spring Man share a similar move set in order to have them be the ARMS representative. Finally, it could be possible to take the “Hero Approach” and have four characters within one slot, and you can pick your favorite. In a way, you could possibly add in Min Min and/or Ninjara into that mix with all the aforementioned fighters to make the best possible character showcasing Nintendo’s other fighter.

What do you think?

Which ARMS character is coming to Smash Ultimate? Will they be their own unique character? Or could we see multiple characters in one slot? And most importantly of all: Will the next character break any rules?

Up to now, many people tend to cling to these ideas that “Spirits can’t be playable!” or “Assist Trophies can’t be playable!” although that decision falls solely onto Sakurai. For all we know, he has a sledgehammer ready to break that wall down and forgo those rules he never touched on. If it happens to be a character who has a spirit, that will open the doors wide to who we could expect next. And if it is Spring Man, then consider all bets off. Let’s just hope there’s not a resurgence of “Waluigi For Smash.”

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