An Arms Smash Bros rep has been unveiled, in the vaguest and most non-committal way. The controversial Byleth is being followed up with a rep from Nintendo’s Switch-native IP; Arms. This addition isn’t entirely out of leftfield; they were a commonly predicted character before Ultimate’s launch just because it made so much sense. In the interim though, Arms has kind of died. A short trial announced with the Arms Smash rep has brought some new interest, but the franchise is hardly on the same footing as Splatoon yet.
Looking through the arms roster there is great potential for unique features and the reveal itself was pretty noncommittal. Which Arms Smash Rep is the most likely? We’ve broken it down, with particular interest paid to Smash Bros’ history of throwing complete curveballs out there. We’ll also be excluding the DLC fighters for Arms itself since a Smash DLC of DLC characters from a title that is known for being dead on arrival isn’t the most likely.
Arms has quite a few characters and not all that many fans… so the really plain fighters don’t stand all that much of a chance.
The first fighters Pass seemed to have a rep for the Smash community in every region, so unless Min Min happens to be huge in the Falklands or something this probably isn’t going to happen.
Remember the cryptic D.Va leaker? Mechanica being the Smash Arms rep would have all them claiming victory. We just can’t have that. She’s also pretty unlikely since she isn’t exactly recognizable. Although like a few others on this list her core mechanics would actually be pretty cool in Smash, she can take way more damage than other characters and has a great recovery. A fighter with a negative multiplier for their damage with a great recovery could be fun, but she’s not exactly a clear choice.
Kid Cobra has a real fast jump and hits pretty hard. He’d have a great recovery, but aside from that, there isn’t much to make this character stand out. He would make sense as an inclusion, but if you’re going for someone quite vanilla you may as well stick to Springman.
Before we get into how likely it is, Helix definitely deserves the spot. He’s green, he looks fairly happy, he would be as out of place next to Snake as possible, this is all going in his favour.
This is definitely a ‘out there’ choice though. If Sakurai is going for wacky, there are still better candidates in the game. This doesn’t rule him out, but he’s pretty unlikely.
For some reason, Twintelle is probably the second most recognisable character here. You’d think this would make her a shoe-in, but think again. What was the exact language of the reveal? Extending arms. That’s her hair, case closed.
Not really though. This is a line we’re going to see repeated until the rep is announced but `the speculators are probably taking it too seriously. The extending arms line was clearly more about the game than the literal character. While the detective in us might want to rule her out based on a completely pedantic wording of the reveal, let’s not pretend its set in stone.
Ninjara is one of the more interesting characters if you’re looking purely at mechanics. He can teleport briefly in mid-air. This is a fun recovery move when matched with the obvious good range an Arms Smash rep would have. Outside of this though there is little to point towards Ninjara. He sits pretty firmly in the middle of the characters’ potential as an Arms Smash rep. He’d work fine but have a lot of people saying ‘who?’.
Byte and Barq resemble characters from a children’s show you can half-remember having sinister overtones. That would make them perfect reps for Smash.
These two fall firmly into the ‘only if they’re messing with us’ camp. These would be a great Plant-like choice, dumb character for the sake of having a dumb character. In a way, this makes them a lot more likely than quite a few others. Arms is hardly widely popular with fans who will be angry about a weird pick, so Byte and Barq would actually slot in quite well.
Master Mummy is a heavy hitter that would help flesh out Smash’s roster a little bit. There aren’t as many characters in this mould as there maybe should be, especially one with the range of an arms rep.
He has something in-game that makes him perfect for smash; he has the strongest throw in the game dealing 200 damage. Master mummy would be a Gannondorf like tank but with speed and range, potentially a great ‘broken’ addition. He’s pretty much just up this high because of how well he’d work in the roster.
Ribbon Girl and Springman are the most obvious choices for an Arms Smash Rep. They would bring the core mechanics of Arms to the game and not much else. They’re the only recognisable characters outside of the series’ core players too.
While Ribbon Girl is more considerably more likely than the rest, she’d make a better echo. A Springman/Ribbon Girl combination would help make the first fighter a bit less disappointing for players who were after the same big additions of Fights Pass 1.
Let’s face it, Spring Man is the obvious choice. A little too obvious really. He’s the cover star, he’s already been an assist trophy, he’s easily one of the most recognisable… when has Smash DLC ever been that straight forward though?
Spring Man might be too on the nose for a Smash rep. We all know assist trophies don’t rule out a choice. However, if an assist gets a promotion as the first slot of this batch of DLC, we’ll never hear the end of it. If Springman gets the nod you expect Waluigi hopefuls to be spurred into action with evidence of a ‘pattern’. Is this we want? Confident Waluigi fans everywhere? No. Springman would be the dull choice for an Arms Smash rep, but he’s also the most likely to actually show up.
With the weird state of the world affecting Sakurai’s development team, it might be a while until we find out which of these characters is going to be the Arms Smash rep. With that in mind, the safest to do might be to resign yourself to expecting a dull Springman so you can be pleasantly surprised, or smug about predicting it all along.
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