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With Smash Bros. headed to Nintendo Switch later this year, we asked the pros their thoughts on what the big N’s newest franchise fighters would look like squaring up against Mario and Link.
ARMS is Nintendo's latest hit franchise with a colourful cast of characters that would fit well in the Super Smash Bros. roster. With nearly 2m copies of the game sold, and rumours of a sequel on the way with some new villains, we could be seeing some fresh, new spring-loaded faces in this year’s Smash entry.
While ARMS producer Kosuke Yabuki thinks that the series is too young to be featured in something as monumental as Smash Bros., new characters are what make Smash great and should be welcomed at every turn. Smash for Wii U brought in so many varied characters to the series that many believed would never make it: hallmark characters like like Final Fantasy VII’s Cloud, Street Fighter’s Ryu, and Bayonetta all found their home in the Smash family.
There’s no doubt that ARMS’ characters are distinct in both looks and movesets, almost unlike anything else that Smash Bros. has seen. And if the Wii Fit Trainer can make it in, why not these more qualified folks? To find out just what ARMS’ mascot characters, Ribbon Girl and Spring Man, might look like heading into Smash Switch, we spoke to some seasoned competitive Smash players to find out their thoughts.
Stretching all the way
It’s obvious that characters like Spring Man and Ribbon Girl are going to have some sort of stretchy, arena spanning move to mirror the mechanic they're known for in their own game. Although it’s not clear how that extendable moveset would be implemented, some pros have a few ideas.
“The ARMS characters would be all about full-screen pressure used to safely get close,” Smash 4 Rosalina player Samuel ‘Dabuz’ Buzby tells us. “Once close they could apply mix-ups and combos to force the opponent off the map.”
While separate characters in their own game, we may see Ribbon Girl and Spring Man as skins for the same ARMS fighter in Smash. They’d share the same abilities that focus on keeping the enemy at a distance, until they were ready to get up close and apply a mixture of different hits.
“I think ARMS characters could be something like what you would expect from Monkey D. Luffy from One Piece,” Dabuz added. “Imagine a character with stretchy arms and fists in Smash.” Luffy’s character in the popular anime has an incredibly stretchy body, making him a capable fighter in the different games he’s appeared in – and some of those abilities could be mirrored with Ribbon Girl and Spring Man. The ARMS fighters can’t be all ranged attacks, however, they’d need to be able to fight up close, even when they don’t in their own game.
Punching with impact
Getting hit by a giant fist on the end of some kind of extend-o-arm must really hurt, especially with how fighters go flying across the arena in ARMS. Translating that to Smash should be no different, even if they have to sacrifice some of the ranged ability that they know so well.
“In ARMS, they have these weird movesets, most of which are long-ranged punches and flurry-type moves,” Jacob ‘Zebra’ Milam, a top Mewtwo player, tells us. “I don’t know if the development team for Smash Switch would make them more akin to Little Mac, a good neutral player who's really hard hitting.”
We could see much of Spring Man’s mobility sacrificed to make him more of a mid-ranged fighter, with a lot of elements similar to the Punch-Out star his game is a spiritual successor to. Focusing on slower movements, but even harder hits that can deal a lot of damage if landed correctly.
“I think it’d be hilarious to see a Smash attack from an ARMS character be similar to Corrin’s forward smash,” Milam added. “Where it extends a good amount or something like that.” Corrin’s forward smash has him extend his free arm as it turns into a dragon fang – it’s the longest-reaching non-projectile forward smash in the game, and we could see something similar with the ARMS characters if they make it into the roster.
A variety that hurts
Like their counterparts in Splatoon, every character in ARMS gets to choose from a wide variety of fists with different abilities. From a dragon head that can shoot a beam across the arena to a giant ball that deals a heavier blow – everything from their reach, weight, use, and effect differ greatly from one another.
The variety of weights and uses were made to mirror the different types of hits in traditional fighting games, so it makes sense to see many of them represented in Smash. “We took the basics of a fighting game and replaced them with easy-to-identify elements,” said ARMS producer Kosuke Yabuki during a recent presentation. “For example, weak, medium and strong attacks are shown by the different weights.”
Even though each arm is distinct in ARMS itself, and you need to pick which ones you take into battle, we’d need to see them pulled out seamlessly in Smash, similarly to how other characters use moves from multiple games. Mario, for example, whips out his FLUDD backpack from Super Mario Sunshine to deliver a blast of water against his foes; and he pulls it out of literally nowhere. This gives the developers options in adding different types of ranged, defensive and elemental attacks from the dragon, parasol, and different ice, fire, and thunder-infused fists, and it’ll be interesting to see if NIntendo will deliver a similar mechanic if the ARMS characters make it into the game.
With Smash Switch set to appear at E3 this year, we’ll no doubt hear more about the game – and its roster – in the coming months. If Nintendo tap into their already-existing ARMS roster for the new Smash Bros. title, you can bet they’ll inject a fresh feeling into the series: we can’t wait to see how they’ll shake up the arena.
