Information and Reaction: Mr. Sakurai Presents Min Min

It’s Min Min!…which was, admittedly, not too great a shocker for many fans. After Nintendo announced an ARMS character, the official fan favorite fighter rose to the top of people’s expectations that largely defied her reveal, the twist climax to a trailer filled with fake outs of her series compadres. That trailer started a presentation more focused on gameplay mechanics than the norm, as Masahiro Sakurai delved into how a character from a vastly different kind of fighting game transitioned into Smash Bros. And all from the comfort of his home, no less! It was complex and full of more minute details, which we’ve organized for your reading pleasure.

Character: Min Min, from ARMS. Available June 29

• Min Min uses her ARMS to fight, but she can move around jump while using her attacks. These have incredible horizontal range – she won’t be affected by counters at full range – but she’s vulnerable up close and has negligible vertical range. This can be mitigated slightly by bending the ARMS mid attack. All of these are mechanics taken directly from ARMS
• She also incorporates kicks into some of her attacks, with her Wheel Kick Up Smash acting as a reflector. Tapping the neutral button uses a kick as a weaker attack, and mashing causes a flurry of kicks
• Her neutral and side specials are unique; they control her right ARMS, while her standard attacks use her left. Players could alternate presses to have Min Min fire a volley of punches
• Up special: ARMS Jump, a standard (if very well ranged) super jump. In midair, it switches to ARMS Hook, a tether recovery
• Down special: ARMS Change switches Min Min’s right arm to a different ARM, all of which have unique properties. Ramram has a wide range, Megawatt is stiff but strong, and Dragon has a laser (though it’s weaker than the left ARM, which always has a Dragon equipped)
• Final Smash: ARMS Rush, an attacks in which the ARMS fighters gang up together 
• While Sakurai considered Min Min and Ninjara as picks, the former was chosen due to a direct request from ARMS producer Kosuke Yabuki.
• Yabuki also said that “everyone’s the protagonist” of the 2017 fighting game, going against the fan conception that Spring Man, currently an Assist Trophy, is the mascot of the property (and by extension the natural choice for inclusion as a Smash fighter)
• Additionally, converting the style of ARMS to Super Smash Bros. apparently proved exceptionally difficult, leading to Min Min’s unorthodox moveset

Stage: Spring Stadium, which uses the spring platforms from ARMS. Jumping while on one gives you a massive boost to your jump, hitting opponents as well. The ARMS drone drops items if items are on – all in crates – though the stage is otherwise fairly normal by the standards of the DLC thus far.

Music tracks: eighteen from almost every stage in ARMS, whose two remixes (bolded below) were produced by ARMS composer Atsuko Asahi. Sakurai felt the series’ fighting game music made the original tracks fit the tone of Smash well enough as they were.

• “ARMS Grand Prix Official Theme Song”
• “Spring Stadium”
• “Ramen Bowl”
• “Ribbon Ring”
• “Ninja College”
• “Mausoleum”
• “Scrapyard”
• “Cinema Deux”
• “Buster Beach”
• “Snake Park”
• “DNA Lab”
• “Sky Arena”
• “Via Dolce”
• “Temple Grounds”
• “Sparring Ring”
• “[NAME REDACTED]”
• “Vs. Hedlock”
• “ARMS Grand Prix Final Battle”

Mii Fighter Costumes

• Ninjara (Brawler, from ARMS)
• Heihachi Mishimi (Brawler, from Tekken, who had previously appeared as a costume in Super Smash Bros. For Nintendo 3DS & Wii U)
• Callie (Brawler) and Marie (Gunner, from Splatoon)
• Vault Boy (Gunner, from Fallout)
• As what happened with the Cuphead costume, some spirit battles may be altered in the future to incorporate DLC costumes

Other

• The Spirit List page will also get “Spirit Rematch,” a new feature that lets you automatically fight any spirit you’ve collected for spirit points. This also records high scores won in spirit battles
• Some footage was recorded by the development team to give advice for more notoriously difficult spirit battles (such as Pauline, who Sakurai admitted to having trouble defeating)
• The Joker and Hero amiibo are planned for release “fall 2020.” Starting on the DLC fighters is due to the entire base roster of Ultimate, along with Piranha Plant, having finally been represented in full as amiibo
• In addition, Sakurai talked about bringing back Ryo Horikawa, Captain Falcon’s voice actor throughout the series, to record lines for the Min Min trailer – the first time he’d done recording work for Super Smash Bros. since 1999
• Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this presentation had to be filmed in Sakurai’s home

The presentation in full:

Wolfman’s soapbox: What I find interesting about Min Min – a fun looking character from a pretty neat game in her own right – is how far she (and I swear this wasn’t a pun when I wrote it) stretches the mechanics of this game. The whole idea of the “normal move, cool flashy move” dichotomy’s been such a staple in Smash, and while it is still there, the barrier is so watered down with her. That’s fascinating! I don’t know if we can have a character who pushes it much more without breaking down a lot of what makes this series fairly accessible, but the conceits behind her moveset are compelling and intriguing.

While a lot of the other details were neat (this is where I can brag about being ahead of the curve by having been working on some ideas for Vault Boy as a character, I guess…?), the context was probably the most notable thing. We get to see Sakurai’s home, there’s no one else even in audio; there wasn’t even his usual (or any) dubbing voice actor for the American broadcast. It’s not the most stark of sensations, but you do get the sense that yeah, things are different. Sakurai didn’t spend a lot of time talking about COVID, or his team’s response, but he also didn’t really need to for it to be in the room. But it’s still entertaining and compelling, and I think its not ignoring the global context helps with that. Things aren’t super great (to put it mildly), but this one thing can be good.

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