[dropcap]J[/dropcap]ust yesterday, we began to break down the characters mentioned in the recent Arms Direct for a competitive analysis. Because each character needed some time to explain, we felt it best to separate it into two parts. The previous part focused entirely on the characters that were revealed with the initial game announcement. Today, we’re going to focus on all the characters that have been revealed since then.

This guide is concerning the characters, themselves. Their signature arms are a part of the character’s design. However, there are many arms each character will be allowed to choose from. With that in mind, it’s best not to assume that this will directly influence more than how the game starts out. Instead, we’ll be focusing on their abilities and the role that the characters will fill in the game. So with that, let’s begin with the first character announced after the initial reveal.

Min Min

Min Min seems like a very interesting character. Perhaps another defensive zoner. Her primary arms include a prolonged laser shot and a long-range curving attack. Her abilities allow her to play defensively and do so serious damage when she’s charged.

Now, during the Direct in May, we got a short explanation of her abilities. Min Min can do a flip kick and knock down an opponent’s arms. On top of that, she can turn her left arm into a dragon arm, which powers it up in some way. The May Direct wasn’t particularly specific, but Biff did mention her performing a throw. However, her reveal in the April Direct gave us a different impression. It seemed as though the dragon arm only needed a “long charge.” And that it would likely keep that arm charged as long as it was still a dragon arm. It’ll be important to put the right attribute on this arm to make the most out of it. She will need to play defensively once that arm is out, though, or she’ll lose the dragon arm fast.

When you look at her arms and abilities side-by-side, Min Min clearly needs to play defensively, potentially walling or zoning opponents out. You can use her kick liberally to avoid taking damage while you let the left arm charge. If you keep it up, you can make sure your left arm always does has its charged attribute in play. Try pairing it with blind, fire, or stun to get the best results.

Helix

This character is understandably weird. Helix has a stretchy body which allows him to pull off some really odd things. In the trailers, they love to show us that he can dodge a rush attack and counter just by moving left and right to avoid punches. However, we aren’t sure how difficult this may be. It also appears that when he dashes or gets knocked down, he sinks halfway into the floor. This can help him avoid attacks if they’re aimed high, but if you expect it, it may not work so well in his favor.

Helix definitely seems like he’ll excel at putting pressure on opponents from up close. His dash has the best chance of helping him if he’s nearer to the opponent, and his insanely mobile upper body can move quickly enough to dodge a punch in this scenario. Add onto this that his signature arms seem to emphasize follow-ups, as we see in the trailer, it’s very likely he’ll be a half-decent combo character when the meta develops.

Helix will be a tough character to use AND to fight against. We suggest you use him when you understand the basics properly, as that’ll be when you can take advantage of his abilities the best.

Kid Cobra

If you’re familiar with fighting game roles, and you watched the direct, you already know Kid Cobra is a rush down character. His abilities really just scream it out. While we can’t be sure if his boa constrictor arms have any real effect, we know his slide-dash does. This allows him to quickly get under an opponent’s punches and punish them. You’ll need to be careful if you see that he’s built up a charge and always stagger your punches.

We also got to see his signature arms, which seem good for trapping opponents should they attempt to avoid an attack, rather than blocking it. Expect Kid Cobra players to use this as conditioning. Since you’ll try not to dodge, they’ll attempt to grab. More on that in a later post.

We suggest that players look at Kid Cobra as a good character for slipping inside of someone’s wall and dealing some serious punishment. He’s all about speed and strength, but that likely means he’ll be a glass cannon. Kid Cobra is going to be a dangerous fighter, for sure.

Byte and Barq

Readers familiar with Smash Bros will begin feeling a bit of deja vu, right about here. These two are very similar to Rosalina and Luma. Knocking out Barq will disable him for a short time. He will attack in tandem with Byte on his own. Barq can be used as a springboard to give Byte a much higher jump. Finally, when players use their rush attack, Barq and Byte will fuse. It’s unclear at this time what effect that will have, but we imagine it might make Byte’s punches stronger.

Really, there isn’t too much to say about this character besides reviewing the effects Barq will have on the fight. That seems to be the main difference this character has from others. We imagine that timing your attacks carefully and strategically using Barq to escape and counter an opponent will be the primary strategy for Byte players. Much like Rosalina, we foresee this character taking some skill to use to his full potential.

Twintelle

This may be the character we honestly know the least about from the Direct presentation. Twintelle is another newly announced character that uses her hair instead of her arms to fight. We only know one of her abilities, which slows down punches that come near her when she’s charged up. We also know that Twintelle has some interesting signature arms, including a faster version of Helix’s guardian called the parasol. Her arms don’t seem to directly suggest any one playstyle, but based on her ability and the parasol, we think she’ll be heavy bait-and-punish.

Yes, that’s right. Not only does she look like Bayonetta, but she plays like her, too! Twintelle suits the bait-and-punish role nicely. So nicely that this is exactly what they suggest you do with two of her signature arms during the Direct. For that reason, it’s best when faced with a Twintelle that you play patiently and wait for her guard to legitimately be down before you try and attack.

Final Thoughts

At its core, Arms follows a very basic design concept of fighting games. Attacks beat grabs. Grabs beat blocking. Blocking beats attacks. The characters determine how you go about punishing players who mess up in this neutral triangle. Be sure to know about your character choice and that of your opponent. That’s the only way you’ll excel in the online fighting game environment. Not only that, but you’ll want to try and keep up, as more characters will be released for free when the game launches on June 16th.

In case you missed it, we covered the first five characters to be revealed in this article, yesterday. We also strongly suggest players try the global test punch. In the near future, we’ll be revisiting this Direct in order to learn more about the available arms and the stages that have been revealed.

If you missed Part 1 of the ARMS character guide, you can check it out right here.