YMMV / Enter the Arena... As Your Avatar!

• Angst? What Angst?: Often a Necessary Weasel to keep the focus on the action even when people die.
• Captain Obvious Reveal: Any moderately popular character with a secret identity/transformation. Every player knows it, but the characters generally have no reasonable way to until they dramatically unveil it.
• Catharsis Factor: After all the crap he's put everyone through, including forcing friends and family to fight each other AND turning the Arena into a warzone, Galeem gets quite a satisfying beatdown from the assembled cast.
• Heartwarming Moments: After Psycho!Ness is called out by Lucas as "not the real Ness", he seems to be on the verge of going crazy. It doesn't help that another version of Ness appears promptly after, causing Psycho to lash out violently at his counterpart. Luckily, his friend-mother substitute Mystia, with some help from the other Ness, is able to defuse the situation and reverse his fall to darkness. How? With the Eight Melodies, of course!

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  • The second time the Eight Melodies are used also qualifies, as it involves multiple characters attempting to convince a Brainwashed and Crazy Alderoth to let go of the Will of Metatron... and it succeeds.
  • Isana is saddened by having to kill a mindless beast. With one sentence, a CMOH comes from a most unexpected place.
  • Mikhael and Duncan's date. It begins after they both witness the horrific torture and killing of Quincy by Mu, and dealing with the emotional aftermath in their own ways, as a way to take their minds off it. It starts here and culminates here, with a declaration of love for each other.
  • All of Phazya's characters getting together and throwing their creator a special party on her birthday.
  • What initially appears to be a monster stalking Alfaris turns out to be the benevolent but creepy Emotion Eater Phobia. After learning that both of them have a lot in common in keeping supernatural beings at bay, they become friends (with the latter giving hugs), while Phobia even helps Alfaris temporarily overcome his fear of losing his own loved ones by promising to protect him and herself.

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  • Starting here, fellow Dragonborn Viserys and Awkeff make Arena history by being the first couple to actually get married in the Arena itself. The former's close friend, Serana, even officiates their wedding.
• Nightmare Fuel: Starting here, Hazama shows his true colors. Beware of major Deemo spoilers. The Girl's behavior afterwards makes it even worse...
  The Girl: "I want to remember this taste so that way, when I rip his flesh from his bone... I can smile in glee..."
  • Spiralblock Peak introduces The Flood to the Arena, in all its squicky glory. Nightmare Retardant is in effect, as it can't infect avatars because it would be cheap if it could. Becomes a Moment of Awesome when Kirby and Darius combine powers to kill the Gravemind.
  • A several-months-long plot initiated by KiriK happens in the spinoff Arena. The plot is a direct adaptation of World of Light, and what does that mean? Everyone dies at the beginning.^note Slightly mitigated because unlike in Smash, there's a lot more than one survivor, but DevilPsyco still threw all but four or five characters of his entire roster to the metaphorical lions.

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• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: There were some who didn't like the more story-driven, more Continuity Lockout prone spinoff, especially since it far overtook the official v5 in terms of popularity. However, their complaints may not be totally accurate considering even in the previous version of the Arena, only a handful of frequenters ever cared about the story, including one or two who ended up complaining about it later.