Splatoon has and always will be a huge thing in my life. I have been playing it since Splatoon 1, and this site obviously is made from it's assets. Safe to say, this game has changed my life. I wanted to reserve a spot for games that have truly changed my life, and give them their own page on the site. From gameplay to music, lore and artstyle...
Splatoon has me hooked. I'd better get off that hook before I get cooked (get it?).
The Start of the Hyperfixation
My history with Splatoon starts a bit differently. At first I never even wanted it, I thought it was weird. A game where you become a squid and shoot ink around? No thanks. My Wii U is for Mario, and Mario ONLY. Eventually I did try the game out when they ran the second testfire. The one they did after the game released, and yeah... We all know how that worked out. Being a little 12 year old at the time, I obviously didnt have a credit card, or a job. Back in the day I was forced to pay for games on consoles by buying myself giftcards at my local grocery stores. I didnt have a game store nearby growing up, and for some reason those grocery stores carried giftcards for the Nintendo E-Shop.
Splatoon has been a big part of my life growing up. Was I bullied for playing it? Yes. Did I care as a nervous, hormone ridden teenage mess? Yes. Yes I did. I never really talked about my interests in school due to... you know. Even so, I learned to not let it get to me. Who cares what I'm into. They can like, go fuck themselves. Splatoon got me so bad that I started playing it every day. I started playing around the Tidy VS Messy Splatfest. For this review I counted my Splatfest wins across all games, and out of the 66 Splatfests to date (23/11/2024) I have won 19 of them, and didnt participate in 6 of them. The win rate is as they say, not good. But I never said I was good at this game.
This game is pretty good...
So do I actually like this game? Of course. Nintendo cooked with this one. This is the actual "review" part of this review. So buckle up, and get out if you main the Bloblobber.
The gameplay
This series is in my opinion (pun not intentional) the fresh coat of paint the shooter genre needed. I was never into COD, and never had an Xbox to play things like Halo, so this is my first, huge intro into shooter games. The gameplay is genius. Covering the floor with your colour is actually fun. I might be the only one who likes Ranked modes and Turf War equally. The story modes are fun as hell too. We all know that Octo Expanasion is the best one, lets be real. But, they all have a special place in my heart.
The vibes
The vibes in Splatoon are so immaculate, it's sickening. The lore, the worldbuilding... The art. It's all so perfect. Splatfest are literally so peak, they always make me come back. I also made it a point to do my X Battle placements every season. Yes, I'm one of THOSE guys.
The music
God. Do I even need to say anything about the music. Who knew that fictional squids could make such tunes?
I like almost all Splatbands (Ink Theory, it's On Sight.) I listen to the music daily, and I think my favourite band has to be Off The Hook. I think the music was the best in Splatoon 3. Not all of the songs in that game were great. I was not a huge fan of the Color Pulse remix, but we also got We're So Back so it like evens out.