I Love Splatoon

NOTICE: This short essay is mostly about how my personal experiences have been shaped by the Splatoon franchise. If you don’t know a lot about this game series and want a 1-hour comprehensive rundown on how it made such a huge cultural impact, then watch You’re an Adult Now by ConstantlyCaden.

It’s about damn time that I wrote about something I love for a change.

Splatoon has, no doubt, changed my life in multiple ways. The funny ink-shooting squid-kid Nintendo series came to me at a time of uncertainty when I didn’t know that the one thing I was missing was a community that is just as strong and approachable as the franchise itself.

The first time I stumbled upon Splatoon was in 2016, at a ScrewAttack Game Convention, which had merged with RoosterTeeth Expo that year. At SGC, among the home console arcade cabinets was Splatoon, which somebody left on the Octostomp boss battle in the single player campaign. I didn’t understand what the heck was going on there, so I didn’t play it for long, but I would never be able to play that particular game again until I claimed a spare Wii U from my grandparents many years later. To be fair, I was still caught up with other shooting games at the time.

I used to play FPS games on my computer like Team Fortress 2…a LOT. I sunk just as many hours into TF2 as I did with Splatoon 2 and Splatoon 3 combined. I liked games that can get silly with it, but the communities surrounding PC shooting games are often oppressive, especially for an autistic young adult like me. Through TF2, I fell victim to tryhard frustration, name-calling, exclusion, racial slurs/ableist slurs, item trade scams, and social-engineering scams. I withstood it for as long as I could, but I eventually broke down under pressure. It just felt like an atmosphere that I couldn’t enjoy anymore, and it permeates every other shooting game I’ve played. After all of that stress and heartbreak, I uninstalled TF2 for good and never looked back.

From a gameplay standpoint, I was struggling to keep up with mouse & keyboard players, because I always felt like my aim was extremely lackluster and I was getting p0wned by players who were way more proficient with the control scheme. It also didn’t help that the first-person perspective limited my vision and that FPS games would often exploit my blind spots (namely, behind my back). Also, trying to aim with a mouse felt slippery, even with some advanced mouse aiming adjustments through third-party software, so I was just not having a good time for multiple reasons.

I eventually settled on playing games on the Nintendo Switch in 2017 because some first-party titles use motion control aiming on a modern-day game controller. I was a fan of the motion controls on the Wii, so I got a better feel with this new kind of motion control aiming in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and I wanted to try more games with this control scheme. This is where Splatoon 2 comes in: Nintendo released a World Premiere Splatfest demo for free, and I was floored when I played it.

The vibes were immaculate. The upbeat pop music battle theme, Ebb & Flow, made my heart sing. The hosts, Pearl & Marina, looked cool & pretty at the same time. Some of the weapon selections were familiar, while others were unique. The map choices took place in venues outfitted for sports rather than rugged warzones. And most importantly: it was just plain fun. Finally, I could ditch every other FPS game for good. I then proceeded to sink hundreds of hours into Splatoon 2 and later Splatoon 3.

Splatoon is a very welcoming and approachable game series, because it largely simplifies its control scheme and mechanics into a unique third-person shooting arena shooter that focuses on a very easily recognizable objective as Turf control over fragging opponents. Paint the most ink on the ground and you win, regardless of how well you performed. Turfing your team’s colored ink on the ground also serves as a faster mobility option, a hiding place, an ammo refueling station, and a quick way to heal yourself from enemy attacks. You’d have to play it for yourself to fully understand and appreciate the sheer utility of these mechanics colacessling into colored ink on the ground, but just know that Nintendo’s approach to the tried & true shooting game has come a long way from the old days of Doom and Quake. Splatoon's low barrier of entry—for children and adults alike—is something that I now take for granted, and is a breath of fresh air from a game that also has interconnected, yet disjointed gameplay systems.

But little did I know that Splatoon would have more in store for me outside of the game. Splatoon brought me from making amateur artwork to creating highly detailed illustrations and animations (my Artwork page is FULL of Splatoon fan art). I met a large, welcoming community through fanzine projects and collaborations (which you can see on my Projects page). I connected with dozens of new friends who shared the same interest, and I followed them beyond the Splatoon fandom. I amassed a large group of original characters based on Splatoon designs. I even started thinking more about my gender identity thanks to the community’s open support of LGBTQIA+ folks! Mind you, a lot of this was made possible through my sheer obsession with the Splatoon franchise.

I wouldn’t be half the Captain I was without Splatoon, regardless of what I think about the games themselves and how good their gameplay or storylines are. I figured out who I wanted to be perceived as, thanks to Splatoon. Imagine that! It’s inkredible, as they say, how much one fandom has changed my life, and largely for the better.

The strong influence that Splatoon had on me has persisted even through tough situations with friend groups who connected through a shared interest in the game series. Whether friend groups disband or I end up leaving certain communities, I learned how to become a better person and eventually grow out of the anxious, self-destructive mindset that I was holding onto for so long—and I still have room for self-improvement! What did help was just following folks who were more open to gender identity, mental health, artistic support, and more, because it put me in a much better position than I was over 10 years ago. I would probably be a much unhappier person if I were still an incel playing FPS games on their PC, and the friendship fallouts I had from my PC gaming days were much harder & stressful, so I’m counting my blessings there.

But also, as I grow up, so too does the Splatoon franchise. Characters age up in real time, familiar locations are changed between games, my tastes in weapon choices change between games (or even between game updates!), and my in-game player’s appearance is updated over time. I’m far from the only one who understands this, but Splatoon is just as much of a part of me as I am a part of Splatoon. You can find yourself changing every year alongside Splatoon, and I think that’s beautiful. There are very few games that build up their franchise like with a symbiotic relationship between themselves and their player base, and even less so that undergo so much change that even looking back on where the game started 10 years ago feels nostalgic.

Sure, getting into Splatoon may involve a small interest in marine life, colorful shooting games, and listening to a blend of music genres with singers spouting incomprehensible lyrics, but it’s something that hits all the right notes for me. It gets silly with it, completely unapologetically, and very rarely takes itself seriously. Splatoon is a game franchise that can keep you afloat through tumultuous change, no matter how late you are to the party. I mean, I first got invested in Splatoon 2 back in 2017, and now look where I am! I promise, the game won’t bite, you just have to open your heart to it if you can. Regardless of personal tastes, Splatoon is a game series that is open to people of all ages who come and go from many walks of life.

So, thank you, Splatoon, for changing my life. 💖 If the franchise continues to go beyond Splatoon 3, then I hope I live to see the franchise grow up to be just a fun and playful as it always has been from the start.

_{This is the 10th Anniversary Illustration that Nintendo posted online this year.}

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