After hearing the news that the 3DS/Wii U's online services were shutting down, the first thing that popped in my head was replaying this game's online one last time.

Back in 2015, I remember seeing the trailer for this game and thinking it looked really cool. I never played an online shooter in my life, but this one actually interested me with its colorful art style and interesting concept. The day of release, I ask my dad if he could pick the game up on his way from work and when he came home, not only did he have the game..he had an Inkling Boy amiibo as well. That basically kickstarted my Amiibo addiction around that time but that's a story for another time. Anyways, I ended up enjoying Splatoon a ton. I remember the day after I got it, I had a relatives party to go to and I could only think about playing this game. This game consumed my whole summer, I loved it so much. Playing every Splatfest, seeing every update as they roll out, I was hooked for a couple months. Part of that is because I had no school of course, because once September arrived I didn't play this game nearly as much as before. Still, May-August 2015 was the summer of Splatoon and I'll never forget it.

Anyways, time to actually review the game lol. I think the most striking aspect is just how stylish this game is. From the different outfits you can wear, to the more experimental soundtrack, to the unique art styles that appear in the sunken scrolls. I've seen people compare this game to Jet Set Radio cuz of it's sort of counter culture type attitude and ofc its stylishness and appeal to the younger demographic and I can totally see it. It can be really influential playing this as a young lad, and it certainly worked for me.

Speaking of the music, I've seen some individuals on this site specifically call it bad and I just don't see it. Sure, it's not everyone's cup of tea but the OST is really well done honestly. Splattack! is of course a classic and Ink Me Up brings me right back to participating in Splatfests all day. Those are my two favorites but the whole OST is great. I think Splatoon 2 is great and all and probably the objectively better game, but if there's anything I prefer more in 1, its the soundtrack.

The meat and potatoes of this game however is it's online matches. This game doesn't have as much content or modes as 2 (and god it was pretty barebones at launch I'll admit that) but it's still a ton of fun to play a match or two. I was able to play a couple turf war and ranked matches and they were still fun. I remember raging so hard whenever I would lose on ranked matches, I had issues lol. Still, I wish Urchin Underpass and Saltspray Rig were in future games, I miss em lol. Sadly couldn't play them during this last play session but I remember they were some of my favorites.

I did also replay the campaign, and it's still fun as it was back then. Sure, it's no octo expansion and probably worse than 2's, but I always enjoyed it personally. I don't know if it's weird to say but I kinda get Mario Galaxy vibes from it. Just going from section to section using the launchpads and seeing the really cool backgrounds in each level. Always got that vibe. It does get a bit formulaic having every 5th and 6th level be the same level type, however overall, I really enjoyed the single player. At least you can still play that even with the online off.

This game may have been a bit obsolete in the eyes of a lot of people once 2 and eventually 3 came out. However, 2 I never got into nearly as much so my memories of 1 really outshine it. It's not perfect but this game will always hold a special place in my heart and is one of the first things I think of when the year 2015 is brought up. Rest In Piece Splatoon 1 online and the 3DS/Wii U online in general, I loved you dearly.

Well, with the servers shutting down today, I can say that yes, I completed Splatoon 1.
The vibes of this game, the music, the characters, the maps, the weapons, the idols, the splatfests, the funny winning dances, the miiverse posts (when it was still active)... Man, this game brought me so many memories over the years I've played it, which in my case was a pretty long time since I only got a Switch in 2020.
But man... I'm gonna miss it. Sure, S2 and 3 are still here with basically the same thing and even more songs and maps and yadda yadda, but-
It's not the same now is it?
Farewell Splatoon 1.

Feels wild to be nostalgic for the WiiU, but the OG Splatoon was truly special. There's been some discussion about historical revisionism, with a lot of people saying they miss the WiiU era and that the Switch is totally lame in comparison. I will say, playing on a failed console with a relatively small amount of games really does foster communities like no other. Just like you can always count on an N64 fan to have played Mario 64 or Banjo Kazooie...A WiiU fan has absolutely played Splatoon. Fast forward to the Switch and that console's popping off so hard the community around it can't possibly be as tight knit. I bring this up here because Splatoon 1 is truly a modern day era defining classic.

It's always a joy to see Nintendo's take on a popular genre. They basically never play it straight. They really do like to wait for a genre to get a bit played out and stagnant and then swoop in with an idea that turns the whole concept on its head. Luigi's mansion with survival horror, Breath of the Wild with open world adventure, the Mario RPG's, etc. The online shooter genre was beyond mind numbingly saturated. Launching Splatoon with the whole angle of it being aggressively fresh and new and exciting immediately clicked with people far beyond the scope of the WiiU's audience. I know people are pretty divided on them rotating maps in real time over the course of hours, but it really helped the game not feel like it was just content for content sake. It made it feel like a real, living world that made it actively fun to follow and see what's going on. I never even cared about the reward for winning splatfests, never bothered to understand how to properly use the skill chunks. Didn't stop them from feeling extremely important and fun to attend every single time. Idk how many people are gonna understand what I mean when I say, I heckin hate content dude. Tired of games just putting out content. Just putting out some meaningless things to do is nowhere near as integral to genuinely connecting with me as making a fully realized game world. It can't be overstated how huge the counter culture "keep it fresh" style was. The less traditional conventions are followed the better imo.

Getting a bit ahead of myself putting the sequels down a bit - but I really think the maps and specials were at their best here. Every map had a well defined idea, and they had a good sense of scale. It really felt like you could truly effect the game and be helpful to your team without being absolutely amazing at the combat. You had room to breath, and the specials being a tad busted made them not only fun to use, but further de-emphasized pure shooting as a core of the gameplay. There was also a LOT more verticality and variety in the map design. Not to say shooting and getting kills wasn't an important part of being good, but compared to the sequels, this game's design just feels the most coherent with itself.
Got to revisit this game earlier this year one last time...And it was funny how any maps I actually liked from 3 I discovered came from 1. I also just dramatically prefer almost all the music in this one to any of the sequels. Best lil' hub world too. A nice comfortable size to walk around and see miiverse posts and fun details that add a lot of character and life to the world. The single player campaign I remember having some fun bosses, otherwise it's just kinda...very standard Super Mario platformer type design. Nothing really special there but it was novel enough given it was the first of its kind for this new series.

R.I.P. Hope to find private servers thriving someday - 'Cuz I really think the first game has some special elements to it the sequels couldn't quite capture.

Last night was the last time that this game was playable and in those final few hours where the servers just wouldn't quit, I understood how those in the original Squidbeak Splatoon must have felt battling in the front lines of the Great Turf War.

I turned on my Wii U yesterday at 6:30pm fully believing the Wii U/3DS servers were shutting down at 7:00, I sat down to watch the final iteration of Inkopolis news, I heard Callie and Marie's final "stay fresh!", and was emotionally prepared for my 8-year Splatoon 1 career to end in a climactic blaze of glory, in which as soon as the clock hit 7:00 I would be struck down by an error message in the heat of an exciting battle.

So for that half hour, I played some of the most intense turf wars of my life. Every one of us in that 8 person lobby was playing like it was life-or-death and fighting for our final matches to be wins. And as I sat there, placing inkstrike after inkstrike on my Wii U gamepad which by this point had gathered so much dust over the years that you needed to press twice as hard for the touch screen to recognize you, I reminisced over how much the silly squid game has done for me, and how much has changed since I first played it.

Splatoon is many things to me. Its story mode was the first game that I completed on my own. It was the first game that I became invested in and followed along with in real time. It was the first game that gave me a sense of competitiveness, it was the first game that I can remember ever wanting to get better at. It was the first game I played that had a strong sense of community around it because of its ties to Miiverse (which I still mourn to this day fly high Miiverse you were gone too soon). Splatoon is without a doubt the franchise that I have invested the most hours into across each of its three games, and all because of how much fun I had with the first entry.

So of course I was sad to see it go. When I queued into a turf war match at 6:58 last night, I got ready to say goodbye. Turf wars only last 3 minutes so as soon as the match started, expecting it to be cut short, I started a squid party. In the middle of Moray Towers, 7 other inklings gathered around me, booyah-ing and super jumping to their heart's content, and in that moment the community that I remembered from 8 years ago had been revived and was back in full glory to celebrate the end of the game that had meant so much to all of us. What a way to go.

But then 7:00 passed and the match was still going. 7:01 the match ended and Judd the cat appeared to tell my team that despite our actions, we had covered the most turf and won the game. By 7:02 I had levelled up and was in the lobby waiting for another match to start. Weird. Maybe the servers actually shut down at 8:00 and I actually have another hour?

8:00 hits. 8:01 and I'm in another match.

This limbo of not knowing when the servers were going to give up goes on for another two hours. At this point I was very confused and slightly annoyed. As it turned, out I had until the map rotation changed at 10:00pm to bid farewell to Splatoon 1 and the Wii U and 3DS era as a whole. An ending that honestly feels right for a console generation such as this one.

The final hours of Splatoon 1 were ridiculously nostalgic and confusing, and I wouldn't have had it any other way.

Farewell, Splatoon 1

Stay fresh :)

For as much as I love the original Splatoon, I have to admit that I wear rose-tinted glasses when I play this game. Splatoon 2 improved a lot in terms of player experience, and Splatoon 3 was polished to a glowing sheen. But every IP needs to start somewhere, and that start was on the black sheep of a console: The Wii U.

I really wanted to pick up this game again before the servers went down, and I'm glad I did. It reminded me how ambitious this title was for Nintendo, and how it was one of their most unique IPs in a long time. It also reminded me of good memories almost 10 years ago (oH no I'm getting old ACK). To say I look back on this title fondly is an understatement, so I will try my hardest to be unbiased in this review.

Splatoon was Nintendo's family friendly take on the third person shooter genre. It was also their most ambitious online game yet. While previous titles only offered online connectivity as a fun leaderboard thing or as a side mode, Splatoon was one of Nintendo's first games to be primarily played online. The single player content took a backseat to the main draw of the game: 4v4 paintball battles.

It didn't initially start with the inklings we know and love, but it seems obvious in hindsight. Being able to hide in ground you've painted was an innovative concept, and the turf war game mode was a fresh twist on the genre instead of solely focusing on PKs. The strategy was very different to other shooters at the time, as sometimes you wanted to PK and other times you wanted to be frantically inking the ground before time ran out. Ranked mode switched it up when turf got boring, with Rainmaker, Tower Control, Splat Zones, and more!

Now, how well does it hold up today? Splatoon 1 has some signs of aging that are especially noticeable if you've put any time into its two sequels. Of course, its running on the Wii U, so the ink has less shine to it and some of the models are a little jagged, not to mention that online matches can drop frames more often than the switch entries. Lots of QOL features are missing, like being able to change gear between matches and seeing what weapons each team has at the top of the screen. And while Splatoon 3 uses largely the same physics as Splatoon 2, The original Splatoon's physics feel off. Aiming isn't as sensitive and movement can feel clunky at times (try swimming up a curved slope without bonking!) but it has its own charm to it in a way.

In contrast, using the gamepad for the map is a DREAM. Being able to see the map without obscuring your main view is fantastic, and touch controls for super-jumping is surprisingly intuitive. I wish I could use the gamepad for modern Splatoon games, seriously.

Finally, as far as actual content goes, it is much simpler than the switch entries, lacking weapon staples like the dualies and brellas. The specials in Splatoon 1 are crazy OP though, there are TWO specials that make you invincible. Not to mention bomb rush's incredible strength to turn the tide of battle! In many ways, I feel like the simple loadout offerings only add to the charm of the game. It plays a little slower, but more strategically as well, since your opponents can be more predictable.

Is it a good game to play in the current year? Well, no. I'm writing this the day that the Wii U and 3DS servers shut down, so playing it is kinda hard unless you want to use a server replacement like Pretendo. If you've played either of the sequels on switch, it's largely more of the same. Many people got into the franchise with Splatoon 2, and I don't think those people would enjoy the slower, clunkier nature of the original.

However, if you did play Spoon 1 all those years ago, when the switch was still known as project NX, then a few matches might be a fantastic way to spend an evening!

God, I'll miss this game...

Atmosphere and map design both are way better than future games. Game is horrendously unbalanced which is a mixed bag for me. Most specials are just used for invincibility which can make it feel like you're at a bigtime disadvantage if you want certain things that are otherwise normal to have in later entries. On the other hand it's really fun throwing a Disruptor at someone that can't see you and just mowing them down afterards. Ultimately a very fun time that I think is about on par with 3 for me.

it was an honor to serve alongside all of you 🫡

we truly are at the end of an era. as you probably know, the wii u and 3ds online service has officially ended. i’m proud of the time i’ve spent with this console, even if it wasn’t a fan favorite. i remember getting a free one from nintendo for my make-a-wish trip, packed in a zelda themed backpack. i remember my first experience playing pikmin 3 without the tv, and how cool i thought that was. i remember my first experience playing splatoon, and 3d world, and mario kart 8, and smash 4, and mario maker, and wind waker, and so many more. obviously these games aren’t unplayable now, but the online features will be missed

as for splatoon 1 itself, tons of fun. i used to be a certified splatoon hater, but this has completely changed my opinion on the game. i have to give the sequels a second chance. especially the dlc

anyways, time to homebrew my wii u