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Inkling Appreciation Thread

J'Wiz

Inkling Cadet
Joined
Sep 12, 2017
Messages
283
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JWiz
We have threads for octolings, but what about the treasure we already have? What about the adorable beings we have controlled since the first game? This thread is dedicated to them.

My initial interest in Splatoon was simply caused by my love for their design. They're not only really cute, but they're imaginative. There's a squid girl well before Splatoon came out, but she's too normal. Inklings have several appealing otherworldly features. Instead of confetti hair, Inklings have strangely appealing tentacle hair that you just want to play with. The spots, the roundness, the suction cups at the end, and the strange shininess to them. I love it all. The ears...pointy ears are always a plus. Inklings have those cute stumpy pointy ears. It's also nice knowing they will grow to have longer ears that droop depending on their mood. The teeth..THE TEETH! They're different than your generic vampire teeth, and Inklings don't show them off like vampires/cat people do. Instead, you get the wide, dopey open mouth smiles. The domino masks go surprisingly well, and any attempts to remove them just do not look right.

Let's not forget about the noises inklings make. I admit when I first heard the inklings "wamemi!", I tilted my head a bit. Though the more I hear it, the cuter it sounds. They seem to try making the noises cuter in Splatoon 2 than they did in the first game. More of them sound like actual words as well. From what I recall, males say "Spaghetti!", "Eat Fresh!", and "This way!". Females have "Let's go!", "Thank you!", and "Sugiyo!". What makes them even cuter is that they sound more like the inklings are imitating those words than really saying them. When I first heard the "sugiyo!" one, I misheard it as "suki yo!" (a show of affection), and my heart couldn't take it. I heard it when using a meal ticket. I saw it as an inkling looking up at Crusty Sean and saying "suki yo!" after eating his food. I smile almost every time I hear one of thier noises.

Whenever the game decides to stick you in a bunch of hopeless battles one after the other, just look at the inklings in the plaza. Watch one reading a book or just socializing. It's even more highly recommended at Splatfests. Just looking at those cute faces should cheer ya up.

Now gush away!

Some screencaps:

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J'Wiz

Inkling Cadet
Joined
Sep 12, 2017
Messages
283
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JWiz
I thought of some ideas that would enhance our Splatoon experience. They both revolve all around our inklings.

First one is choosing your inkling's personality. All inklings generally have the same personality. Males are generally calm and collected, while females are a mix of calm, arrogant, and emotive. Why not give inklings a little more individuality? The personality option should affect the inkling's general expression, idle animations, and win/loss animations. A few example personalities could be calm, arrogant, emotive, and clumsy. Emotive's win animations could be along the lines of the Splatling hug. Most of the animations are already on the lines of calm. An inkling do a arrogant chuckle when winning would be awesome. Clumsy's Slosher win animation could be Splatoon 1's Slosher loss animation!

Even though emotive would be adorable, I would probably choose calm for my Inkling.

The other idea would be Splatoon amie. I pitched this before as kind of a joke, and I don't expect this to ever surface, but I still hold hope for it. This would be something else to give some more personality to your inkling. To those of you who aren't familiar, I'm referencing Pokemon amie, where you could pet, feed, and play with your Pokemon. Except with this, your Inkling doesn't respond joyfully to just being randomly rubbed on the face. If you don't pet the top of their head normally, they either give you a weird look, or they swat away your cursor for a while. As for feeding, have an assortment of deep fried foods to give 'em. Maybe the arrogant personality will take the onion ring and eat it themselves. Speaking of personality, that will affect how your inkling responds. Another thing to affect your inkling will be win/lose rate in multiplayer. A lot of wins will show a more positive mood, while losses will show a more sulky/angry mood.

For what games to play with your inkling, why not something like Patty-cake or catch? Some one-on-one game that's commonly used to bond with a teenager/kid. Part of why I want an amie isn't just so I can pet my supercute inkling. It's also calming for when you've had a bad time in multiplayer. When starting amie after a losing streak, your inkling will be sad as well, so you can use amie to cheer each other up. He/she is going through the same thing you are!
 
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BashfulBetta

Inkster Jr.
Joined
Dec 27, 2017
Messages
22
Location
Inkopolis
the designs of the characters are very unique! especially crusty sean since he's one of my favorite characters in splatoon!

i also like the idea of squids having different personalities and how their animation can reflect on that


also, i've been playing games where your character will end up doing a special winning animation when they're with a specific character (the gif below isn't the game i was playing)

what if there was an animation for battling with your friends and your inkling would do this with their teammates? that would be inking cute!
 
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Mr. Squiggly Squid

Inkling Commander
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384
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Seashell Suburbs, North Inkopolis
what if there was an animation for battling with your friends and your inkling would do this with their teammates? that would be inking cute!
I had the same idea a while back, but the only animation I could come up with was for if their were two boy inklings and they won. One would give the other a noogie.
 

Slushious

Token Party Squid
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271
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Setsu-P
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I thought of some ideas that would enhance our Splatoon experience. They both revolve all around our inklings.

First one is choosing your inkling's personality. All inklings generally have the same personality. Males are generally calm and collected, while females are a mix of calm, arrogant, and emotive. Why not give inklings a little more individuality? The personality option should affect the inkling's general expression, idle animations, and win/loss animations. A few example personalities could be calm, arrogant, emotive, and clumsy. Emotive's win animations could be along the lines of the Splatling hug. Most of the animations are already on the lines of calm. An inkling do a arrogant chuckle when winning would be awesome. Clumsy's Slosher win animation could be Splatoon 1's Slosher loss animation!

Even though emotive would be adorable, I would probably choose calm for my Inkling.
Eh, the way I've always seen it, personality comes out in your playstyle. Splatoon has - to me, anyway - the attraction of being one of those games where they don't hand everything to the player. There's a huge canon to this game, and it's a ton of fun to mess around in. Watching the way players draw their Inklings in the plaza/square, on Tumblr, everywhere else...has been a ton of fun for the most part XD

Hell, I'm still jazzed that apparently, the way I've been drawing the teeth for the Octolings is actually canon. It seems like the dev team watches the fandom and takes notes, considering the way some of the new hairstyles look, etc. That's pretty awesome, tbh.




I'd totally be down to pet my squid.
 

Drew Sebastino

Inkling Cadet
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The boy inklings are the lords of cool. I love every single one of their hairstyles. Girl inklings are ok.
I prefer the girls for... reasons...



my character will end up probably having a sweet personality like hugging a weapon and waving at the camera with a big dopey smile on their face
I really miss all the old animations from Splatoon 1; they showed a lot more emotion. The shooter's loosing animation in particular was my favorite, like your character is absolutely devastated that you lost. (Which wasn't far from the truth in a high level ranked match...) Hopefully, the model format (and animation format) of Splatoon 2 are the same as the first, so I can just replace them all when the Switch is inevitably hacked and file replacement becomes possible, lol.
 

Goont

Inkling Cadet
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Dec 28, 2016
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188
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PrankingMaster
The inkling designs really make Splatoon stand out! I think every shooter with unlockable gear needs a cool character, it's much more rewarding to get some new fashionable clothing for your Inkling than say, army gloves for a Counter Strike avatar. The Inkling design is just so naturally appealing, both the male and female have large Disney-esque eyes and small pointy noses, and those big eyebrows and goofy teeth are so wonderfully goofy. It's no wonder Nintendo makes a killing on merch sales, the character design is just top notch and undeniably likeable. The fashion also makes the Inkling stand out. I can't think of any other shooter that has characters with a rockabilly-street-punk fashion style like the Inklings.
 

Elecmaw

Lord of the Squids
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Yeah sure, let's balance out my recent negativity with some positivity~!

I absolutely love these little cretins, Nintendo had a knack for designing positively adorable characters and the Inklings are not excerpt from this rule. They are cute, emotive, colorful, fashionable, got an attitude and have just that little hint of ugly to make them even more endearing. The way the designers played with the concept of a squid-humanoid is more inventive the more you look at it: it has ten limbs spread across it's body, instead of hair it has a colorful set of tentacles mounted on their scalp that opened so much more possibilities to go nuts with emulating hairstyles. There's also the black eye-masks, which might rival the long ponytail-like tentacles the girls have for my favorite part of the design. It's clear that the designers had a lot of fun making this character template, or at the least put an extensive amount of effort into it.

The designs iterated it's designs a lot throughout it's development cycle, starting from tofu blocks all the way to the weird creatures we have now. According to the developer's notes, several other ideas were thrown about what they could be, such as robots(could work?), macho men(Would be ****ing hilarious, but the game would tank like hell lol), just Mario characters again(not particularly inventive, but the idea of having an entire lobby of Waluigis cracks me up) then settled for a while on rabbits(They could burrow, which is what was like the earliest idea for a squid-form). While concept art exists of the rabbits forms, I'm just about the only one who can still tolerate them for some reason. They're cute in their own odd ways.

But to be honest, I'm also glad that finally a new first-party title from Nintendo that made it big. Despite what some wannabe critics have said, Nintendo never relied fully on just Mario and Zelda. They have tried multiple times in the past to make new IP's but they never took off, so seeing Splatoon finally make it big has been nothing short of celebration-worthy for both the fans and the company itself.
 
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Mr. Squiggly Squid

Inkling Commander
Joined
Oct 10, 2017
Messages
384
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Seashell Suburbs, North Inkopolis
I really miss all the old animations from Splatoon 1; they showed a lot more emotion. The shooter's loosing animation in particular was my favorite, like your character is absolutely devastated that you lost. (Which wasn't far from the truth in a high level ranked match...) Hopefully, the model format (and animation format) of Splatoon 2 are the same as the first, so I can just replace them all when the Switch is inevitably hacked and file replacement becomes possible, lol.
Eh, I kinda prefer the new ones to be honest. They give the inklings a more mature tone and they don’t seem like inkredibly sore losers anymore. I still miss hugging the splatling and when my inkling looked like a total boss when spinning the slosher on his finger. :p
 

BashfulBetta

Inkster Jr.
Joined
Dec 27, 2017
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22
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Inkopolis
@Drew Sebastino
(that's pretty gross...)
i bet that when the subscription comes for the switch, nintendo will implement more dlc and animation for splatoon 2
also, nintendo has this weird way of trying to combat piracy with using a micro sd card and how saved video game data cannot be transferable
it's stupid tbh
but using old model data will be cool to see one day
 
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Drew Sebastino

Inkling Cadet
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Espozo
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nintendo has this weird way of trying to combat piracy with using a micro sd card and how saved video game data cannot be transferable
it's stupid tbh
Well, the Wii has been hacked, and even the substantially less popular Wii U has been hacked, so I'd say it's only a matter of time before people hack the Switch. It's already been done actually, Nintendo just updated the firmware so the old exploit doesn't work. People modified the OS in RAM through the internet browser on the Wii U, (I'm pretty sure that's how it works; it's not permanent) but now that there isn't an internet browser, so I have no idea what they're doing. This will mean some people will run amok on public matches, but I think it's a necessary evil if it allows us to change the music in the game. In addition, you can get perfect gear without having to grind for a millennium, which should be good for anyone who is trying to play this game competitively at tournaments, wherever they are.

They have tried multiple times in the past to make new IP's but they never took off
Including their newest one, ARMS (lol).

Just give me a new F-Zero, dammit!

it has ten limbs spread across it's body
Well, they used to.



It's no wonder Nintendo makes a killing on merch sales
In Japan; something cool gets announced, and then you find out it's a Japanese exclusive. I got this cool shirt at least:



Of course, Splatoon in general and seemingly Splatoon 2 in particular are disproportionately more popular in Japan than in the US and especially elsewhere. It's apparently the first game in Japan to sell over two million copies there in eight years: http://twinfinite.net/2018/01/splatoon-2-is-japans-highest-selling-console-game-in-eight-years/ and is, unsurprisingly, constantly at the top of sales charts there.

You have to wonder what caused what; did Splatoon's exclusive merchandise and heavy advertisement over there fuel game sales, or vice versa? (I heard at least the first one was priced cheaper there as well.) It's like Microsoft and the Xbox in Japan; they don't do any advertising over there because they don't sell, which is probably in part due to no advertising. I was originally thinking that Splatoon 2's regional matchmaking was due to Nintendo misunderstanding what fans in the US, Europe, and Australia want, but I'm starting to believe the real reason is to appease the larger Japanese audience, as they then don't have to deal with the lag from international players and their lobbies still fill up quick.
 

Mr. Squiggly Squid

Inkling Commander
Joined
Oct 10, 2017
Messages
384
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Seashell Suburbs, North Inkopolis
One thing I’m still wishing for is for more gear with different appearances based on the gender of your squid. Take the Fishfry Biscut Bandana for example, the way it’s tied is completely different for boys and girls:

Another example is the School Cardigan (now that I’ve equipped it for my boi inkling, I don’t know if I’ll ever take if off lol. :p):


I’m really hoping for more gear like this, it makes the boys and girls feel more distinct!
 

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