resident derby guy criticizes roller skates in splatoon

[sevenleaf]

hi. i know of three times off the top of my head where roller skates were featured in splatoon, whether in the games themselves or in supplementary media. im going to go through them and explain why you should or should not play roller derby in them

i'm going to start from the bottom: the unused skates in splatoon 2.

these are a disgrace.

the only redeeming quality they have is that the boot* is flat (i'll get to that later) but - this is literally just a regular sneaker, a flimsy-looking one at that, with a quad skate's plate** attached to the sole. if you fall once on these - and you WILL fall, no matter how good of a skater you are, if you play roller derby, the first thing you learn is how to fall safely for a reason - those boots are getting SHREDDED. you don't even have to fall - if you try to do a dragging toe stop, which is one of the first stops i was taught as a rookie skater, those boots are GONE. awful. terrible. an affront to roller skaters of all persuasions. like, don't even take these to your local family fun roller rink's open skate night to skate in circles. i am glad these are unobtainable because oh my god the more i think about them the worse they get

(i've researched a bit and these kinds of attachments to street shoes do exist... and i think deep down i knew that. i guess i can see it working with a heavier street shoe for casual skating, but still... don't play roller derby that way.)

*the shoe part of a roller skate is called the boot, even if it feels very silly to call these 'boots'. see a 'roller skate anatomy' guide, like this one, for a visual
**the plate is the long piece directly underneath the boot where every other part of the skate connects to

moving on, we've got the trevally derby rollers, grizzco gear from splat3:

the bar is so low man. if i was rating these numerically instead of just yapping, these would get points for not being a pair of literal flimsy sneakers with skate plates superglued to the soles. it's actually interesting that the english localized name for these refers to roller derby, both because neither the original jp name nor any of the other localizations do, and because... these are so extremely unsuitable for derby.

the ski attachment is interesting - i've done a little bit of research (quick googling) and i can't find anything like it, but maybe i'm not searching hard enough. i've found plenty of wheel covers, but nothing quite like this. honestly this kind of looks... hard/uncomfortable to walk in? but taking off that attachment, for skating and playing derby in them, the most glaring problems are the lack of a toe stop, how low the boot is, and the fact that the boot is a slip-on shoe.

1. toe stops are important for any kind of skating - while they're not always the best way to stop, you NEED some sort of stop on any pair of skates for simple safety. not only that, you need toe stops for a number of derby skills - stops, obviously, but there's plenty of times when you'll want to be moving on your toe stops. blockers might move laterally on their toe stops, jammers trying to get past the pack might end up running on their toe stops, etc etc. i can kinda see the piece where the ski attachment connects in front doubling as a piece to attach a toe stop to, but there isn't a lot of room for that... speaking of;
2. the boot is way too low to do much of anything. this makes sense for a splatoon shoe gear option because proper roller skates add quite a bit of height to the player, which isn't great for gameplay, but causes a LOT of problems when imagining this as a proper roller skate - especially for roller derby. first, as stated, there's hardly any space for a toe stop. second, the wheels appear directly attached to the side of the boot, which means the trucks*** can't be too adjustable - in fact, side views of the gear don't show accessible trucks at all. many derby players like to loosen their trucks to make their skates more flexible and make certain maneuvers, like slaloms, easier. i started learning derby skills on our rink's rental skates, which had tight trucks we weren't allowed to adjust, before i got my own, and slaloms were basically impossible to get right on those skates. third, you need to be able to shift your weight while keeping all four wheels on the ground in order to direct yourself and either build or stop momentum, and these skates don't give me confidence that i'd be able to do that
3. i've heard of dance skaters doing crazy tricks where they leap out of their skates and then land back in them, but most of the time - i can confidently say this applies to skating in general, but oh boy does it apply to derby - you want your skates to STAY on your feet. in fact, properly fitted skates will be tighter than your street shoes. you want laces. you probably want a velcro strap on top of your laces. a slip-on boot is also a slip-off boot, and you'd best hope they don't slip off as you slam directly into the pack.

wow i didn't realize how bad these were until i was typing this post. uh, don't get your skating gear from grizzco.

***trucks are the pieces that the wheels are attached to - a single skate will have two, with two wheels per truck

alright the last one i'm gonna talk about are the skates this octoling from the splat3 art book has on:

finally, a normal, believable roller skate. these boots look like they can survive falls, that's a proper plate that looks to have all the necessary parts attached, and the skates look securely laced to this octoling's feet. i have no complaints here... but you still can't play derby in these, because of the heel. we like flat-footed boots; you almost always want to be skating in a low stance when playing derby or practicing derby skills, essentially squatting on wheels, and heels make it hard to get as low as you need to be.

that being said! these are perfectly fine for casual or dance skating. in fact, the high-top of these boots, according to quick research i did just now, is preferred by dance skaters for the extra ankle support (while derby prefers a lower top for ankle mobility). while i like seeing derby skates represented the bar is so low that i'm just glad to see ANY accurate skates. this piece of artbook art is proof that roller skating survived the apocalypse. i'm sure splatsville roller derby exists too.

alright that's all i got. if i missed an instance of roller skates in sploon, show me and i'll analyze it. if i said something totally incomprehensible to people who don't play roller derby feel free to ask for clarification. uhhhh. support your local roller derby

 

[vamp1rebees]

i mean at least inkfish don't have bones to break in these things........ but can you imagine playing turf war in grizzco skates and just completely failing bc you can't even properly stop without falling flat on your face

 

[sevenleaf]

i mean at least inkfish don't have bones to break in these things........ but can you imagine playing turf war in grizzco skates and just completely failing bc you can't even properly stop without falling flat on your face

you bring up a good point about bones! maybe all kinds of skating look a little different for inkfish. i do feel like hard impacts that would break a human’s bones might still mess up an inkfish’s… cartilage/pressurized ink pseudo-bones/[insert specbio headcanon of your choice], though, at least temporarily. there’s no fall damage in splatoon but i think that’s just a gameplay thing, not a canon attribute inkfish have

also yeah, assuming you can even pick up speed in those things you’d basically need to crash into a wall to stop yourself, which wouldn’t be great on a map like, for example, mahi there are ways to stop yourself without toe stops, but they require shifting your weight in ways that, like i said, i don’t trust someone could do effectively in the grizzco skates

 

[vamp1rebees]

you bring up a good point about bones! maybe all kinds of skating look a little different for inkfish. i do feel like hard impacts that would break a human’s bones might still mess up an inkfish’s… cartilage/pressurized ink pseudo-bones/[insert specbio headcanon of your choice], though, at least temporarily. there’s no fall damage in splatoon but i think that’s just a gameplay thing, not a canon attribute inkfish have

also yeah, assuming you can even pick up speed in those things you’d basically need to crash into a wall to stop yourself, which wouldn’t be great on a map like, for example, mahi there are ways to stop yourself without toe stops, but they require shifting your weight in ways that, like i said, i don’t trust someone could do effectively in the grizzco skates

the only way i could see realistic uses for the grizzco skates would be like.... having big roller or something to stop your momentum with.......... somehow. they will probably destroy the wearer regardless
thank you mr grizz for another inkfish rights violation<3

 

[OCTöHEAD]

yes! I don't know roller derby but it still makes me so uneasy to see skates that just doesn't make sense. glad to see you put it into words like this. I feels like I got something out of them being a thing atleast haha