Omg hiiii!!! It's me again~ :)
A bit late with the monthly Splatling appreciation post, but that's just how life be. Spring is a busy time of year for me.
But regardless of how much work the gods might dump on my shoulders, Splatlings remain the one thing in my mind at all times <3
I just love how great they feel. And I don't just mean in combat.
Oh yeah, Splatlings feel
great in combat, strong, reliable and all that jazz.
But what I'm talking about are their sounds, visual effects and animations. Those tiny little things that you might not notice in the heat of battle, but you would miss dearly if they were gone.
All Splatlings are animated in some way.
The most obvious animation is their barrels spinning while charging and shooting. They speed up and slow down as you might expect a charging weapon to.
Besides all that, the Splatlings also tremble a little while shooting. In fact, their fire even causes minute shaking to the
entire screen!
Really selling the
power behind their stream of bullets.
On top of that Ballpoint and Heavy Edit also have other extra bits of animation.
Heavy Edit has animations for its ink cartridges getting fed into the main body and the emptied shells getting discarded.
The animation even speeds up if the weapon is fully charged!
Awesome!
Ballpoint meanwhile has the most intricate animations of all the Splatlings.
Most people know about the clickers at the butt end of the Splatling moving as it changes firing modes. But something that is more easily missed is the way the rest of the Splatling moves.
Upon switching modes, three of the four barrels move back while the remaining barrel moves to stick out of the hole in the casing.
With how snappy the mode change is, I can't help but imagine how sophisticated the inner workings of BP must be to enable such a smooth transition.
Oh, what a mechanical marvel she must be~
shoutout to @DzNutsKong for helping me make this gif that had to be compressed to oblivion.
This footage is playing at 0.4x speed btw, it's way faster during regular gameplay.
I will
never get over this. It's
such a cool extra detail, one that most people would never see with how quickly it happens in-game.
Nevermind the fact that the person actually using the Ballpoint Splatling will only ever see the back of the weapon when the animation happens. Although you
can see the barrels snap back into place if you turn around fast enough, as the weapon does wait a second after firing before it reset's it's position.
But it's not just the animations that make the Splatlings feel so great.
Splatlings make great use of visual effects to bring clarity to their gameplay. All splatlings have a visual effect to indicate their charge level. Upon charging to the first ring, a single sharp, spinning pulse of light and force expands from the weapon. As if the power of their charge shook the very air around it!
And naturally when a Splatling becomes fully charged, becomes as
powerful as it can be, the air trembles
even more at the promise of death and destruction!!!
Raaaaahhhh!!!!
And, and! Holding a full charge has the Splatling
conjuring a constant tornado around it's nozzles!
What other weapon class strikes such
fear in the elements?! No Charger nor Splatana can make the
very building blocks of the World feel such dread!
No! Only Splatlings!!!
Looking at Ballpoint again, it has lights that not only match the user's ink colour but also indicate which mode it's on.
If the light on it's butt is a large ring, it is in its short-range spread mode. If the light is instead a small circle, the Ballpoint is busy sniping some fools.
Technically this is probably not a full-on VFX, but most likely just a change in the Ballpoint's emission map or perhaps opacity map. But if we're taking the word "visual effect" literally, then it counts!
And it's not just visually that Splatlings tickle my brain and soon yours.
I know you Blaster players will agree with me on this, but sound design contributes greatly to the feel of a weapon. Getting a direct with a Blaster or hitting all shots in a single burst of a Nozzlenose wouldn't feel nearly as good without those crunchy sound effects.
But where those weapons only give you that brain-tickling sound every now and then, the Splatlings are crunchy at a nice constant rate. And it's different flavours of crunchy too!
Each Splatling sounds distinct from one another!
Of course some are more similar than others. But if you blindfolded me and asked me to name a Splatling based only on their sound, I'd be able to do it 100% of the time. I'd be able to do it even in my sleep! And that's because the sounds of the Splatlings so perfectly describe the type of weapon that they are.
Heavy and Mini both sound plastic-y and hollow, fitting their more toy-like appearance. Also they're both just made of plastic, so y'know. These two sound the most similar to one another, but Mini differentiates itself by having a distinct rattling sound when fully charged. Adds a hint of childish whimsy to the weapon. Which is very fitting since Mini is in many ways a smaller version of Heavy. The juvenile Heavy.
In fact the sound really reminds me of those handheld spinning rattles. So not only does the sound fit the more diminutive nature of Mini, but rattles makes a spinning motion like Mini!
Layers!!!
I bet the Mini actually has one of these inside of it.
Ballpoint and Heavy Edit have more mechanical undertones. Hinting at their comparatively more complex mechanics. Of course the weapons with two modes would have more clicks and clacks to their whirrs!
And while this isn't unique to Edit, I'd like to mention the buildup that its charging sounds have. Edit starts its charge by making low
whirring sounds that gradually speed up. Upon reaching its first ring of charge, the pitch of the sound rises drastically and then rises even more upon completing the charge. Once the charge is completed, Edit sounds distinctly more rattle-y as well.
All Splatling charging sounds start out low, increasing in pitch and speed as they go, but this is most noticeable with Edit and Hydra due to their longer charge times.
But speaking of the Hydra Splatling, it and Nautilus are the most unique sounding Splatlings in my opinion.
They are the only mostly metallic Splatlings and their sounds match the more ferrous material.
And yet, the two weapons could not sound more different if they tried.
The Hydra Splatling, my love, my most beloved, sounds like the engine of a motor vehicle. While fully charged, Hydra's engine
roars with the promise of carnage! Compared to it's siblings, Hydra's "voice" feels deeper. It's generally not as high-pitched as the others, even when fully charged. Very fitting for the heavyweight of the Splatling class.
The Nautilus meanwhile is a middleweight weapon, but you would not be able to deduce that based purely on the way it sounds. Nautilus sounds distinctly hollow and airy while charging. Like it's made out of a bunch of metal sheets glued together, rather than a solid sturdy chunk of metal. A strange decision in sound design if not for the Nautilus's uniqueness within the class.
The Nautilus sounds light, it sounds weird and that's perfect.
The Nautilus is a weird weapon! It can shmoove across the stage like no other Splatling can, it deserves to sound a little weird!
If I had to pick my favorite Splatling based on all these little effects, well it would still be Hydra because I'm biased.
The sound of it charging makes my spine tingle nicely. I think that's what asmr is supposed to do, but unlike that, Hydra actually succeeds!
My personal bias aside, my other pick would be the Mini Splatling. I find it's rattle sounds rather pleasant :)
