#I have splatoon 3 and all the theories about the dlc are making me want to know more about the lore of the other games

[calista-222]

ok brb gonna play Splatoon 1's story mode for the first time <- has the game but barely played it

#my art #splatoon #splatoon 3 #side order #splatoon 3 dlc #splatoon 3 side order #agent 8 #maybe?? #I have splatoon 3 and all the theories about the dlc are making me want to know more about the lore of the other games #good thing I already have the first game #I'm not sure if it would be worth it to buy splatoon 2 just to play the story mode though #anyways I'm excited for the dlc!! #It probably won't be cheap but one can dream....

[sideordertheories]

i HATE to insinuate that marina might be the villain of side order but like,,, i dunno guys...

ok so in this one developer interview (which was translated by rassicas) that i'll link at the end of this post something was mentioned about marina that was very interesting to me.

i'm not fully sure what this implies, but it shows that marina has the ability to go to a 'mysterious place' through 'mysterious connections' which when i saw this for the first time a while ago it immediately reminded me of side order. i know this is a direction that some people would hate for the dlc to go in,, but i really do think marina is in some way a villain. or at least her actions lead to something bad happening.

in the marina + marie + big man interview that comes with Splatune 3 (i'll link the wiki page at the end), marina says this:

which. is really. weird?

first of all, pearl & marina had an argument?? pearl LEFT HER??? & marina couldn't get in touch with her?? damn that sucks? why did pearl do that. like actually thats so sad to me cuz. isnt that what marina is terrified of? & now she just laughed it off? i imagine that maybe this put marina into maybe a bad mental state because it would do the same to me tbh. & then marina starts talking about a world of order beyond our comprehension?? marina what are you talking about !!!!

at the very least, all of this is foreshadowing. but its just stated by her in a way that makes me think she doesn't just THINK that there is another world, but that she knows there is. she's been shown to have "mysterious connections" to a "mysterious place", she speaks of a world of order (the dlc is called side ORDER & has basically been confirmed to have something to do with team order iirc) , she wants to construct a new frontier with the power of art? i think it's also worth mentioning she once said something about designing her perfect world in the final splatfest from splatoon 2

why would marina be evil? i actually don't know. but she for sure has SOMETHING to do with the inkopolis square seen in the trailer for side order. also the whole reason she chose order was because she didn't want pearl to leave her, because they might fall apart, because pearl might get bored of off the hook. guess what happened!!! she did get bored. they did fall apart, even if just for a while. & while its never said how marina felt about this, i don't think it could've been good. i think she thought that if they were falling apart, maybe the world would too. maybe she thought she could design her world of order, & if she did that, everything would be fine, pearl wouldn't leave her again. maybe the world she designed is the white inkopolis square. maybe in her pain she was also manipulated by a much worse villain (i'm really hoping its not tartar. i would prefer lil judd seeing as if he isnt the villain the whole thing of him taking over grizzco & wanting to kill judd would be unresolved.) but marina is definitely morally grey in this dlc at best & the more i think about it, marina being the villain would be kinda cool? also i could be fully wrong & marina isnt evil she just thinks a world of order would be interesting but i like the villain marina theory

sorry if this is less organized & more rambly i am throwing my thoughts out into the void without polishing them

links:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RBzlMSuG_vWv1isjQ6EJdXBp_uXTpogEc2rrGd2BM30/mobilebasic

#side order #splatoon #splatoon 3 #splatoon side order #splatoon 3 dlc #sideordertheories

[cru5h-cascades]

Splatoon 3 SIde Order Theory #2: It Was Lil' Judd All Along (Lil' Judd as the villian of the DLC)

Hey everyone! After seeing how well my first theory did (at least to my standards. I got a pretty small tumblr goin' on here, so any attention I get means a lot to me!), I decided to make another! In my first theory, I sort of teased what my next theory will be about, and now here we are! Anyways, let's just get into it already.

Even though there's already a bunch of damnning evidence that Lil' Judd might end up being the big bad in the DLC (getting the headpiece he wears after you beat hero mode, Lil' Judd's dialoge in Tableturf Battle, the note you get in the sunken scrolls, ect.), but I feel like the teaser for Side Order might have some sort of signs pointing to Lil' Judd being to blame for Inkopolis Square's downfall.

First, I want y'all to take a look at the mystery octoling (we dunno if she's Agent 8 or not... yet) standing in the square. Check out the color scheme going on (black, white, gray, and dark brown).

I dunno about you, but this scene in the teaser for Side Order kind of remind me of the Judds. These lil' guys are also black, white, and gray. I know I might be jumping to conclusions right now, but hear me out. So when the trailer for Splatoon 3's hero mode came out in September 2021, we were introduced to Alterna and the fuzzy ooze. The fuzzy ooze had hints of brown fur on it, just like a grizzly bear. As many of us know, people were throwing theories left and right about who the villian of the main game was gonna be, and many of us thought that it was gnna be Mr. Grizz, which ended up being true (however I felt like the reverse Grizzco laugh at the end of the trailer was a dead giveaway. I've played way too much Splatoon to not know how the Grizzco laugh sounds.). What if this is the direction the Splatoon devs are going again? Forshadowing the events of the game with some minor enviormental details?

Also, throughout the teaser, we see a bunch of freaky af imagery, one of which peaking my interest just a bit. The white brain thing that forms in the vid. I know I've already said that the brain formation pic might've hinted at zombie fungus being the reason why the Square is like this (see my first theory if you wanna know what I mean), but I feel like this could also point towards Lil' Judd being the villian of Side Order. You see, Lil' Judd's a clone of Judd. The brain that forms in the teaser is gray and white, like Lil' Judd. Maybe this is a small hint towards cloning being a major theme in the DLC. Speaking of which, we also get a pic of the mystery octoling with clones of herself following her. These clones are also gray and white.

Also, why would someone target the Square to begin with (Not counting Tartar. I don't really think they'd bring Tartar back, but if they did, I'd think it'd just be in a flashback to the Deepsea Metro, whatever that may look like or be about.)? Lil' Judd was first introduced in Splatoon 2 and we first learned about Lil' Judd's hate for Judd in 2. What if Lil' Judd finally broke and wanted to try to wipe out Judd's legacy, starting with were Lil' Judd and Judd first met? Maybe destroying the Square is just phase 1 of Lil' Judd's plan? Maybe this is all just in preperation to kill Judd (as that one note Lil' Judd wrote in the sunken scrolls implies)?

With that being said, who do you guys think will be the big bad in the DLC? Do you guys think it's Lil' Judd or someone else? I'll most likely make more theories if any come to mind or if we get another trailer for SIde Order, so look out for those and remember to staaay fresh!

#splatoon #splatoon 3 #splatoon 3 dlc #splatoon side order #splatoon theory #theory #rb > likes #lil judd

[superjumpintomyheart]

Spoilers ahead!

YA GIRL JUST FINISHED THE OCTO EXPANSION AND I AM SO S H O O K

First off, I want to appreciate the cutscenes??? They were so good and they looked amazing, I was so so happy we actually got to see Pearl and Marina interacting with everyone and with each other that’s all I could have wanted. This whole expansion is just pearlina confirmed nobody can convince me otherwise lmao. The end scene where Marina tackle hugs Pearl and Agent 8 smiles at Agent 3 after they wake up is the reason I am alive, this whole thing is paradise for shippers (Even though the females are what I play as and what I head canon the agents to be I’ll use neutral pronouns for my male cephalopod friends out there)

THAT LEADS ME INTO MY NEXT TOPIC, we finally have backstories on off the hook! Like a lot of backstory on Marina specifically, from age six to sixteen, I love that they made her Japanese in game name her last name in the English version (does that mean Pearl’s last name is Hime?? @ Nintendo where’s my pearl backstory) and that she accomplished so many things like she was an e l i t e octoling but then the Squid Sisters perform and bam time to go AWOL. Also that amazing demo of Ebb and Flow is absolutely heavenly. A lot of theories I had were completely true like I’m pretty sure everyone knew about calamari inkantation setting the octolings free but hey now it’s actually what happened. I love Cap’n Cuttlefish and his ongoing joke of “Any fan of the inkantation is no foe of mine” he just loves his grandsquids so much he’s such a proud grandpa that their music is literally changing peoples lives.

This also clears up a lot of stuff about nobody caring that Marina is an octoling just chilling in Inkopolis, because the octo expansion is set during the time of the single player campaign of splatoon 2 so like the octolings are all finding their way up to the surface right as Off the Hook is becoming popular. Makes sense, smart move.

The chat logs were probably my favorite things in the game, and I did complete every level so I got the special bonus chat with Agent 2, which made me smile a lot. I love the pictures that Pearl and Marina sent in the chat!! Pearl always looks like a badass because she is one, and Marina and her adorable sleepy face I actually screamed a little when I saw them? The group selfie with all the idols was really cute too (speaking of selfies I LOVE THAT EIGHT TAKES A SELFIE WHEN THEY GET ONE OF THE THANGS WHY CANT I SEE THOSE SELFIES PLEASE). The mem cakes were really nice to collect and getting the full sets then talking to Iso Padre made my heart hurt a little bit, he would always talk about following your dreams and never to loose sight of them and I love him so much he’s the purest I wish we could take him up to the surface too??

Okay but like the battle with Agent 3 was suuuper trippy for me, since I’m a veteran of this game... I was fighting myself? How many identities do I have now? Im like three different agents all at once how does this happen. But I did love that battle, it was a bit surprising but I had seen people theorizing about it so it wasn’t too much of a shock. However, the phone being the final final boss was interesting, I kinda thought it was going to be C.Q because he was annoying as fuck through the whole time you were playing, seeing his text box say “You failed the test” was as frustrating as seeing Mr. Grizz’s textbox saying “Just 93 eggs? That’s a shame.” The cutscene when Three broke in to save Eight and Cap was beautiful and I loved it, perfection.

And now for some of my favorite (slightly incorrectly quoted) moments from this dlc

“Marina how do I make the chat full screen?” “Alt+F4” “Mc.princess has left the chat” “I can’t believe that worked.”

“♪”

“You were singing and then saw me and you were like ‘LETS START A BAND!’” “The first song you showed me was fire so I had to say yes”

“Wow this munchkin can rap!”

“You can... uh... be the hype man.”

Pearl whipping out a killer wail speaker and yelling booyah to save Inkopolis

Pearl calling Cap’n Cuttlefish ‘Cap’ and Agent 8 ‘Eight’

Marina’s poorly drawn MS paint diagram of how to save the world

“Mode: Turf War! Save Inkopolis from its impending doom!”

All the new Off the Hook songs

“This is from when we first met. Back in the day.” “Like yo! Wake up sleepyhead!”

“You were humming Calamari Inkantation while you were out, and any fan of the inkantation is a friend of mine.”

Every cutscene, every single one.

If you’ve played the octo expansion what did you think? Also how many of you guys are staying inkling? I personally am going octoling, I love the design so much and I love the wave that you get from Marina and Pearl when you’re an octoling! It’s so sassy and personal like I feel more like a friend to them than just a fan :,) This expansion is everything I could have wanted and more, it’s exactly what Splatoon 2 needed to step up its game from feeling too much like the first one.

Look forward to some octo expansion related fics coming soon! I’m tweaking the one I told y’all about last week, now that we actually know Marina’s backstory I can make her dreams more accurate to canon I suppose. Thanks for reading this long ass post if you did, I’ll see you around!

#splatoon 2 #spla2n #octo expansion #octo expansion spoilers #spoilers #pearlina #agent 8 x Agent 3 #im pretty sure their ship name is #agent 24

[tininsteelian]

My Game Of The Year Top 10 List Thing, I Guess

Is this what you’re supposed to use Tumblr for? I have no idea. Anyways, here’s My Game Of The Year Top 10 List Thing, I Guess!

This list only includes games I’ve actually played that came out in 2017. I haven’t played all of the big-name games that came out this year, so here’s a list of every new game I played this year that isn’t objectively shovelware:

Android: Fire Emblem Heroes, OK Golf, Monogolf, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp

Nintendo Switch: Fast RMX, Infinite Minigolf, Kamiko, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Namco Museum, Picross S, Puyo Puyo Tetris, Snipperclips, Sonic Mania, Splatoon 2, Super Mario Odyssey, Super Ping Pong Trick Shot, Vroom in the Night Sky

PC: 100ft Robot Golf, Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy, Golf It!, Guts and Glory, Jackbox Party Pack 4, Pictopix, PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS, Project Cars 2, Tacopocalypse

Xbox One: Forza Motorsport 7

I bought a few more decent games that came out this year, but I haven’t gotten around to playing them yet, so they’re not included in the above list. I also bought a lot of old games and shovelware this year; you can check out my Backloggery here for proof. Anyway, here’s the list:

#10: 100ft Robot Golf

One of the best concepts for a game ever made. The game itself is pretty good, too. I might personally prefer the live-action cutscenes from No Goblin’s previous game Roundabout, but the anime cutscenes are also cool. My favorite mode is the one where you control four robots at the same time, trying to hit four golf balls into the same hole in a given time limit. I also really like the mech that’s controlled by five dogs, they’re good dogs.

Technically this game first came out last year, but it didn’t come to the PC until February of this year, which is when I was first able to play it.

#9: Sonic Mania

I have a couple of controversial opinions related to the Sonic series. I think that Sonic Adventure 1 is the best 3D Sonic game ever made, and I also think that Sonic Generations isn’t any better than Sonic 06. But I don’t think it’s controversial to say that Sonic Mania is a great game. The first playthrough is kind of annoying because you can’t go back and do old zones again until you beat the game. Also, you go back to the beginning of the zone, not the level, when you get a game over. And most of the deaths I had felt cheap in one way or another. But it was fun! Unlike almost every other Sonic game ever made, all of the stages are designed with going fast in mind, even the final few stages. There are definitely slow-paced platforming segments, but there aren’t very many instances where trying to go fast will hurt or kill you, so you can hold right and enjoy the great graphics and scenery flying by. I also really enjoyed the new-to-Mania zones, more than the old zones, in fact. The music in these zones in particular is fantastic, although it’s great in pretty much every level in the game.

#8: Picross S

It’s Picross, on the Switch! What more could you want? Well, a few more puzzles would be nice. There are 150 puzzles, but none of them are larger than 20x15 pixels, so I got through all of them fairly quickly. There’s also a Mega Picross mode, which is the same 150 puzzles, but sometimes the numbers of two adjacent rows or columns are combined. It’s kind of dumb. I also wish you could draw pixels on the touch screen, but the pixels do get pretty small in the bigger puzzles. Hopefully we’ll see a Picross S2, Picross S3, Picross S4, Picross S5, Picross S6, etc. in the coming months and years.

#7: Forza Motorsport 7

I have a LOT of complaints about this game.

The single player campaign sucks. I haven’t played a mainline Forza Motorsport game since 4, as I didn’t get an Xbox One until recently. Therefore, I don’t know what the campaigns were like in 5 and 6, but apparently 7 was supposed to make the campaign races feel like an actual racing series, with more realistic points distributions and all that. Great in theory, but the execution is terrible. In real racing, even the best drivers lose more than half of their races. In order to beat a series in Forza 7, you have to win every race in the series. Forza Horizon 3 did it right by not requiring you to win every race; you could finish last in every race in a championship, and you’d still beat the championship. Credits rewards are tied to the difficulty of the AI, so you want to turn it up to get more money, but then you’re more likely to lose races, which makes you want to turn the difficulty down or compensate by using a bunch of assists, like the stupid one that makes you drive as fast on the grass as on the road. There’s also no qualifying, so everybody starts in the same position every race, and the AI tends to finish in the same position every race as well. You also have to finish every race in a series before moving to the next series, which is annoying. So basically, every mechanic in single player is designed against having fun. Great!

Then there’s the progression. It’s slow, to say the least. There was controversy surrounding the VIP credits bonus, as it initially only gave you a few temporary cards that doubled your credits. However, it was updated to double your credits after every race, so that’s good. It still feels like you don’t gain credits fast enough to be able to buy and upgrade as many cars as you want, and that’s after I abused a glitch that allowed you to get infinite rewards (which has since been patched).

The game is also crash-prone, to the point of being almost unplayable on PC. The PC version has a memory leak which crashes the game after a few minutes if you look at your garage or upgrade your car. The Xbox version is more stable, but it’s still crashed a couple of times for me.

You’d think all of these criticisms would push the game off the top ten, right? But here’s the thing: multiplayer is super fun. Sure, it takes about ten minutes to get into your first race, because you always end up in a lobby where the race has just started. And sure, half the races end up in disaster because the guy behind you crashed into you at full speed at the first corner, but when you get near the front of the pack and have a good race with some other drivers, it’s a blast. I tried ghost racing for the first time the other day, and it led to surprisingly close and fun racing.

So yeah, Forza 7 is a pretty fun game, as long as you only play multiplayer.

#6: Monogolf

Decent mobile games are hard to come by these days. For a while, my go-to phone game was True Skate, but then it stopped working on my phone. Thanks, Huawei! Before that, I played Desert Golfing, but it got a bit boring after 3,000 holes. I saw Monogolf in the Google Play Store recently, thought it looked cool, and downloaded it. Now it’s my new go-to game.

Like many phone-based golf games (believe me, I’ve played a lot), you simply drag on the screen to point where you want the ball to go, and how fast it should go. The catch is that you have to get a hole-in-one on each hole. If you don’t, you lose a life. Beat as many holes as possible until you run out of lives. It’s super fun to try and beat your record, and you often do, as you’re constantly unlocking new lives. You also unlock extra level packs for reaching certain milestones.

The game’s art style is also really cool. A lot of mobile games go for the modern look, but it ends up looking cheap. Monogolf’s graphics don’t, helped by the variety of vivid colors and textures on the holes.

As far as in-app purchases are concerned, you can pay about $4.50 to unlock everything, including all of the pieces for course creation and the maximum number of lives, but everything can also be unlocked through normal playing.

I said a lot about Monogolf. The top five games are all Switch games, that wasn’t intentional, sorry.

#5: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Tin, why is this game not number one?

Because I liked the four games above this one better. That’s not to say Breath of the Wild isn’t a great game, because it is. And it deserves the overwhelming praise it’s gotten, too. I’ve just never been a huge fan of RPG or adventure games. Having never played more than a few hours of a Zelda game before, I expected to only play the game for a few hours just because using the Switch was a novelty at the time. However, I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected. Running around the vast open world is fun, as are the shrines. Somehow, I managed to defeat a Divine Beast before finding a single korok seed, so now there’s a korok seed permanently in the middle of my Divine Beast orbs in my inventory. I really need to go back and beat the two Divine Beasts I didn’t get so I can try out the DLC, because that skeleton bike looks super cool.

#4: Mario Kart 8 Deluxe

So this is just an updated version of Mario Kart 8, which came out three years ago. Some might say that makes it ineligible for 2017 awards, but I don’t care.

Deluxe adds several new gameplay mechanics, new characters and karts, and an updated Battle Mode. The addition of a second item box makes for an even more hectic experience than Not_Deluxe, and also adds a bit of an extra layer of strategy. Should you go for the double item box, or will someone else snatch it up, leaving you with no items? The triple boost is also nice. Deluxe adds the Inklings from Splatoon as playable characters, which automatically makes the game twice as good (this is a scientifically provable fact). The Battle Mode is also really good, although I haven’t played it that much, because regular racing is so great. Given how all of this was added on to an already-great game, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is probably the best game in the series, and arguably the best racing game this generation (the other major contender being Forza Horizon 3).

#3: Puyo Puyo Tetris

Yes, I know this came out years ago. I imported a Vita copy back in 2015 for my PSTV that I never use. However, I’m including it in this list because it didn’t receive an English release until this year, which means that I can actually read the menus and story.

It turns out that combining two of the best puzzle games ever made creates another great puzzle game. Who would have thought? The story mode is great fun, and the story itself is surprisingly enjoyable, particularly the part where Schezo makes a bunch of innuendos. As far as the main modes go, Swap mode is objectively the best mode, as both players play both Puyo Puyo and Tetris, and do so on an even playing field. Versus mode is the next best, particularly when both players are playing the same game. Puyo vs. Tetris matches can be a bit lopsided, due to the two games having different garbage rules. Big Bang mode is alright too, particularly the Puyo version. You should avoid the Party and Fusion modes though, they’re bad.

Playing online is super fun, although most people play Tetris, unsurprisingly. Playing against someone at a similar skill level results in super tense and exciting matches, often with both players scrambling to clear enough garbage to be able to make a decent combo again. Lopsided matches do happen pretty often, though. Fortunately, you can disable matches in modes you don’t like, even in ranked mode. I usually just play Swap and Versus, although I’ll sometimes play Big Bang as well.

#2: Super Mario Odyssey

While a lot of games recently have focused on huge, expansive worlds, with various places to do things, Odyssey instead has relatively small levels with things to do EVERYWHERE. There are essentially as many moons in this game as there are korok seeds in Breath of the Wild, which means that moons are probably 50 feet apart from each other on average. There’s always something new to do that won’t take more than a couple of minutes when you go back to a particular level (unless you’ve gotten all the moons on that level, of course, but even then you might have to go back for a thing or two…). Some people have said that it feels like busy work to get all of the moons, and it is to some extent, but I found it wasn’t that difficult to get most of, if not all the moons in a level in a few-hour session or two.

New Donk City is one of my favorite levels in any video game, ever. The music, atmosphere, and level design are all so fantastic that I had fun for hours just messing around, jumping through the city and up to the top of buildings. It’s definitely the standout level of the game IMO.

Mario has probably the best movement I’ve ever felt in any video game. There are so many different things he can do that I feel like I still haven’t learned all of his abilities, even though I’ve 100%ed the game. The jump -> throw cap -> dive to cap -> jump off cap -> throw cap again -> dive to cap again mechanic is super fun to perform, and not as complicated as it sounds. It takes a couple of tries to get used to, but it’s very intuitive once you get used to it.

The capture ability is also amazing. It surprisingly doesn’t feel gimmicky at all, as each of the objects you can capture let you do the things you’d want to do in a given level. Cheep-Cheeps can let you swim more quickly, Goombas let you walk on ice without slipping around, posts let you spring up the sides of buildings, and so on. My favorite object to capture is probably the pokey thing in Bowser’s Castle that I don’t remember the name of that lets you snap to and spring up walls, although it’s also one of the more finnicky objects to use.

Overall, SMO is probably the best platformer I’ve ever played, and I thoroughly enjoyed 100 percenting it. It would be my game of the year, except I happened to like one game even more. Can you guess what it is?

#1: Splatoon 2

You probably guessed what it was.

Splatoon 2 is the only game from this year that I played for more than 100 hours. For comparison, I played one game for more than 100 hours in 2016, Forza Horizon 3, and three games for more than 100 hours in 2015: Super Mario Maker, Rocket League, and Splatoon. Super Mario Maker and Rocket League are probably two of my top ten games of all time, and Forza Horizon 3 isn’t far behind. Splatoon would also be one of my top ten favorite games, if it wasn’t for the fact that Splatoon 2 is objectively so much better.

If you’ve never played Splatoon, the goal is basically to paint the floor with more ink than the other team (also you should play it right now). It sounds silly, but it’s super fun. The ranked modes are also great, and your rank is now broken up per mode, instead of all the modes contributing to the same rank. That’s great, because now you don’t have to only play one ranked mode if you’re better at that mode than the others.

There are a bunch of new gear items, some of which are really cool. I really like the tye-dye shirt, and also the jungle hat that everyone hates. You can also wear a plant if you really want to. I need to make it as clear as possible that the visual aesthetic of this game just oozes with coolness. It’s probably the coolest game I’ve ever played.

There are several new weapon types, too. The Splat Dualies are neat because you can dash twice while firing, making yourself a difficult target. The Splat Brella gives you a shield, but it isn’t very useful in practice IMO.

The new stages feel a lot more open than the stages in Splatoon 1. Humpback Pump Track has an incredible name and is a great smaller level, while Mako Mart has a more open feel, and the supermarket design is fantastic. It’s definitely my favorite level in the series. Most of my favorite stages from Splatoon 1 have made also their way to the sequel, including Port Mackerel, Kelp Dome, Walleye Warehouse, and Moray Towers (yes, I like that map).

Splatoon 2’s single player campaign is similar to the first game’s, with the added twist that you have to use various different weapons throughout the missions, instead of just the Splattershot. This adds a lot of replay value, as you now have to beat each level with each different weapon to 100 percent (or 1000 percent) the campaign. I’m about halfway through doing this, and I intend on finishing it eventually.

Salmon Run is new to Splatoon 2, and it’s a great new mode. You have waves of hordes of enemies that want to murder you, and you have to murder them first. There are probably much better explanations of the mode available. It also makes you try out new weapons, as the weapon you use is randomly assigned at the start of each wave from a set of four weapons. My main complaint with this mode is that I wish there were more rotations with completely random weapons, as a lot of the rotations with preset weapons tend to have a lot of weapons with low firing rates, which makes the mode more difficult and arguably less fun. Also, you can only play the mode on certain days, which is kind of silly.

Splatoon 2 is one of those games that’s greater than the sum of its parts. On paper, it sounds cool, but not as amazing as it really is. I almost didn’t buy the first Splatoon, which is something I have a hard time believing now (the same thing is true for Rocket League). It’s hard to put into words why, but the finished product, with all the great gameplay mechanics and super cool style blended together, is simply amazing. It’s more fun and cool than any other game I’ve played this year, so it’s an easy choice for my Game of the Year.

Hooray!

Honorable Mentions

These are games that would probably be on the list if I had a PS4 so I could play them:

Everybody’s Golf: I like golf games, as you might have noticed by the number of golf games I’ve played this year. This is a golf game, therefore I should like it.

Gran Turismo Sport: Gran Turismo is one of my favorite series of all time. A lot of people haven’t liked the more serious mode of racing that Sport offers, but I think it’ll be right up my alley. The livery editor also looks super cool.

Wipeout Omega Collection: I really liked Wipeout HD, and this is basically that, but with an even higher definition! Also, it has the tracks from Wipeout 2048 which I haven’t seen before.

These games almost made the Top Ten, but didn’t:

Jackbox Party Pack 4: It’s fun, but JPP3 is better IMO. Don’t worry, I’ll still be streaming more Jackbox in the future.

PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS: I haven’t played this game much because it gives me anxiety when I play it. I really don’t like loud noises, so hearing a random gunshot after 20 minutes of silence startles me a lot. It’s also kind of slow-paced. I do like the concept more, so I’ll probably play it again soon, maybe with some music in the background.

Come back next year for my 2018 list, which will probably be the post after this one, given how little I use Tumblr!

#goty gameoftheyear splatoon verylongpost