YMMV / Splatoon 2

The series in general
Splatoon | Splatoon 2 | Splatoon 3

YMMV with their own pages (shared with the franchise page):

• Fanon
• High-Tier Scrappy
• Low-Tier Letdown
• Memetic Mutation
• Scrappy Mechanic
• That One Level - Salmon Run (shared with Splatoon 3 only)

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• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • While the Inklings had been getting minor bouts of it during the first game, it reached a head here with the introduction of Salmon Run. A species with innocent intentions but heavily misplaced morals, or a self-centered race who has no qualms stealing the unborn babies of another innocent species and dooming another to an underground, collapsing civilization while also possibly erasing them from history? Or are the Salmonids so utterly monstrous, violent and barbaric that it's a moot point anyway? There's also the fact that the non-golden eggs are identical to the power-up eggs seen in Single-Player Mode.
  • The Octarians already had sympathetic viewpoints in the first game, but an interview about the first game stating that their stage music was meant to feel like they were being mind-controlled (to be fair, this could very well be a figure of speech), as well as canonical evidence of brainwashing in Callie's hypno-shades (which was necessarily, because she'd never willingly side by the Octarians), led people to see them as victims and the Inklings, Cuttlefish in particular, as callous. Cuttlefish knowing Octavio from the war, as seen in the first game's Sunken Scroll, doesn't help. It can be argued, however, that the Inklings simply don't know about the brainwashing, if the Octarians are even being brainwashed.
  • Defenders of Pearl suggest a different interpretation than the monster her detractors see her. Her defenders argue that she's an All-Loving Hero with a heart of gold (occasional snark due to the duo's Vitriolic Best Buds dynamic aside), with their proof being that her best friend, Marina, is an Octoling. They argue that Pearl happily befriended a member of the Inklings' collective Arch-Enemy because she was just that cool, and this kindness is part of what influenced Marina to become a Token Heroic Orc (the other part being the Squid Sisters' song). This interpretation was partially invalidated by Octo Expansion: Pearl initially had no idea that Marina was an Octoling, only finding out during the events of the expansion, so she most likely played little intentional part in Marina's shift to Inkling society. That said, given how quick she is to defend Marina even immediately after learning this, arguments can still be made toward her inner kindness.
  • The English localization initially characterized Marina as a Deadpan Snarker similar to Marie from the first game, which was in stark contrast to her Shrinking Violet personality in the original Japanese version. In response, some fans have interpreted Marina as being Innocently Insensitive, suggesting that the Octolings have different cultural norms from Inklings and Marina expressing herself genuinely causes her to unintentionally come across as snarky. Others reconcile Marina's localized personality with her original by suggesting that her snarky attitude is a façade hiding her insecurities as an Octoling; she is trying to fit into Inkling society by emulating the dynamic of her idols, Callie and Marie, who were popular among Inklings due to their playful snarky banter. A third interpretation is that Marina uses an on-screen persona that is sassier than her actual personality. These interpretations turned out to be more accurate than initially thought — Marina's snarking was noticeably toned down after the game's launch, and the later Octo Expansion revealed that off-camera, she's just as much of a Shrinking Violet as in the Japanese version.
  • Outside of C. Q. Cumber's largely tongue-in-cheek portrayal as a Memetic Psychopath, there is some serious argument as to whether or not he should be considered a villain — after all, by conducting the tests, he did actively assist Commander Tartar in his goal of plantetary genocide. On the other hand, he may be genuinely benevolent but unaware of the negative results of his actions, or he may know about and condemn these atrocities, and yet still feel obligated to do his job. All of these interpretations have some merit: series producer Hisashi Nogami has asserted that C. Q. is not evil so much as he is "faithful to his duties"; at the same time, his Final Fest character bio groups him with Tartar and implies the two share a negative opinion of free will.
  • In the leadup to the Chaos vs. Order Splatfest, Splatoon's social media released several bios explaining why certain characters chose the side that they did. Sheldon was one of the few who remained neutral in the conflict, caring little for Inkopolis's fate so long as he could continue to make weapons. While his role up to this point had ranged from neutral shop owner to outright heroic, this event briefly hinted at a potential darker side to Sheldon's character that many have likened to an amoral war profiteer.
• Aluminum Christmas Trees: The game has a couple of off-handed mentions of a place called "Mount Nantai" in various character dialogue from the single-player campaigns. Made up for the game? Nope—as you might be able to tell from the lack of fish puns in its name, it's a real volcano in Nikko National Park on Honshu, not far from Tokyo (which Inkopolis is implied to be a far-future version of). It's well-known inside of Japan, but foreign audiences probably only know it from this game.
• Anti-Climax Boss:
  • Compared to the final battle of the first game, this game's final fight against DJ Octavio can be considered a letdown for players, due to taking place in a far smaller arena than before (in fact, you're in the same circular arena you've fought almost every other boss in, compared to the sprawling obstacle course the first game's final battle took place in), utilizing less tactics and weapons than he did in the first game (which has the consequence of lowering the projectile and attack density players have to weather), doesn't have much new dialogue (this fact is lampshaded by Marie in subsequent rematches, but that doesn't hide the problem), and overall takes far less effort to defeat than he did in the first game. It's especially noticeable as every other boss is more difficult than the ones in the original Splatoon.
  • The Final Boss of Octo Expansion is a Turf War on the NILS statue in which you try to detonate all of the Hyperbombs that Marina sets on the statue for you to blow up. While it can be a challenge the first time trying to learn all of the Ride Rails' paths and the optimal path for finding and shooting all of the bombs in the time allotted, the "fight" has no enemies whatsoever, whereas the boss immediately beforehand is an SNK Boss fight with Agent 3 where you are liable to die at any second at any time. And even if you do lose, the game will immediately offer to let you skip the fight, whereas the testing chambers each require failing twice and the escape phases each require failing five times.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • While Marina was welcomed with open arms, her partner Pearl has split the fans. Some think she's an ugly Replacement Scrappy for Callie without the talent of the other three stars while others love her Ugly Cute design and her Interspecies Friendship with Marina. This has decreased a bit over time, especially with the development present in Octo Expansion, but not completely. Hilariously, Pearl actually acknowledges this during the announcement for the Final Fest:
    Pearl: The fans like you more than they like me. I've seen the Internet.
  • Marina being welcomed with open arms did not last long. She has become quite polarizing due to her design choice, debates on whether her English and Japanese personalities is better, and whether she is being too mean-spirited to Pearl in some of her dialogues. The Octo Expansion update had toned down her snarkiness.
  • Li'l Judd is split down the middle between players who think he's cute, and players who hate him almost as much as the Duck Hunt dog simply for existing to tell you that you lost.
• Best Boss Ever:
  • The Final Boss is DEFINITELY this if you don't think it's an anti-climax boss as seen above. You fight DJ Octavio and his upgraded Octobot King in an incredibly fast-paced battle while Callie sings a Dark Reprise of "Bomb Rush Blush", her amiibo song. Halfway through the fight, Marie shoots the hypno-shades off of Callie's head, thus saving her from Octavio's mind control, then begins singing "Tidal Rush", a remix of HER own amiibo song "Tide Goes Out". At the final part, Callie finally goes back to your side, and the reunited Squid Sisters start singing an AMAZING remix of "Calamari Inkantation" as Sheldon gives you the RAINMAKER before you fly up after Octavio and utterly destroy what's left of his offensive from grind rails high above the arena with he Octarian audience cheering you on. And then, ending it by slamming the Rainmaker on him and his downed machine, just like how you finish Rainmaker mode. While having less variety, there's a trade-off for a more spectacular and less potentially frustrating fight.
  • The end of Octo Expansion very much tries to top it, and if you aren't being worn down by Ending Fatigue, holy moly. After an extended escape sequence which feels like something out of Portal, you reach the final elevator... and you have to duel Agent 3. The original playable Inkling hero. It's a marathon fight against 3 using every super in the book, but otherwise no weird gimmicks. Just your Octoling against one of the best Inkling fighters ever. And then, after that... you have to cover a huge human statue in ink to prevent it from charging a death ray that will obliterate Inkopolis, and you do this with the help of Marina's Hyperbombs. All while a mix of Off The Hook's best songs are going in the background. And it even gets counted as its own distinct Turf War map. It's crazy, unexpected and a fantastically flavorful way to end the expansion. Did we mention that the winning cutscene involves the death ray and Pearl's Killer Wail engaging in a Beam-O-War struggle? The whole thing just devoutly follows the Rule of Cool to the letter from start to finish.
• Best Level Ever:
  • Ruins of Ark Polaris in Salmon Run. It's the only Salmon Run stage to feature Ride Rails, which are fun as heck to ride and provide a convenient way around the stage and to to get back to the basket, whether to cash in your Golden Eggs or make a quick retreat. It is also notably the only area in the game to feature in-universe signage in English rather than the Inkling or Octoling languages, hinting at some new lore about the last days of humanity.
  • The extended escape sequence that caps off the Octo Expansion proves to be one of the greatest tests of the player's ability in the game. From the enjoyable stealth mission, to an awesome sequence where Agent 8 must navigate a laser maze, to an entire segment devoted to the Inkjet, these levels offer some of the most creative level design in the whole series. If only it didn't end with Phase 6.
  • The Final Fest's exclusive Shifty Station absolutely lives up to its hype, especially for those who have played Octo Expansion. Set on a platform in the sea with the destroyed NILS Statue in the background, it features Marina's Hyperbombs dropping at regular intervals, allowing players to gain a huge advantage for their team by detonating them. When 1 minute remains on the clock, Off The Hook themselves descend in their helicopter and Pearl offers her voice-powered Killer Wail, now called the Princess Cannon, to whoever's lucky enough to take hold of it first. That Wave-Motion Gun that destroyed the statue in the background? Now you get to use it on your enemies! All of this to "Fly Octo Fly ~ Ebb & Flow", the Final Boss theme of Octo Expansion.
• Breather Boss: Octo Shower is this in Octo Expansion. The reason for this is the fact you are given an unlimited Inkjet, giving you enough maneuverability and power that dodging attacks is relatively easy if you are used to how Inkjet is controlled, and shooting down the Octocopters, while still somewhat tricky, is still easier than the base campaign. Just about everyone agrees the fight is easier than it's Hero Mode counterpart. Rather ironic when you consider the fact Octo Shower is That One Boss in Hero Mode, and the fact every other boss in Octo Expansion is harder than in Hero Mode.
• Breather Level: There are a number of them in Salmon Run:
  • Cohock Assault. Sure, there may be more Giant Mooks rushing in, but it's low tide, and Mr. Grizz is kind enough to provide you with some turrets to even the odds. They can even be used effectively against Flyfish by shooting their missile launchers.
  • Goldie Hunt still requires you to work for those Golden Eggs like any other wave, but at least it doesn't savage you with lots of or deadly enemies, making it the least problematic of the nighttime special waves.
  • High tide is usually That One Level, but sometimes it can work in one's favor, such as during a Mothership Attack or the Goldie Hunt by narrowing down the potential Chinook landing sites or geyser locations.
  • While Glowfly and Griller rounds tend to be some of the harder ones in Salmon Run, they're much easier in the Lost Outpost where the numerous walls allow a player being targeted to climb a wall to lure the enemies to one spot, making it much easier for the rest of the team to fight... if they're aware of this strategy and are equipped with good weapons efficient for Griller-killing or mass-Enraged Chum slaughtering (read: not a Charger or Brush).
  • Low-tide shoreline assault waves. You have a lot of ground to work with, all of the enemies spawn in the low-tide-exclusive area, and that area is usually very flat allowing you to quickly ink your way back to the egg basket, or to the main body of the stage (where no enemies will spawn) if things go south.
  • Mothership is also considered to be rather easy. While there is only one way to get eggs (namely, the enemies carrying the containers that spawn Salmonid to the stage), they die extremely easily, making it extremely easy for quotas to be met so long as everyone is quick with egg collection and, if someone has the Sting Ray special, simply aiming it at the Mothership will result in eggs raining from the sky.
  • The July 13-15, 2018 and May 3-5, 2019 Salmon Run shifts were notable for featuring an all random loadout where every weapon is a Grizzco weapon. Needless to say, those days were some of the easiest in the game's history, especially after many, many shifts that could be considered That One Level.
• Broken Base:
  • The fact that the game does not retain any of the specials from the previous game in the name of having completely new ones has caused a rift between those who think it's overkill and would have liked to still have the old specials alongside new ones and those who feel it's a good decision, especially since it ends up Nerfing some infamous sets^note Like the infamous Tentatek Splattershot and will help shake up the meta again.
  • The game includes voice chat, a feature that many wished was in the first game, but with the requirement to use a smartphone app and lack of chat with strangers. Some think this is great and will prevent trolling while others think this is a waste since several other voice chat features have mute options and the ability to turn it off and it just shows that Nintendo is being overprotective.
  • The Western fanbase has argued over how this game doesn't seem to have the 'playfulness' of Splatoon 1. Comparing the music (the techno-flavored theme of the first game's final boss versus the sequel's orchestral numbers, for example), aesthetics, and promotional material, as well as generally lacking the sort of tongue-in-cheek Totally Radical dialogue and set-pieces that espeically the No A localization of the first game was full of, Splatoon 2 seems to be attempting a more serious demeanor than 1. Not all are happy with this, as many feel that going full on '90s retraux is what made Splatoon 1 so successful, and attempting a more 'serious' look and feel negates that charm. Others point out how the game still has its '90s aesthetics; just that it's a '90s 'Grunge' aesthetic instead of a '90s 'Nick' aesthetic and feel like it fits better with the story having slightly (keyword, here) higher stakes than Splatoon 1's story, which was amplified when Octo Expansion entered the mix.
  • Reading the comments players create for Inkopolis Square, there seems to be a divide between big enthusiasm for how these are now Facebook and Twitter posts rather than Miiverse posts and big disappointment for the very same reasons.
  • Marina's personality differences between the Japanese and English version. In Japan she is a soft-spoken Shrinking Violet who respects Pearl. In the English localization, she started off as very snarky before an early update made her less sassy and more playful. Which personality is best is a point of argument amongst the fandom. Some consider her Japanese personality too demure and prefer her to have more bite, while others think she comes off as too much of a jerk in the localizations (especially prior to 1.2) and think she's a Marie clone. Her updated personality is usually seen as a nice middle-ground, but even then a minority dislike it.
  • While many Callie fans were quite pleased by her return to the game in the 3.0 update, others claim she still has too small a role compared to Marie (who still gets nearly the entire story mode to herself; Callie essentially acts as an End-Game Results Screen with more personality) and feel the game would be better served if she got a chance to shine on her own.
  • Shifty Station. Players either enjoy the surprises and hectic action of the gimmicks they provide to a mode that otherwise lacks them during a Splatfest, or they dislike them for said gimmicks or their very large scale compared to the standard Turf War maps.
• Captain Obvious Reveal: Despite the fact that practically everyone noted that Marina was an Octoling upon the Off the Hook reveal trailer thanks to several obvious visual cues, for a while, the devs went out of their way to avoid confirming it. When asked directly about it in an interview, one dev member attempted to change the topic altogether by saying she has 'really pretty hair'. Come the Octo Expansion, it turns out this is the case in-universe, with Inklings having had so little contact with Octolings, they actually think Marina just has cool tentacles.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • The Grizzco Weapons make quick work of most Salmonids. Given how difficult Salmon Run typically is, blasting your way through a horde with them can be very satisfying.
  • If you get the Grizzco Slosher, you can laugh maniacally at a Flyfish as you One-Hit Kill him with a single ink missile from your weapon.
  • Similarly, albeit downplayed, an Explosher's shot can destroy a Flyfish's basket without the use of a Splat Bomb.
  • Then came the July 13-15, 2018 Salmon Run, where every weapon was a Grizzco weapon. To say players were laughing maniacally as they utterly slaughtered the Salmonids would be an understatement. They did it again on May 3-5, 2019.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome:
  • Even long after its release, the Dualie Squelchers and their Custom variant are still one of the most-used weapons simply because they are just the standard Dualies with longer range. Since the biggest drawback of Dualies in general is their short range, this makes them very powerful.
  • Just like in the first game, the Aerospray MG sees a lot of use in Turf Wars due to its excellent coverage as well as its Curling Bomb Launcher special being great for locking down an area. It's not uncommon to see most matches in a session have at least two or three Aerosprays in the lobby. With nerfs, it has lost its dominance, although it still sees its fair share of use, especially out of sheer inertia, or in the case of the Aerospray PG, for the Booyah Bomb special it comes with.
  • Just like in Splatoon 1, whenever a new weapon gets added, you can expect to see near everyone playing it for the next day or so. It's not uncommon to encounter teams of nothing but the new weapon until the hype surrounding it dies down. This was particularly true with the Splat Brella's release on August 11th, 2017: Not only was it a new weapon type, but you could use the Hero Brella in the single-player campaign ahead of its multiplayer availability, meaning everyone hyped about using it online suddenly came out and there would be 5 or 6 Splat Brella users to a room of eight players. That day was also a Friday, so players had the entire weekend to play with it.
  • The Tri-Slosher, before patch 1.3.0. The idea was to have a version of the Slosher with greater spread, balanced by having less powerful attacks. Instead, it ended up being a weapon that was extremely effective with little effort; it could attack in a ninety degree cone in front of the user and splat an opponent in two hits, or by hitting them with its Burst Bomb sub-weapon and then performing a follow-up attack.
  • Any weapon with the Inkjet as its special gets a lot of usage in both Turf Wars and Ranked Battles, thanks to the Inkjet's fantastic power and mobility. Examples of such weapons include the Emperry Splat Dualies, the Octobrush, and the infamous Tentatek Splattershot.
  • With a series of buffs and nerfs, a few new ones have come into play. The Sploosh-o-matic has more or less replaced the Aerospray as the go-to spreading weapon, with its kit being well off with the Curling Bomb and Splashdown, coupled with strong movement and pressure ability while having amazing coverage within its limited range, as well as high damage that means even with its wild spread it'll still splat quickly once you close the gap.
  • The Kensa Splat Dualies are by far the most used kit to come out of the first Kensa collection. This is most likely due to taking the Splat Dualies, an already strong weapon, and giving them both a very useful sub weapon (Suction Bomb) and arguably one of the best specials in the game (the Baller).
  • Once the second Kensa Collection came out, entire teams would be seen with Kensa Splattershot Pros. On the same day, the weapon's biggest weakness, ink coverage, was fixed. The weapon also had the Booyah Bomb, which not only gives Inklings very tough shields, but acts like a larger Splashdown and can be charged in a second.
  • After the release of Sheldon's Picks, you can expect players running kits from the weapon set alongside the Kensa collections as not only do they all have very good sets that synergize well with the main weapons themselves, but many of them contain the post-launch specials Booyah Bomb and Ultra Stamp, especially the former.
• Contested Sequel: Splatoon 2 in general is seen as being on par with the first game, if not even better, thanks to building and expanding on the first game with various massive improvements and additions such as its more polished graphics, more customization options, the addition of the long-requested playable Octolings, having just as creative and more balanced stages/weapons/specials and gameplay changes that discourage mindless one-man army attempts, significantly more outfits and songs, adding Shifty Stations and Photo modes as fun bonuses, adding ability chunks customization, brand new modes such as Salmon Run an Clam Blitz, and the inventiveness of the "Octo Expansion" DLC single-player campaign. For the most part, its contested aspect that determines if a fan likes the game more or less than Splatoon 1 is its story and characters. Those that liked 2's "Hero Mode" single-player campaign cite it directly building off the Audience Participation ending of Splatoon 1, allowing the player to use a greater variety of weapons, and offering more worldbuilding (both in-game and via the "Squid Sisters Stories" supplemental material that explains what happened during the Time Skip). Those that dislike it felt that the adventure was too much of a re-hash of the first game's Hero Mode (while also lacking fun bonuses like the amiibo challenges), that the story wasn't as deep as the supplemental material implied it would be, and weren't fond of the lack of Callie (as she wasn't present to speak to after the Final Boss fight until the Version 3.0 update). Furthermore, both sides agree that it was a waste that none of the characters introduced in this game were involved in the plot (the aforementioned "Octo Expansion" would address this complaint). There are also those who like Splatoon 1's story and characters more but like Splatoon 2 more overall (and like "Octo Expansion" just as much as the first game's Hero mode).
• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • Commander Tartar trying to blend Agent 8 and Cap'n Cuttlefish into its primordial ooze isn't funny on its own, but when paired with carnival music alongside the fact that it is done with a gigantic blender, it becomes a little funnier.
  • The first Splatfest after the release of Octo Expansion, which includes the "Tartar attempts to blend Eight and Cuttlefish to a pulp" scene above, is about whether one enjoys pulp or no pulp. In other words, Off The Hook bails Eight out of the Deepsea Metro only to make them relieve their worst memories all over again.
• Crossover Ship: Due to both of them being revealed on the same day (July 6th 2017), fans decided to pair Marina up with Doomfist.
• Demographically Inappropriate Humour: Marina’s reasoning for why she would choose invisibility over flight includes the line, "With invisibility, you could spy on people while they’re... inking their Splat Zone.". The whole thing is a reference to masturbation as a joke while the game is rated E10+.
• Demonic Spiders:
  • Octolings are just as bad in this game as in the first, being slippery opponents that can make you go "splat!" in a heartbeat. The catch is that in Octoling levels, they can respawn, Super Jump to sneakier areas, and use other weapons besides the Splattershot. Thankfully, they choose weapons that aren't too powerful or troublesome, such as Blasters and Splat Rollers. Unless you are playing Octo Expansion, where Octolings choose top tier weapons, like Range Blasters and the fabled Dualies, and use them competently. Worse of all, these Octolings get high tier Sub and Special weapons and can use both smartly. To rub extra salt in the ink filled wound, Octolings can charge up Specials, while Agent 8 can't, relying on canned Special pickups.
  • From Salmon Run:
    • We have the Flyfish, a flying tank that is invulnerable to standard ink shots and can only be downed by throwing a Splat Bomb into each of its two missile launchers. Each of its missiles (basically a Salmonid version of the Tenta Missiles) does tons of damage while also coating the area in enemy ink to slow you down and can be launched from anywhere to anywhere, with no way to visually link the source and destination of those attacks. While you try to take out this "glorified mosquito", you're focusing on the Salmonids and Boss Salmonids attacking you on ground level. And it only leaves its hatches open long enough to give you only one chance to throw one bomb in and damage it (two if you throw one right as it opens, hide in ink and recharge without trying to splat anything else, then throw one more before the hatches close, though this puts you at huge risk of having to tank a missile or two unless you have a very open area of ink to swim in), and because you need so much ink to even throw a bomb, most players simply ignore it while using what's left of their ink to ward off the Salmonids pursuing them, hoping they can dodge or tank the missiles. And when you do have enough ink, you need perfect accuracy and distance to dunk the Splat Bomb into a missile launcher, requiring you to get up close and risk yourself getting overwhelmed or putting yourself into range of another Salmonid if you're not careful. Even if you team up, there's a very good chance that two or more players could throw their bombs into the same launcher, wasting valuable ink and time. And even if you do have perfect accuracy and perfectly coordinate with a teammate, Splat Bomb fuses are long enough to ensure that the Flyfish will get at least a few shots off, so unless you use special weapons, there is no way to kill it without it launching some kind of attack. Three of these monsters at once are enough to coat the map in green ink and drive the Inklings to failure. It's generally agreed that Flyfish are ludicrously unbalanced compared to the other bosses^note Maws can be easily avoided and only needs one easier-to-land Splat Bomb to defeat, Steelheads are also only vulnerable when launching an attack but can be quickly defeated with main weapons (especially a Charger) and have limited attack range, Stinger attacks can be quickly traced back to their source and are easily killed when reached, etc. and in the most need of rebalancing in the next iteration of the mode.
    • When night falls and the Glowflies emerge, the Chum Salmonid turn into morbid Glass Cannons that move fast and can smash you into pulp should you dare get a cluster of them to surround you. Not many players have survived fighting off these creatures of the night. This is especially true if you aren't supplied with a roller during the round; even a Carbon Roller can One-Hit Splat Chum Salmonids that aren't the gold ones by rolling over them. Shooters and Dualies that sport a high rate of fire, buckets that can be flung rapidly, and Splatlings used by players that don't mind charging up can effectively mop up hoards of crazed Salmonid, but be unfortunate to get supplied with a Charger (especially a scoped Charger), Brush, or Blaster? Good luck not getting overwhelmed.
    • Another nasty night time event is with the Grillers. They move quickly, are only vulnerable from behind the direction they're moving until stunned, take quite a few hits to stun then more to kill, and they immediately splat you on contact. The only good news is that they do indicate which team member they target, but if you fail to take them out quickly, which is easier said than done given the above and especially since seeing two at once is a common sight, then it won't be long before they take out your entire party. Don't have a Roller or a rapid-fire Shooter to deal with the Smallfries that the Grillers constantly spill out? Start your swearing.
    • Steel Eels. While Flyfish are nightmarish in large numbers, it only takes two, sometimes three Steel Eels spawning in a cramped space to team wipe. Not only does their length result in them taking back large amounts of turf, they are also deceptively nimble, able to pull a one-eighty at random if you think you can just Attack Its Weak Point easily. They're especially nightmarish in high tide because of the limited space to move often resulting in them bunching together and blocking each other's weak points (while also guarding mobs and other bosses from direct attacks). It's also more difficult to determine which player they're locked on, as it takes more time to lure them accordingly unlike Maws, and lack any visual clues unlike the Griller.
    • Stingers are manageable if they're nearby, alone, or only around weaker trash mobs, but they become extremely dangerous when they decide to target you from across the map while you're dealing with a bunch of other enemies. Bonus points if two or more Stingers spawn, deciding to focus solely on just a single player, likely pinning them down in green sludge while they're low on Ink while another Salmonid goes in for the kill. Bonus points if it's a Charger, Roller, or Brush user they decide to lay waste to, since they cannot reliably destroy the pots as quickly as say, a Shooter, a Blaster or a Splatling.
    • An individual Steelhead by itself or with a few lesser Salmonids isn't so bad, but a Steelhead with assistance from other Boss Salmonids (especially another Steelhead) can be a nightmare, especially if you or any of your teammates don't have a weapon that can overload their bombs quickly enough before they can launch them even once. If you're using a weapon that isn't long-ranged against the Steelhead when it launches its bomb, you will more likely than not be caught in the blast radius. If these things don't cause a Total Party Kill, they may cause you to run out of time before meeting your egg quota because you were trying to stay alive and the Steelheads were drawing you away from other bosses you could destroy to get eggs.
• Difficulty Spike:
  • In Salmon Run, the first rank provides very easy runs with less Salmonids attacking at once and very few if any "special" waves. Once you rank up the first time, you will begin to experience far more hostile environments.
  • The challenges present within Octo Expansion are leagues beyond Hero Mode and other forms of gameplay.
• Discredited Meme:
  • The ongoing joke of complaining that the game wasn't called "Spla2n" (or any other "two"/"too" pun with the name), or even suggesting such punny names in general, went from amusing to widely considered eye roll-inducing before a day had even passed since the name was revealed.
  • The Squid Sisters' "waifu wars" went this way by the time the game released. In part thanks to the "Squid Sisters Stories" for Splatoon 2 revealing Marie's extreme worry for what happened to Callie and fear of drifting apart and also because of those who were taking their insults too far and/or outright attacking people who like one or the other had caused people who originally found the jokes funny to just groan when people attempted this. It got so bad that, at one point, the official Splatoon Reddit seriously considered making such jokes/insults a bannable offense. The fact that Off the Hook became subject to this same war hasn't helped, with either Pearl or Marina being singled out as best girl (usually the latter) while the other girl is subject to hate and ridicule (usually the former), though even this war came to die out pretty quickly; both due to fans actively trying to shut such conversations down to prevent repeats of the Callie/Marie situation and Octo Expansion establishing how deep the bond between the characters actually is. Although the results of Chaos vs. Order did cause a noticeable upswing in Pearl hate from certain salty Marina supporters, the idol fandoms have largely agreed to disagree at this point.
  • The Ron the Death Eater treatment given to Inklings as a result of Salmon Run is nowadays considered groan-inducing by those who just want to enjoy the horde mode.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Commander Tartar is a sociopathic, xenophobic A.I. that tried to destroy all life on Earth because of its hatred for the Octarians and Inklings. However, many fans, jokingly or not, make comments on how it was somewhat right, despite the fact that the game explicitly paints Tartar as an absolutely heinous monster that only cares about its own twisted ideologies.
• Ending Fatigue: For a fair amount of players, the Octo Expansion. After a long, multi-staged segment of ascending to the surface, capped off with a fight against a Brainwashed and Crazy Agent 3, your Octoling gets to the surface, looks to the horizon as Marina and Pearl arrive... as a giant statue rises from the sea, and the true final boss fight starts.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • The Salmonids from Salmon Run tend to get this treatment a lot, especially by the people who enjoy Salmon Run. Despite being implied to be Always Chaotic Evil they're loved for their Ugly Cute designs and being in what's considered by many to be one of the best game modes in Splatoon 2, with only the Flyfish being unanimously hated by Salmonid fans.
  • Among the minor in-universe bands, something about Fin Bottom, violinist and front-person for the Celtic punk band Bottom Feeders, captured the fandom's attention and generated an unusually high amount of fan art for a character about whom essentially nothing beyond an appearance and instrument is known.
  • Dedf1sh, the Octoling DJ that supplies music for the Octo Expansion, became popular with fans the moment they were shown on Nintendo's Twitter account through a combination of their design, backstory, and beats.
  • C. Q. Cumber, for his Ugly Cute design and his later status as a Memetic Psychopath.
  • Among the "Denizens of the Deep", the sea angel jock gets the most fanart.
  • The Afro-cut available for male Octolings has become incredibly popular since it was first revealed, with even the game's character designer admitting that it would have been the sole option if he had the choice.
  • Regarding weapons, the two new kits introduced during the July 2018 update, the Ballpoint Splatling and the Explosher, are both well-received by fans for having unique designs and gameplay mechanics that are still viable from a competitive standpoint, a trait that a lot of weapons introduced in Splatoon 2 seem to lack in some capacity.
• Epileptic Trees: A strange error when applying the November 2017 mega-update caused the Great Zapfish to disappear from Inkopolis Square on files that had already cleared Hero Mode, leading to speculation and rumors that this was foreshadowing an expanded story mode or some other extension of the plot before the official word on the statement was released.
• Fandom Rivalry: With Fortnite, as they're both popular third-person shooters with bright colors. The fact that Fortnite's Switch release and the Octo Expansion dropped within two days of each other did not help.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Splatwon (or variations such as Spla2n and Spla2oon) spread like wildfire among the English-speaking community from the moment the original game became a hit, to the point where some fans were disappointed that the pun-loving Nintendo didn't utilize this title. (Spla2n could be clever, but Splatwon could just as easily be read as Splat-Twon. Plus, the pun would only work in English, anyway.)
  • Salmon Run Mode has been also dubbed "Squidd VS Salmonn" by some fans.
  • The Splatfest-exclusive stage Shifty Station has been dubbed by several fans as the "Twilight Zone" due to its Japanese name "Mystery Zone" being the same as the show's Japanese title.
  • To differentiate playable Octolings from their enemy counterparts, which are both officially called "Octolings" in the Western versions, some Western fans call the enemy versions "Octozons", which comes from their official Japanese name, Takozonesu (tako = octopus, amazones = amazons), while the playable versions are called Tako.
  • The Bloblobber is often referred to as the "Toilet" or "Kitchen Sink" due to its appearance.
  • The fandom was really quick to notice that the "Booyah Bomb" special is a Splatoon-ized Spirit Bomb, and commonly refer to it as such.
  • The Clear Dapple Dualies are often referred to as the "Clapples".
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • With Overwatch. Like the first game with Team Fortress 2, the fandoms get along due to both being colorful team-based multiplayer shooters. The weapon similarities helps as both games utilize Limit Breaks (Splatoon's specials vs. Overwatch's ultimates), many weapon loadouts have rough equivalents to Overwatch characters (Dualies to Tracer, Brella to Reinhardt, and many more). In addition, "Off The Hook" was revealed on the same day as Overwatch's own Doomfist, catching the attention of fans of color considering both Marina and Doomfist are black (or at least, whatever the Octoling equivalent is).
  • Pre-release, the game was often bundled with ARMS during Nintendo Directs. While the Splatoon community would ultimately become closer with Nintendo's other marquee multiplayer franchise (Super Smash Bros.), there still remains overlap between both these fandoms.
  • Between a Sanrio event and Pearl's live recording from Octo Expansion, Aggretsuko and Splatoon fans have come together to enjoy a jam session.
  • Given the similar art and musical styles, Ninjala is viewed as a fun, arena brawler companion title to Splatoon 2 that came onto the scene just as new content for this game was coming to an end. Some fans even joke that it can be seen as Splatoon 2.5 that can tide over the community until the third game.
• Game-Breaker:
  • The Tri-Slosher. Imagine this: A Slosher that fires three separate projectiles at once, enabling it to cover a roughly 90 degree cone in front of you, can be rapid-fired twice a second, hits an area roughly four feet in front of you, and kills in two hits. Range isn't even an issue, since its kit was refined from the first game to include Burst Bombs, which gives you both ranged power and territory control; Burst Bomb a target, and it's dead in one extra Tri-Slosher shot. To cap it all off, it gets Ink Armor, which is widely considered one of the strongest Specials in the game due to its ability to soak extra hits, allowing you to delay your demise long enough to kill the other party first. It quickly gained notoriety as one of the prime examples of a brain-dead weapon, in that it requires absolutely no skill to use, barely requires the player to aim, and yet has one of the strongest damage-to-effort output ratios in the entire game. The Tri-Slosher got tweaked several times down the line in response, axing its absurd range, nerfing its Special and decreasing the effectiveness of Ink Saver on its Burst Bombs, but buffing its movement speed while firing and reducing the Points needed to fill the Special Gauge.
  • The Octobrush tends to catch some flak for being an extremely powerful melee weapon, although not nearly as much as the Tri-Slosher due to its range weakness as a melee weapon. The Octobrush deals 40 damage on hit when swung, which is a three-hit kill, and can be rapid-fired even faster than the Tri-Slosher; if an Octobrush gets in your personal space, you're toast. The range is also much better than the other Brush alternatives, allowing an Octobrush player to get kills from close to mid-range. Its kit includes the ever-annoying Auto Bomb, which is notorious for being hard to spot, difficult to evade, and blowing its targets' cover, and the Inkjet, which, prior to Version 1.3.0, was considered one of the best Specials in the game next to Ink Armor.
  • Although not to the extent of those listed above, the Dualie Squelchers are considered OP by some for the sheer fact that the increased range completely nullifies the major weakness of the Dualies class. They also come with a faster dodge roll, and the reduced fire rate isn't considered a big enough downside to make it balanced. Its secondary loadout consists of the Point Sensor and the Tenta Missiles, both of which are great for anti-crowd and anti-ambush tactics, while the Custom Dualie Squelchers swaps them out for the Splat Bomb and Inkstorm for good all-around offense.
  • Salmon Run games with one or all randomized slots have a chance to give you one of four Grizzco weapons that have been illegally modified by Mr. Grizz to turn them into these.
    • The Grizzco Blaster is a low-range, rapid-fire Blaster with low ink consumption allowing it to tear through Salmon in the blink of an eye.
    • The Grizzco Brella is similarly rapid-fire, but has even higher damage to make up for it's lack of canopy.
    • The Grizzco Charger is a Bamboozler turned up to eleven, charging to full power instantly and having very long range, only being held back by its high Ink consumption.
    • Finally, the Grizzco Slosher is the Mighty Glacier of the bunch, being slow and having a whopping 25% Ink consumption, but its large, slow-moving projectiles pierces through enemies and armor, allowing it to ignore the defenses of Boss Salmonids while dealing enough damage to instantly splat regular Salmonid.
    • To emphasize just how hilariously loaded these weapons are, the July 13th-15th, 2018 and May 3-5, 2019 Salmon Run shifts involved nothing but Grizzco weapons! That laughter you hear is the workers basking in UNLIMITED POWER!!!
  • Balance patches have progressively pushed the Baller, which was originally a rather mediocre Special due in part to its fragility and weak explosion radius, into this. As it stands after Version 1.3.0., it now has enough HP to withstand two players unloading into it and never missing a single shot, and its explosive radius has been massively buffed so that it will cream you if you're standing anywhere within 10 meters of it and don't start high-tailing it immediately. By extension, the Aerospray RG has been pushed into High-Tier Scrappy territory, due to being one of the fastest Special chargers in the game given how fast it can spread ink and being armed with the Baller; arm an RG with Special Charger gear, and they'll be dumping Ballers on the enemy like crazy. Fortunately, update 1.4.0 nerfed the Baller by reducing its range and making a lot of weapons do more damage to it.
  • The Sting Ray was originally considered to be a terrible special, as despite allowing the player to attack any member of the enemy team from anywhere on the map, it was hard to control and easy to avoid. The 1.3.0 patch made the special easier to use, causing a shockwave to appear around the Sting Ray, greatly increasing the area of attack. This caused the attack to be much harder to avoid, letting a single player rack up kills once they got used to how the special controlled.
    
    The special is considered particularly overpowered in the Tower Control and Rainmaker game modes, as a single player with a Sting Ray can use it to single-handedly stop an enemy push from anywhere on the map, as the always-visible objective location negates the Ray's inability to see through walls while firing. Even after receiving nothing but nerfs starting with 1.4.0, the rest of the game had to be changed to work around Sting Ray: it wasn't added to any more kits after the Squeezer was added and Object Shredder has a specific interaction with Ray to deal less damage against Ink Armor so that objectives could actually be moved.
    • The weapon is the sole reason why players also dread the Custom Jet Squelcher, since it can build up the special much faster than other Sting Ray users due to being full auto and having a decent spread, on top of having enough range to not have to risk fighting on the frontlines and being in the perfect position to initiate the special.
  • Salmon Run itself can award lots of money if one plays it for long enough, giving out cash at a much faster rate than grinding in regular matches would, which makes sense seeing as it is a part-time job in-universe. One day of Salmon Run, depending on the prizes, cold give an Inkling enough money to buy one of Sheldon's weapons or purchase an otherwise high-priced ordered gear from Murch.
  • In Octo Expansion, the Jet Squelcher works wonders for "bust the targets" stations, due to having nearly the range of Chargers (often available as alternatives to the Jet Squelcher in stations that it's available in) but being a Shooter weapon with the ease-of-use that entails. It does have fairly poor damage per second and firing rate compared to other Shooters, but that doesn't matter when the vast majority of target balloons and boxes are One-Hit-Point Wonders.
  • In Salmon Run and Next Wave in Splatoon 3, the Explosher is highly coveted for its exploding shots taking out huge areas of Lesser Salmonids and they count as bomb-type attacks which can break a pesky Flyfish's missile boxes with one shot each taking less ink and time than a Splat Bomb.
• Genius Bonus: Pearl casually name-drops the Temnodontosaurus during her discussion of Shellendorf Institute. Of all the people playing this game, how many know that it's NOT a dinosaur?
• Goddamned Bats:
  • The Drizzler in Salmon Run is more this than Demonic Spider. It uses what is basically an Ink Storm as its attack. It'll launch a probe that starts out armored and is only vulnerable for about 2-3 seconds before it takes effect. You have to knock the probe back, turning it into a free bomb, preferably into the Drizzler for a one hit kill, but because the Drizzler can launch it in any direction, it gets some distance and will stay at the height it was launched at which can cause problems depending on where it is, and where the last hit is will determine where the bomb gets knocked back to, making it all too easy to miss. You can attack it normally, but it only exposes itself for a few seconds after launching the drone, meaning unless a teammate is on it, you often have to choose between preventing an ink storm head in the direction the drone was launched, or attacking the Drizzler head on to try and kill it. And if the Ink Storm happens, while it doesn't do much damage, the Salmonid ink it leaves behind will slow down anyone attempting to cross it, and that, along with the small residual damage, can be the straw that breaks the team.
  • Smallfries are the weakest Salmonids that Salmon Run can throw at you. This does not stop them from being a pain in the butt, because unlike Cohocks or Chum, they're deceptively fast and so small that it's easy to not notice them until they're right on top of you. They also have a tendency to show up and distract you while you're trying to deal with the Boss Salmonids. It's considerably more difficult to deal with them with a slow long range weapon like the Charger, and the Grillers practically vomit these things as if they weren't hard enough already.
  • The Scrapper can get in one's way at inopportune times. Shooting it a couple times can stop it in its tracks, and shooting it more can bust its movement, allowing one to flank it and destroy it in its weak spot. However, it can hurt most when attempting to deal with a significantly more dangerous enemy, as its knockback can easily throw a player off course, or even into the drink! Scrappers are also the fastest-moving of the Boss Salmonids, and while they're easy to spot from a distance, it also means they can ambush you from offscreen and collide with you to shove you into more trouble.
• Goddamned Boss: Revenge of Octo Samurai in Octo Expansion is more this than That One Boss. Due to having permanent Baller for the fight, you technically have full immunity to his attacks, but the new gimmick is that taking any hit will kick you backwards quite a ways, and if you get hit while standing in a particularly bad spot, you'll get knocked off and lose a life. While the core fight is actually identical, the new method of battle (getting close while evading its attacks then detonating the Baller repeatedly) is quite annoying.
• Good Bad Bugs:
  • A common complaint about Splatoon is not being able to back out of a lobby without turning off your Wii U (which makes you exit the game) or manually disconnecting from the Internet (which varies depending on how your connection is set up and may be tedious to both disable temporarily and restore in a timely fashion). In Splatoon 2, this is still the case, however, you are allowed to bring up the home menu while in a lobby. If you stay on the home menu for about 5-10 seconds, you will disconnect and exit the lobby. If you're playing in handheld mode (or if you're just really close to your Switch), you can also put your Switch into sleep mode which doesn't exit the game but causes a disconnection, then take it out of sleep mode. This makes it all the more puzzling as to why Nintendo hasn't just let you back out of a lobby with the press of a button if it's now easy to perform said action just as quickly anyways.
  • Before it got patched out in version 1.1.2, you could re-collect meal tickets from Hero Mode. They'd still show up grey and nominally give you one Power Egg, but at the Crust Bucket you could find extra tickets in your collection. Players would exploit this mechanic to grab as many tickets as possible and make grinding easier.^note However, as it's been fixed you will now have to settle for unlocking all upgrades before grabbing a random meal ticket at 1500 Power Eggs each.
  • On very rare occasions in Salmon Run, when you get team wiped, the round will still continue anyway. If it happens after you met the egg quota, this means you get an automatic win for that wave!
  • Additionally, getting killed by going into the water takes longer to register than a traditional death. It's possible to abuse this in the last seconds of a wave when things get dire.
  • An odd error introduced in one of the updates caused the Great Zapfish to not appear in the square when it should, which had the amusing side effect of causing Pearl and Marina to react with joy at an empty skyline.
  • A rather goofy oversight (since patched) caused Callie to occasionally refer to the Drizzler's projectile by its internal name of "?SakerocketBullet".
  • In Octo Expansion, when C.Q. Cumber blows you up for meeting a test failure condition that doesn't involve falling to your doom or getting splatted by an enemy (such as running out of time or destroying an incorrect target), the actual failure doesn't occur until about a second after your personal ink bomb starts to inflate. If you manage to meet the test clear condition during the inflation animation but before it ends, you'll pass anyway.
• Growing the Beard: At launch, the game was criticized for not being particularly ambitious and doing little to differentiate itself from its predecessor, as well as a lack of development for Off the Hook, Callie, and Cap'n Cuttlefish, an underwhelming plot, and poorly balanced weapons. Over the game's update cycle it got some game-boosting upgrades. In particular, the 3.0.0 period brought in well-rounded weapons, the popular Octo Expansion campaign and with it playable Octolings, and much-improved characterization and lore, making it independently popular from the original.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • This game puts the previous game's final Splatfest and all the Callie vs Marie "waifu wars" in a much darker light, making it hard to look back on them now.
  • Once you reach the Final Boss you will never hear either Squid Sister's solo Amiibo song the same way again—"Bomb Rush Blush" gets a sinister Dark Reprise, and both it and "Tide Goes Out" are remixed into the legitimately heartstring-tugging "Tidal Rush".
  • The first post-Octo Expansion Splatfest theme is "Orange Juice with Pulp" vs "Orange Juice with no Pulp." What is normally a mundane topic for the Inklings to battle over is unintentionally insensitive for the newly arrived Agent 8 considering they've nearly been turned into a pulp by an actual blender not too long ago, and that Tartar's justification of wiping out the Inklings is that they waged pointless wars over trivial thing. Some people have even made comments on how Tartar was right.
  • During the Chicken vs. Egg Splatfest, Marina makes a rather bleak, fourth wall-adjacent joke about "We're all living in a simulation and free will is a lie". It was an unusually heavy meta-joke at the time. Come Octo Expansion, we get the sense that this may have been the reality for a great many Octolings in the Octarian Military faced. At the very least, Agent 8 seemed to be in the same boat as Marina pre-Calamari Inkantation.
  • Octo Expansion's Big Bad, Commander Tartar, planned to wipe out all life on Earth using a Wave-Motion Gun to get rid of Inklings as a whole. Six months later, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate had its Big Bad, Galeem, successfully attempt a larger-scale version of Tartar's plan that ended up vaporizing everyone (except for Kirby). Both Eight and Tartar appears as Spirits — other video game character who lost their "bodies" in Galeem's attack.
  • Salmon Run has always been depicted as a shady business run by the unseen Mr. Grizz to steal Golden Eggs from the Salmonids for an unknown purpose, but these unsavory implications are Played for Laughs and players would be more focused on getting special rewards or just enjoying the adrenaline rush of facing down these monstrous salmon hordes. Fast-forward to Splatoon 3, and it's revealed that the Golden Eggs players have been harvesting are used to create Fuzzy Ooze, an ink substance that forcibly turns marine life into mammals, and Mr. Grizz intends to use the ooze to transform all lifeforms into mammals, which would lead to an apocalypse not too dissimilar to Commander Tartar's genocidal plan. That's right; you, ThePlayer, have been unwittingly fueling another global catastrophe.
• He Really Can Act: In-Universe: Even though Pearl's singing abilities are ridiculed by Marina on-air, a Sunken Scroll showed her breaking a large amount of speakers with her cacophonous voice as a child, and the climax of the Octo Expansion campaign involves weaponizing her shrill voice to destroy a superweapon, one of the more well-liked songs of the game's soundtrack is "Acid Hues", a Splatfest-exclusive track that has vocals mostly led by Pearl. In fact, Pearl has singing roles in most of the Splatfest tracks. The Marina interview included with the game's soundtrack release also has the Octoling admit that she doesn't think there's anything wrong with Pearl's singing voice. In the original Japanese it is made very clear that Pearl's singing isn't bad, but her voice is just inhumanly (insquidly?) loud and powerful to the point that it downright qualifies as a mutant power. The artbook actually makes mention of the fact that Marina specifically developed a special auto-tune filter that they use during shows and recordings to prevent Pearl's voice from breaking equipment when she hits the higher notes. The reason Marina often tries to stop Pearl from randomly breaking into song during their dialogue isn't, as the localization suggests, that she's making fun of Pearl's voice; it's that without the special filter, Pearl is bound to cause property damage, no matter how well she sings.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • The "Splat Tim" meme is this after the E3 invitational, as the winning team had a member named Tim. He did it too!
  • During the Flight VS Invisibility Splatfest, Marina tries to disprove flight's usefulness by pointing out that the Super Jump is a thing, with Pearl countering by saying that you need an ally (or a Beakon) at the landing point. Cue Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and the Octo Expansion, in which Inklings, Agent 8, and ESPECIALLY Agent 3 Super Jump quite a bit without the usual requirements.
  • The finale of the Splatfest meant to promote Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ended with Donatello vs Raphael. A 2016 short featured the two going at it in various contests.
  • Octo Expansion came out just around Splatfest time, in which the then-current topic for North America and Europe was drinking juice with or without pulp. Agent 8 and Cuttlefish get stuck in a blender during Octo Expansion; so by completing the DLC, you've just shoved your Octoling back into one of their traumatic moments by having them participate in Splatfest.
  • This video made before Splatoon 2 was even announced ended up prophetic when the Octo Expansion dropped and featured an attempted double homicide via blender. Unlike the video, though, nobody actually ends up getting blended in game.
  • It's a bit of a running joke in the fandom that Pearl, being a rapper, would probably be a major potty mouth if not for the game's rating. Then Octo Expansion revealed that before she and Marina formed Off the Hook, she recorded a demo. Said demo is called "#$@%* Dudes Be #$@%* Sleepin" and is heavily implied to be the Inkling equivalent of a Cluster F-Bomb, meaning that the fans were actually spot on.
  • In Octo Expansion, one of the chat logs has Cap'n Cuttlefish jump to conclusions that Octolings coming to Inkopolis and participating in Turf Wars is a sign of the "next Great Turf War." Less than a month after the DLC came out, it was revealed that the July 2018 Splatfest would be Squids vs. Octopus, effectively the closest thing to an actual Next Great Turf War that we're likely to see.
  • The Squid vs. Octopus Splatfest was predicted as far back as a similarly-themed Japanese battle in the first game... over which species was tastier.^note Granted, the topic was about squid and octopus sushi, but Callie and Marie got surprisingly in-depth over the types of food that could be made from themselves and their enemies.
  • The final boss of Octo Expansion having a strong resemblence to SiIvaGunner by virtue of being a statue quickly becomes hilarious when just a few weeks after the DLC went live, Off the Hook goes on to participate in the King for a Day popularity contest on that very channel. They even make it to the finale against Unregistered Hypercam 2, even though they ultimately lost. Maybe they should have brought Agent 8 as their guest instead of the Chirpy Chips.
  • Sunken Scroll #11 provides an In-Universe justification for why no specials from the first game return in the second; the homemade nature of the signs taped to it suggests that their removal and replacement originated from the people. Out-of-Universe, the new specials would be reviled by the playerbase as Splatoon 2's meta developed, with Sting Ray and Baller causing problematic metagames and Splashdown being useless at higher levels of play. Come Splatoon 3, the replacement specials would themselves get replaced, ironically enough by specials that are direct successors to the first game's specials.
  • The orange juice Splatfest, pitting pulpless juice versus pulp-free juice, becomes a bit more amusing when juice brand Oasis used the debate as a theme for their advertising campaign in early 2023, up to and including the Serious Business dialogue of multiple characters creating drama just because others don't like the same kind of juice they do.
  • The Chicken vs. Egg Splatfest dialogue has Marina remark that "reality is a simulation and free will is a lie". In the DLC for the next game, Marina creates a VR simulation, and the main antagonist explicitly wants to destroy everyone's free will.
• Ho Yay:
  • A few of Pearl and Marina's interactions have the fandom's Yuri Fans wagging their eyebrows. Especially after an early update that makes Marina's teasing rarer and much more affectionate than it was before, and especially after the Octo Expansion delves more into their relationship.
    Pearl: Marina! What's the appeal of using the brella on this stage?
    Marina: Protecting my precious Pearlie at all costs!
  • The promo art for the Vampires vs. Werewolves Splatfest depicts Pearl as a vampire lightly clutching Marina's face in her hand and leaning in as if she's about to bite her. There's also Marina smiling and winking in response.
  • And then there's official art for the Breakfast Splatfest, showing the pair enjoying a breakfast in their pajamas. It could be understood as them just being platonic roommates, or... not.
  • In the Japanese version, Marina loves Pearl's smile so much, she wants to bring a camera so she can keep a picture of it.
  • The Octo Expansion in particular provides a lot of ship fuel. The chat logs show how the two treat each other off-camera, and makes it clear that they are very devoted to each other (one particular example being when Pearl threatened to hurt Cap'n Cuttlefish if he tried to hurt Marina for being an Octoling). To cap it all off, the ending shows Marina tackle-hugging and nuzzling Pearl. Furthermore, in the Octo Tunes soundtrack for Octo Expansion limited edition version, the disc casing insert includes an exclusive interview with Pearl. During said interview, Pearl reveals that the best thing she's ever had in her life was the chance to meet Marina.
  • After the Final Fest, Pearl outright tells Marina "I love you." Whether this was meant in a romantic sense or not is up to viewer interpretation, but for many, many Pearlina shippers, this was as good as a confirmation. Not hurt by Pearl firmly refusing to ever break Off the Hook up and Marina crying Tears of Joy.
• I Knew It!:
  • After the Hero Mode trailer dropped, many people have predicted that Callie was brainwashed by DJ Octavio. Many people also expected that the final boss theme is a Dark Reprise version of "Bomb Rush Blush" (Callie's solo song), and that Marie would pull an "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight via a sad version of "Tide Goes Out" (her own solo song).
  • Soon after the game released, pointers were discovered in the data for "OctGirl" and "OctBoy" as options for character customization, but with nothing associated with them, leading to the "playable Octoling" rumors from the first game to resurface. An early balance patch added more fuel to the fire, with dataminers discovering character attributes for the player's species in addition to the regular customization options, like gender, skin tone, and hairstyle, alongside unused model meshes that looked suspiciously like hair models for both genders of octos, separate from what the NPCs use. Playable Octolings would be added to the game with Octo Expansion DLC campaign, released a year after the game's launch.
  • After the announcement of the Octo Expansion and the fact that it's located in a subway, many keen eyed fans noted the inaccessible subway entrance in the main plaza, down an otherwise dead-end path. While one could argue the path was merely there for symmetry with the entrance to Salmon Run, these fans speculated it would be the entrance to the Expansion's content and had been hiding in plain sight since day one. Even the sprite artwork of a Gunion (an octopus-like enemy from Super Mario Land) seen in the subway entrance made it more obvious. They were correct.
  • For the Final Fest, many players speculated that "Fly Octo Fly ~ Ebb & Flow", the Final Boss music from Octo Expansion, would be used as Turf War music. This was confirmed on the last day of the Splatfest, where it played for all matches.
  • Just like in the first game, fans predicted that the results of the Final Fest would affect the plot of the next game. In Splatoon 3, the Inklings/Octolings descend into "the wake of chaos" in a new territory.
• It Was His Sled: Every fan knows that the Superboss of Octo Expansion is Agent 8's ideas of Agent 3, mainly because the fight is obnoxiously unfair.
• It's Hard, So It Sucks!: While Octo Expansion is widely well-received for expanding upon the series' lore and giving focus to Off The Hook, it receives some criticism for having sadistically difficult tests that aren't fun enough to balance the difficulty out.
• It's the Same, So It Sucks: At launch, the game was criticized for not really differentiating itself from the previous title too much, while not really fixing the flaws imported from the first game, causing several people to label it as nothing more as an enhanced port of Splatoon 1. It didn't help that the game had very few maps to choose from at the time and only a small fraction of all the weapons that were in the first game, making people feel that content was taken away instead of being added.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Many fans will admit that the main selling point of Splatoon 2 for them is Salmon Run, due to it not only being a new mode outright, but also bringing Splatoon into the realm of zombie survival games in its own unique way, not to mention all the rewards it provides. ...Which makes it all the more irritating to said fans that it's restricted to select scheduling.
• LGBT Fanbase: The plaza in Splatoon 2 is intermittently peppered with waves of pro-LGBT posts, which usually spread like wildfire and briefly turn the plaza into a gayborhood.^note Unfortunately, this occasionally leads to push back in the opposite direction...
• Memetic Badass:
  • Agent 3 has gained this reputation thanks to their infamously brutal Superboss battle in the Octo Expansion, rivaling the likes of the Lingering Will or Sans in terms of difficulty.
  • Alongside his Memetic Psychopath status, C.Q. Cumber has been portrayed as an unstoppable engine of destruction capable of defeating Agent 8, defeating Thanos, and wielding guns◊.
• Memetic Loser:
  • Thanks to the higher propensity for weirdness, the EU Splatfests are seen as inferior to NA and Japanese ones. This reached its peak in October 2017, where the North American Splatfest was Vampires vs. Werewolves, Japan was Agility vs. Endurance, and the EU Splatfest was... different ways to roll toilet paper. Later Splatfests reduced this opinion, as the Adventure vs Relax splatfest to be far superior than the infamous Fork vs Spoon splatfest (which is ranked up there with the North/South Pole and Toilet Rolls splatfest as being one of the worst and most ridiculous themes so far) and the Eat It vs Save It splatfest which has been seen as only average but at least more interesting than the rather dull Salsa vs Guac splatfest.
  • Marina has so far only won four Splatfests in that region as of the first year anniversary; all others ended with Pearl's team taking the total victory. However, by the second anniversary and with the clout update, Marina dominated winning seven Splatfests in a row.
  • Similarly, in Japan, Pearl has the worst luck winning Splatfests, winning only six times as of the first year anniversary, usually only getting the Popularity vote. As of the second anniversary, she's only won five.
  • Since the Clout update in September 2018, Pearl has only won four Splatfests since, all others resulting in Marina's team winning the gold, completely reversing the pattern of the game's first year of Splatfests in the west.
• Memetic Molester: The gear for the Octoling Octopus amiibo is a Goofy Suit of Wahoo World's mascot, Fresh Fish◊. Because of its bobble fish-like head and blank, staring Sphere Eyes, it was deemed by the fanbase to be the most terrifying thing they ever saw. As such, Fresh Fish is portrayed as a horrifying monster that preys on young Inklings and Octolings alike to the point of putting Pennywise the Dancing Clown to shame.
• Memetic Psychopath:
  • C.Q. Cumber usually gets this treatment for unceremoniously killing you if you mess up a test in Octo Expansion, with many fans portraying him as waiting for the slightest excuse to blow you up.
  • Less creepy depictions of Fresh Fish often depicts the fish mascot as a psychopathic killer or the future villain of the hypothetical Splatoon 3, which has gained traction in light of the Knights vs Wizards Splatfest's official artwork depicting Fresh Fish as an Evil Overlooker.
• Moe:
  • Marina is seen as being very adorable, with both her looks and anxious Naïve Newcomer personality aiding that viewpoint.
  • Callie is always cute, but the outfit she wears at Tentakeel Outpost, particularly her pink knit hat decorated with a star-shaped patch, makes her look extra-adorable.
• Moral Event Horizon: Commander Tartar leaps over the horizon by trying to kill Agent 8 and Cap'n Cuttlefish using the giant blender that they put together from the four thangs. An attempted destruction of the world that would send Inklings and Octolings alike extinct doesn't help, and neither does Tartar's implied success at blending past test subjects into the primordial ooze seen throughout the expansion.
• Most Wonderful Sound:
  • The sound of each of a Steel Eel's segments bursting in rapid succession after you've splatted the pilot.
  • The victory fanfare that plays after surviving all three waves in Salmon Run.
  • After beating Octo Canyon, the rattling sound of the Great Zapfish flying over Inkopolis Square.
• Nightmare Retardant: The official artbook confirms that Kamabo Co.'s logo is a stylised cartoon poop. While it serves as nice foreshadowing of the mysterious facility's goals to create a primordial ooze by digesting its test subjects into a homogenous state, it has the unfortunate effect of making the rather sinister Sigil Spam of the logo throughout the Octo Expansion levels come off as crude Toilet Humor.
• Older Than They Think:
  • A lot of fans seem to think that the Bottom Feeders and Ink Theory songs, with their fiddles and trumpets, kazoos, and piano respectively, provide the first examples of acoustic music in the Splatoon series. In reality, acoustic music has appeared in the game ever since it first launched: the themes used for Salmon Run use cellos and a brass section, and the final boss music is outright Orchestral Bombing.
  • Callie's "new" clothes from Octo Canyon aren't entirely new—she previously wore the beanie when in guise as Agent 1. This is the first time she's been seen wearing it in-game, however, and the rest of the outfit is new (or at least was totally off-screen in the first game).
• One True Pairing: An overwhelming amount of fans see Pearl and Marina as a couple, even before Octo Expansion which added more fuel to the fire.
• Pandering to the Base:
  • Given that many fans had requested Octolings in the heroic side, Marina's very existence can be viewed as this. She became one of the most popular characters in the series, proving this isn't always a bad thing.
  • The main selling point of the paid DLC Octo Expansion was the ability to play as an Octoling yourself, a hugely requested addition since the first game.
  • That the game essentially features Marie as the protagonist of its story mode is this to her fanbase. Callie's fanbase, despite being almost as large, ended up with the short end of the stick in comparison, leading to some complaints. (The 3.0 patch took steps to alleviate this, giving both Squid Sisters their dues.)
• Popular with Furries: This game seems to have become very popular with the Furry Fandom, if all the square posts featuring furry art are anything to go by. This may be not so surprising when you remember that this game features anthropomorphic marine animals, after all (even if most of the characters are simply Little Bit Beastly). With that said, the plethora of furry art posts on the square has spawned quite the controversy. The furry posts returned with a vengeance thanks to the Vampires vs. Werewolves Splatfest, too.
  • However the Salmonids, despite being Ugly Cute and Always Chaotic Evil salmons leaning towards the Funny Animal spectrum, on top of varying designs from both Lesser and Boss Salmonids, get far less attention than the Inklings and Octolings. They still get some attention from the furry fandom though, often being given feet as a form of Self-Fanservice.
• Realism-Induced Horror:
  • The Squid Sister Stories hit home for all too many of the older fanbase, as many of them have experienced simply drifting apart from seemingly inseparable loved ones due to life just... getting in the way. No big fights, no confrontations, just less and less time to spare for each other.
  • Followed up by a loved one just... disappearing. Callie left from work and never made it to the apartment, or onto the train.
• Replacement Scrappy: Although Crusty Sean still appears in the game with an expanded role, Bisk is seen as an inferior counterpart to his Splatoon 1 interpretation. Along with being a Flat Character who doesn't have anywhere near as much charisma as Sean, Bisk also doesn't share many similarities to him like how Flow and Jelfonzo are Suspiciously Similar Substitutes to Annie and Jelonzo, and worse, Bisk looks rather ugly compared to how sleek Sean's design is.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • The Sting Ray, often hated for its slow aim and limited mobility, is more well-received in Salmon Run, mainly because its fire can pierce through nearly all of the Boss Salmonids^note The Salmonid on top of the Stinger and the Steel Eel device are immune to the Sting Ray, but the special can destroy them the usual way., including the Demonic Spider Flyfish, and the hordes of Chums and Smallfries charging straight towards you. However, what redeems the Sting Ray in most players' eyes is its use against the Mothership. The Mothership phase is notorious for having Golden Eggs be only obtainable by splatting the flying Chinooks as well as being the only time that the team can lose those eggs already in the basket, thanks to the Mothership's vacuum funnel. The Sting Ray not only repels the Mothership's advances in rapid succession, but its beam also destroys the Chinooks spawning on top of the Mothership, dropping Golden Eggs onto the ground for the picking. Because of this phenomena, many work crews find themselves doubling the quota number with ease. Due to this, the Sting Ray is often saved for this phase by most players and many cries of "Booyah!" can be heard once it's deployed against the Mothership. It can also be handy during the Glowflies wave, where enemy movement can be predicted easily with enough know-how. The downside is that it's highly situational, unlike the Inkjet and Splashdown which can be activated at almost any time and are godsends for escaping from and clearing out hordes of Salmonids in all directions instead of simply forwards). It later got rescued for competitive multiplayer after version 1.3.0 allowed it to extend its radius after firing it continuously for at least 1.5 seconds, making it easier to hit opponents. And then subverted after the buff skyrocketed the special into High-Tier Scrappy status, where the special became widely hated to deal with among competitive players, and had to be nerfed frequently in patches as a result.
  • Balance patch 3.2.0 gave a much-needed buff to the Tenta Missiles, widely regarded as one of the worst specials up to this point. In addition to being able to lock onto the Rainmaker barrier, the special is now only locked to four missiles per target when targeting three or more enemies. When locking onto two enemies, that number is increased to five, and locking onto one enemy increases it to ten missiles per target. While still not as hard to avoid as other specials, this buff gave decent sets held down by Tenta Missiles (such as the Splat Dualies, Slosher, and Mini Splatling) a bit more viability.
  • In the same balance patch as the Tenta Missiles, the Autobomb sub-weapon also received a much-needed buff. Early on in some circles, the Autobomb was seen as unreliable at eliminating targets due to their low ink-coverage and how easily they could be fooled when chasing targets. However, it was already slowly getting rescued before the patch when players used them as herding weapons or tracking tools instead of simply trying to get hits with them, but even then, the Autobombs suffered from consuming just as much ink as the high-coverage bombs, leaving the player with little ink to finish off the pestered target. At the cost of slightly lower ink-coverage (which wasn't one of its strengths to begin with), the patch sharply dropped the Autobomb's ink-consumption to the second-lowest for a sub-weapon in the game, making it much more viable for pressuring opponents, and with sub-savers and/or the Custom Splattershot Jr.'s larger ink tank, you can deploy at least two at a time to create more chaos.
• Ron the Death Eater:
  • Inkling society as a whole, because of Salmon Run. Fandom loves to portray the admittedly shady Grizzco as sending folks in to the innocent salmonid lairs to steal their children, ignoring the fact that A) these same eggs you collect are found all throughout Octo Canyon, implying they're just egg-like objects rather than actual eggs, and B) the salmonids are implied to be Always Chaotic Evil in at least one sunken scroll. Yes, Grizzco is shady and it's unclear why they want the eggs, but still.
  • Some people treat Pearl as being abusive towards Marina, due to her having a more aggressive personality, generally to justify or parody her Memetic Loser status above. Obviously, this has no basis in-canon outside of their standard Splatfest banter and arguing. Octo Expansion did a lot to dispel this notion.
  • Related to the above, some people who think Marina is overrated portray her as an Attention Whore and/or Bitch in Sheep's Clothing whose shy demeanor is an act to make Inklings love her. Some even go so far as to portray her as being just as evil as the other Octarians, though the reasoning for her becoming an Inkopolis celebrity tend to vary. To say this isn't canon would be an understatement.
• Saved by the Fans: In early versions of the game, Callie was shoved Out of Focus exceptionally hard, almost to the point of Demoted to Extra. The basic plot fridged her to wring some pathos out of Marie, her Brainwashed and Crazy phase during the final battle amounted to "sings part of the final boss music with an Evil Costume Switch", and then that was it. Callie was Put on a Bus the instant the credits rolled, only appearing in person if you refought the final boss or used her notoriously hard-to-find amiibo, with the only allusion to what happened to her being a quick Hand Wave from Marie along the lines of, "she had to be somewhere." Many of her fans were not happy, and quickly took to the in-game post service with a flood of support artwork (complete with its own hashtag, #BringCallieBack). Eventually, it paid off—the 3.0 update added Callie to Tentakeel Outpost after clearing the single-player mode, where she gets some more banter in with Marie and touches on what she's been doing afterward.
• Scrappy Weapon:
  • A few otherwise okay weapons in the main modes end up becoming The Load in Salmon Run.
    • The Inkbrush gets it the worst of all; its attacks are way too weak to deal with most enemy hordes and bosses while its ability to create ink trails isn't all that useful either because of how small it is, making it impractical for guiding teammates back to the egg basket and how easily Salmonids can take over the teams turf. Its main strength of rushing to enemies is negated due to Salmon Run's defensive nature. About the only use people have come up for with it is collecting eggs, sweeping aside Smallfries and focusing on bosses that require bombs to beat; which is also impractical because both of those things tend to be behind hordes of enemies and other bosses. Its only unique benefit is allowing the player to move at swim speeds over the wire-mesh terrain which permeates the Lost Outpost for as long as their ink holds out, but when you consider you need that ink to attack...
    • The Chargers don't have it too much better. While it can splat a small area around ground zero, take out a row of Chum and Smallfries and instagib a Steelhead on a direct hit, it dumps all its power into the one shot, meaning that bombs and specials are required for crowd control should they be cut off from reinforcements. Glowflies on a Charger player are a source of angry language over voice chat for this very reason. The scope chargers are even worse, since they greatly narrow the player's field of view while their greater accuracy is moot in a mode where enemy movements are predictable, requiring you to constantly no-scope if you want to keep a good field of vision. Even worse is the Goo Tuber, which trades range and charge speed for mobility in a game mode where major threats come in numbers and need to be eliminated quickly; while a player can charge in relative safety and engage or swim up a wall to attack fully charged and in relative safety, this is not sufficient compensation for the weapon's other drawbacks. In addition, the Goo Tuber's main strength, that you can hide in ink for a while with a full charge, is pointless in Salmon Run because the Salmonids still know where you are even while you're hiding in ink. The Bamboozlers have a swift charge time, but the lack of damage output and penetration makes killing Cohock lines or some bosses much harder than it needs to be. Only the Squiffer is useful due to its adequate damage output, short charge time, and penetration, as it allows splatting lines of Salmonids with ease.
    • Most Blasters (except the rare Grizzco Blaster in Random Loadouts) are Master of None weapons that can't spread ink reliably around the map and utilize its strengths properly most of the time (the Salmonids often swarm players at close range), nor is it effective against Boss Salmonids in any way. 1.2.0 gave the Blaster weapons a bit of a damage upgrade and the ability to knock off multiple Stinger segments at once, and a well-aimed shot can remove a chunk of Chum and Smallfry in one go and do good damage to a Cohock.
    • The Dynamo Roller. While being able to plow over all three sizes of the basic Salmonids is a nice plus, it is an absolute nightmare to defeat bosses with because of the huge startup time needed to fling ink into bosses' weak points (a problem also shared by the Flingza Roller if one attempts a jumping fling) and the huge amount of ink it eats up in the process, requiring lots of refueling and another startup just to get rolling again. Other rollers can also have trouble destroying Boss Salmonids as ramming into them does very little and ink flings are hard to aim and lack the strength to destroy them quickly (Stingers especially), but nothing is more welcome during a Glowfly or Griller wave.
    • The Nozzlenoses are a pain due to having to squeeze the trigger in a rhythm to keep the ink spraying, compared to other shooters which spray it constantly. The H-3 has it a bit worse due to the delay between bursts. While the H-3 can tear through some of the Boss Salmonids with just one burst fired on their weakpoints (especially a Steelhead's bombs), it does not fare as well with crowds of lesser Salmonids as well as reclaiming turf.
    • While the Heavy and Mini Splatlings can be a bit of a nuisance to those unfamiliar with their workings forcing more defensive play, the Hydra Splatling mandates mastery to use effectively in Salmon Run. The user is slowed significantly during spin-up, unable to dodge Flyfish missiles and Stinger rays in the meanwhile, and the weapon takes several seconds to fully charge, which in the midst of a salmon swarm can feel like forever. The upside is the sheer volume of shots and a range matched only by the E-Liter, but if you can't get a grasp on the weapon's functions, any Salmon Run involving this weapon will not be a fun one for you. Extra points if you keep receiving the weapon during random weapon shifts.
    • The Explosher can make quick work of Flyfish thanks to its shots being able to destroy the missile pods directly...but due to its slow rate of fire and lackluster coverage, it's lousy at everything else.
    • While many agree that the Grizzco weapons are all Game Breakers, the Grizzco Slosher is the least-liked of the bunch, as while it can demolish any boss with ease and chew through thick hordes of Salmonids, it fires slowly, its shots move slowly, and it drains a full ink tank in just four shots.
  • Some weapons make the single player mode more difficult than it would've been otherwise.
    • The Hero Charger and Hero Splatling. While someone already acquainted with these weapon types won't be as affected, the inability to fire and do consistent damage on command makes it quite difficult to deal with some of the Octarian variants, and the Charger and Splatling both require charging up in order to do any meaningful damage. Other weapons that require some charging or buildup, like the Roller or Slosher, at least output all their damage at once regardless and don't require further charging to do more.
    • The Splatling also makes numerous puzzles that require inking walls quite difficult, due to taking time to charge up each stream of shots, meaning if you don't cover everything you need the first time, you gotta charge up again; and quite a few puzzles require inking walls on a strict time limit.
    • Once again the Blaster can be awkward to use in most situations. The level that requires using it is often cited as That One Level too.
• Sequel Difficulty Spike: The single player mode in the first game served primarily as a way to familiarize the player with the game's mechanics. The single player mode in this game is much tougher, throwing in a higher density of enemies, more complex puzzles, and borderline Platform Hell sequences. The collectibles are either more well hidden or require solving puzzles or performing tricky maneuvers to obtain. Plus, there's two major collectibles per level instead of just one. Most of the bosses are also much more difficult. In the first game, most of them could be defeated fairly easily once you knew their attack patterns. Here, even if you know how they attack, actually taking advantage of that weakness requires a decent amount of skill.
• Signature Scene: The final battles:
  • Of the base game: DJ Octavio and Callie in the Octobot King Mk II, particularly the "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight "Tidal Rush" for being the game's emotional climax, and the finale in which Agent 4 rides on Inkrails while battling Octavio with a modified Rainmaker.
  • Of Octo Expansion:
    • The NILS Statue, an elaborate game of Turf War in which Agent 8 must cover the entirety of a world-destroying superweapon in ink, and Pearl using her incredibly loud voice and a Killer Wail to engage the statue in a Beam-O-War.
    • The True Final Boss fight with Agent 8's idea of Agent 3, who blatantly cheats and is universally regarded as the hardest boss fight across both games.
• Special Effect Failure: The Friendship Bracelet is an ankle bracelet that leaves you barefooted...but the footsteps still sound as if you have shoes on.
• Suspiciously Similar Song:
  • The beginning to Inkoming! has a similar sound to the beginning of Saturday Night's Alright (For Fighting) by Elton John.
  • The recurring jingle in Octo Expansion used when completing a level and in the final boss music sounds quite similar to the chorus of Crazy In Love by Beyoncé followed by the guitar riff of Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple.
  • The main guitar melody behind Blitz It! sounds a lot like the the vocals from the chorus of Weezer's Buddy Holly.
  • Broken Coral has some sounds that sound very similar to I Think I'm Going to Like It Here from the Annie Musical
  • At the 12 second point of Frantic Aspic is a cello-and-drums segment that sounds a lot like a less-suspenseful-more-panicky version of Jaws' most famous riff.
• Tear Jerker: The implications that the last Splatfest has caused a rift between the Squid Sisters is hard to stomach. Even more so in the Squid Sister Stories, where they spend quite a bit of time elaborating on just how inseparable they were before it. And that's not getting to where Callie went.
• That One Attack:
  • Splashdown, due to its radius that can splat multiple players at once, along with that it takes precise aim to eliminate the player when it's activated.
  • Any use of unexpected Splat Bombs when they are thrown at a location where a player might be will cause instant splat.
  • Anyone who has survived Inner Agent 3 from Octo Expansion will quickly tell you that the worst part of the fight is the constant Autobomb spam. Take Autobombs, which were already considered a Scrappy Weapon for the wrong reasons in normal online play before Update 3.2.0, and give it to a hypercompetent AI player who is more durable than you and can evade and throw Specials with impossible regularity. This is in addition to an extremely cramped battlefield with practically no hiding spots, which makes Autobombs difficult to evade. Due to blast-type weaponry applying burst damage to a small region outside the actual displayed explosion, having your armor broken while an Autobomb is on the field is essentially a death sentence, as between Agent 3's attacks and the Autobomb hunting you down, evading while suffering the speed penalty makes it nearly impossible to dodge the Autobomb's blast radius. Better hope you like starting over. Over and over and over.
• That One Boss:
  • Octo Shower is, for many players, the definition of unfair. It hovers above the battlefield and can only be defeated by shooting the Octocopters holding it afloat, but the problem with that is that the Octocopters are not as easy to hit as they might seem, and shooting down even one can cause Octo Shower to back off and charge to a different area of the map. And depending on what weapon you're using, it's near-impossible to even HIT anything unless Octo Shower is near one of the ink rails, but the bastard has an ANNOYING habit of somehow being JUST out of reach even if you're on a rail. Oh, and the first time you face him, you're stuck with the charger, which is known for being horrible for facing things head on. And lord help you if you're stuck with a shorter range weapon, like the dualies. That's not even getting into its wide variety of attacks...
  • The Final Boss, despite certainly being a Best Boss Ever, can be frustrating for players who skipped the first game. The simple fact of Octavio's stage being a regular boss arena in contrast to the previous game is a good example of Surprise Difficulty: Octavio is no longer on rails so his patterns are much less predictable, and his punches and Bomb Rushes will leave a lot of ink on the arena floor since there are no drop-offs for them to bounce over. Mechanics-wise, he also punches a lot more (half of them spinning punches which can't be deflected), and his nuke and Killer Wail from the prequel were replaced by Octo Shower's shower attack which sends Octavio barreling into you with little warning (made worse by Octavio always inching towards you). You need to keep one eye on Octavio and the other eye on the arena floor at all times, keeping your distance while overwriting his ink with your own, requiring a level of dexterity that blindsides new players. Maybe Octo Shower's difficulty was a primer for this...
  • Most of the Octo Expansion bosses.
    • Octo Oven is the easiest boss in the normal game. Octo Oven XXL, however, is frustratingly difficult despite retaining more or less the same basic pattern. The fight is complicated by various mooks surrounding its weak point, who will quickly waste you if you don't take the time to eliminate a few first, which drags out the fight and allows the boss to easily overwhelm you between its bevy of attacks and the mooks up top. Phase 2 onward also tacks on Sprinklers to the sides, which also need to be taken care of if you want to get to the top. Your choices in weaponry include the Jet Squelcher, Rapid Blaster Pro, and Octobrush (with Burst Bombs); the former two can take care of the annoyances at a comfortable range, but the Octobrush is essentially the equivalent of shooting yourself in the foot. The canned specials you can find (Ink Armor and Sting Ray) can ease some of the agony, but that's assuming you make it up that far...
    • Octostomp Redux starts the fight armored, and sprays out Bubble Blower shots upon stamping that make it harder to ink its sides and need to be evaded to make any progress. It also adds a new attack where it peppers you with gatling shots while spraying a massive load of bubbles, which forces you to either hide or risk getting close to attack the armor at the expense of being at the mercy of the Bubble Blower.
    • The penultimate boss fight, a Brainwashed and Crazy Agent 3, is a Mirror Boss with scarily good AI, a very small arena, multiple phases, and the ability to cheat by changing and spamming specials (most notably, using Splashdown four times in a row at one point). It is not uncommon for players to just take the skip offer due to losing five times, and is regarded as harder than the Final Boss (which just has you finding and destroying a bunch of stationary and defenseless targets). And this is the easier version of the fight against this character; a much, much more difficult version awaits for those trying to get 100% Completion. The amped-up version of the fight in particular has gained notoriety as possibly one of the hardest bosses in recent Nintendo history.
• That One Level:
  • The entire Salmon Run mode introduced in this installment is Nintendo Hard enough to warrant its own page.
  • Octo Canyon Level 19: The Experimentorium. Shielded Octotroopers are placed in absolutely hideous locations, platforms no larger than themselves. Plus, these octotroopers are the variant that fires the high-power ink balls that can 3-shot the player while firing in 2 shot bursts, so no Ramboing through the shields. What earns this level this section is the grapplinks. Oh, those freaking grapplinks! You have to hit multiple grapplinks back to back to get over an bottomless pit. While pretty easy if equipped with a rapid fire weapon, you need 'perfect' timing if you are using a slowly firing weapon like the charger or blaster. And since this is the stage that introduces you to the Blaster...
  • Some of the Squid Beatz 2 charts look like they jumped straight out of Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA and Taiko no Tatsujin:
    • Especially "Spicy Calamari Inkantation", which has a ridiculously high note density on Hard Mode and abuses L/R to face button jumps and drumming, and splices combo notes into seemingly random segments.
    • Four words. "Splattack (Octo)" Hard Mode. It's blazing fast, you need to have fast fingers, fast reaction time and hours of practice. Oh, it also has the highest note count. How many notes, you ask? 666. Intentional or not, it should give you an idea of what kind of hell you’ll put your digits through.
  • The Octo Expansion DLC has these in spades:
    • The 8-Ball tests, where the goal is to guide a giant 8-Ball to the goal. The problem is, if it falls off the stage, an Ink Sac on the back of Agent 8 detonates, causing an instant Splat. Add in platforms that are often narrow or lack guard rails, the fact that enemy fire can also affect the ball, and the fact that you have to pay to attempt each level (including continues), and you have a recipe for frustration. Nintendo was well aware, with Octo Expansion having a Mercy Mode in the form of letting you skip levels after enough deaths^note with the usual Easy-Mode Mockery of the game not counting these levels as actually being beaten, with the player receiving fake Mem Cakes if you do this. These are infamous enough that in the third game's Side Order DLC, Pearl expresses utter dread when she sees an Infinity-Ball for the first time - expecting them to work just like the 8-Ball tests - only for Acht to reveal that these new balls cannot fly out of the stage.
    • The balloon-popping levels tend to be on a time limit, on rails, or have the balloons fly away very quickly, and you usually only get a single life per try. They're even worse if you're recommended or forced to use a charger-type weapon.
    • D08/J03: Girl Power Station. Your mission? Protect an orb in the center of the stage from waves of Octolings for 90 seconds. You get to chose between one of three bomb types chosen when selecting the mission, and any weapon you think you'll do the best with before Octo-jumping down to the field. This apparent advantage disappears once you realize that these Octolings have some of the most challenging AI in the game next to Inner Agent 3 and are capable of charging their own specials (you're forced to run around the stage for canned ones, if you're willing to risk the time). Expect to see yourself and/or the orb explode over and over again by way of Inkjet, Sting Ray, Ink Storm, Splashdown, or just a plain old Blaster shot.
    • Another nasty contender for brutal Octoling levels is Rad Ride Station. You have to win a game of Tower Control against a team of Octolings equipped with range blasters, brellas, ink storms, and ink jets, four very dangerous weapons that will likely force you off the tower, wasting precious time. However, time isn't the only reason why getting off the tower is bad; you are playing on Snapper Canal, in which the tower travels over long stretches of water that you can't jump across. The multiplied amount of checkpoints and Octolings are positioned right by the water, which is even more insurmountable, given your weapon options. (The Hydra Splatling needs to be charged up before encounters, the Aerospray will put you at point blank range of the enemies, and the Range Blaster's recoil can potentially knock you off the tower.) The final nail in the coffin is that an Octoling with splash walls will super jump on the tower when it is a few feet away from the goal...
    • C04: Move It Move It Station. This 30-second No-Damage Run is aggravating for several reasons. The platform you're stuck on is small, you can't use your Octo form and can only walk, it's hard to judge the distance of enemy shots due to lack of reference points, you don't get a weapon (another No-Damage Run gives you an Inkjet to make it more manageable), and (possibly most annoyingly) you only get a single life, meaning you have to pay the fee every single time you die, which will probably be pretty often. The only saving grace is that the testing fee is a low 200 CQ points.
    • I07/C07: Ride with Me Station. A Frogger-type level where you have to ride on cars has a very frustrating end segment where you have to dodge ink sticks and splat enemies at the same time while shooting a propeller enough to fly over a huge stack of sticks to the goal, all while not running out of ink.
    • Phase 6 of the escape sequence is a massive pain in the neck, as you will need to guide an energy core through a room filled with all sorts of enemies, meaning that it's near impossible to prevent it from being damaged. And the energy core has a shockingly small health bar, to boot. While a few checkpoints do help, it doesn't do much to make the irritating enemy placement of this Escort Mission any more tolerable.
  • Multiplayer maps:
    • Arowana Mall. Do two or more of the opposing team have Tenta Missiles? Prepare to endure three or five minutes of constant Macross Missile Massacre. The map is basically a narrow corridor with few branching paths, effectively making it Walleye Warehouse albeit with somewhat less clutter on the field, and as a result it heavily biases in favor of the Tenta Missiles' targeting reticule, which will almost always target 3 or 4 opponents if used from the spawn point.
    • Camp Triggerfish in Splat Zones is another two-zone map, and both Splat Zones are separated by a gap too wide to cross with a jump, making it much harder to maintain control of both zones since it's a fair bit of distance to get from one Zone to the other.
    • Snapper Canal. The rather cluttered layout of this stage manages to make it feel both empty and too closed-in at the same time. Also, as the name entails, a canal of water runs through the middle of the stage. Combined with areas where it is easy to get surrounded, this makes Tower Control in particular a nightmare on this level due to having very little room to dodge enemy attacks (see the Rad Ride Station entry above).
    • Starfish Mainstage's midfights can get absolutely brutal due to having very little cover and flank routes positioned directly above it. This makes specials that grant invincibility, like Ink Armor and the Baller, an absolute must for maintaining control in this stage.
    • Goby Arena, especially in Turf War. Since every route from spawn leads directly to the central area of the map, a team that's competent enough can completely shut down any pushes from the opposition if they take the center quickly enough.
    • Wahoo World is best known for two things: having an incredibly cramped mid area with little cover and no alternate paths that bypass it, and that mid area being flat out inaccessible for half the match whenever the bridges retract. This makes it a frustrating mess to try and play on.
    • The Splat in our Zones, the Shifty Station layout for the Pancake vs. Waffle Splatfest, was infamous for incorporating Splat Zones into a Turf War map. In particular, there are six zones on the map (three for each side) and they are all very big compared to their appearance in the actual Splat Zones mode, meaning that if an enemy sneaks onto a zone you're on and they overtake it (thus turning the entire zone to their color), you can suddenly find yourself surrounded by a sea of enemy ink, and from there your opponents can easily splat you back to the spawn point.
• That One Sidequest:
  • Unlocking all of the Hero Weapon Replicas. Each one requires you to complete every level in the single-player mode with it in order to unlock it for multiplayer, and there are 9 in all, thus requiring you to beat the entire single-player mode 9 times in order to unlock everything. Not only can this get tedious, but some levels can become quite difficult if you're not good with a certain weapon type, while some bosses become wars of attrition. Sanitizarium with a Slosher, anyone?
  • The Octo Expansion has the Golden Toothpick, which requires a whole new level of player masochism — not only do you have to get all of the Mem Cakes (say hello to those levels for us), but you also have to take down a souped-up Agent 3 after all that. Are you really that thirsty?
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: After the update cycle came to an end, some Squid Sisters fans feel this way. While Pearl and Marina get a ton of Character Focus as the hosts of Inkopolis News and Splatfests, and play a major role in the Octo Expansion that goes a long way in establishing their friendship and humanizing them as characters, Callie and Marie don't get anywhere near as much attention. Splatoon 2's Hero Mode reuses the structure of Splatoon 1's, which doesn't provide much room for development, and Callie was snubbed especially hard prior to version 3.0 as mentioned elsewhere on the page. The Octo Expansion reduces both Callie and Marie to cameos; they only appear as Mem Cakes, on Cap'n Cuttlefish's phone background, and in a picture in one of the chat logs, plus the bonus log unlocked by completing every station that features Marie. On top of that, promotional materials for the second game largely ignore the Squid Sisters in favor of Off the Hook (the artwork and background music for FinalFest being among the few exceptions), despite both Callie and Marie maintaining their very large fan bases from the first game. Which is all a little ironic, considering early stages in the game's update cycle had the exact opposite problem.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • The real identity of Mr. Grizz and the overall shadiness of Grizzco are never revealed/explained, not even in Sunken Scrolls or the Octo Expansion, at least until the last released Salmon Run map finally gave a few hints for the former.
  • Given that Octo Expansion allows the player to play as an Octoling for the first time in the series, many players are disappointed that the expansion doesn't really do any worldbuilding on the Octolings' and Octarians' side, instead having the player perform a series of tests in a facility that doesn't represent Octarian culture at all.
  • On a less lore-heavy note, some Japanese fans were unimpressed that the Pocky Day Splatfest didn't pit the famous snack against its saltier counterpart Pretz, seeing as the full name of the holiday is Pocky and Pretz Day.
  • The Ruins of Ark Polaris seem to imply a rescue space launch gone wrong, and the signage throughout the stage is written in English rather than the Inkling or Octoling languages. It wouldn't be until Splatoon 3 that the location's purpose was elaborated upon.
  • In the repeats of "Mayo vs. Ketchup" and "Chicken vs. Egg", there is no new dialogue from Pearl and Marina. While understandable seeing as the Splatfests are only really to allow players to build up Super Sea Snails, it's still a letdown for players who have already gone through the Splatfests. The victory of Ketchup in the former did allow some previously unused dialogue to be seen, at least.
• Ugly Cute:
  • The tiny Salmonoids have toothy maws, ragged attire, and googly eyes, but there's something about them that makes them look adorable. Especially in Splatoon 3 where the player gets a Smallfry companion.
  • Pearl tends to get this reaction.
  • C. Q. Cumber is a sea pig, a type of sea cucumber from the deep sea (home to some of the more frightening sea creatures), and not even an anthropomorphic one like the other Denizens of the Deep. But he looks like a cross between a tiny sea slug and a gummy worm and wears a tiny conductor's hat that can be worn by your player character.
• Underused Game Mechanic:
  • The Sub Weapons (Fizzy Bomb and Torpedo) and Specials (Booyah Bomb and Ultra Stamp) added in Version 4 only appear on a total of four (Fizzy Bomb and Torpedo) or five (Booyah Bomb and Ultra Stamp) weapons due to debuting late into the game's active development cycle (two months and one month before updates concluded), compared to other Subs and Specials that can appear on a total of ten-plus weapons each. Sheldon's Picks gave each Sub one extra kit (Bamboozler 14 Mk III for the Fizzy Bomb and Clear Dapple Dualies for the Torpedo) and each Special two (Aerospray PG and Heavy Splatling Remix for the Booyah Bomb, Sploosh-o-matic 7 and Tenta Camo Brella for the Ultra Stamp), but otherwise was tailored more to kits containing subs and specials only from the game's launch period. Adding insult to injury, neither of these new Specials have been made available in Salmon Run; no Booyah'ing or hammering Salmonids for you! They're also not available in Octo Expansion, either as test options or as part of Agent 3's loadout, but the latter case is perhaps for the best.
  • Each of the Shifty Station layouts is only available during a single Splatfest, which in most cases is 24 hours, and is never put into rotation again afterwards. Which is a shame, since Shifty Stations are known for being cool Gimmick Levels, with some exceptions. This was solved twofold in July 2019 with the Final Fest bringing back all previous Shifty Stations into rotation and the 5.0 update allowing Splatfests, Shifty Stations and all, to be played in private lobbies, although this is still problematic as for many people, getting 7 friends together (or even just 5, if you want to settle for a 3v3) for full matches in Shifty Stations is easier said than done. Still it's better than nothing.
  • The first day of the Final Fest makes use of several tracks that hadn't been used in a Splatoon 2 Splatfest before. Unfortunately, days 2 and 3 of the 'Fest ditched this in favor of only playing "Spicy Calamari Inkantation" and "Fly Octo Fly ~ Ebb & Flow", respectively.
• Unexpected Character: While people expected there would be new hosts to replace Callie and Marie given their deeper integration into the story mode, absolutely no one expected an Octoling to be one of the new hosts, given them being the Arch-Enemy of Inkling kind.
• Values Dissonance: A minor variant. The second Splatfest was an international one called "Ketchup vs Mayonnaise". This confused a large number of North American players, as the "ketchup vs mayo" debate isn't a thing in the Americas like it is in other countries. In America and Canada, a more proper debate would be "ketchup vs mustard". Americans don't tend to use mayonnaise as a condiment to the same extent they do for mustard, and when it is used, it is more often than not used in addition to ketchup, such as special sauce for burgers^note which is a combination of ketchup, mayo and pickle relish.
• Woolseyism: The American localization team initially had Marina be more snarky towards Pearl's behavior, in the same manner that Marie was to Callie in the original game. Later updates to the game had this toned down to be closer to the original Japanese: she's still occasionally snarky, but her jokes are generally a lot more good-natured and showcase the duo's friendship more, despite not delving as deeply into the Senpai-Kohai relationship seen in the Japanese version.
• The Woobie:
  • Dedf1sh was originally an up and coming and DJ with her entire life and career ahead of her, until she came upon an underground test facility hoping to perfect her art, where Commander Tartar killed her for her efforts and reanimated her as a Sanitized Octoling, and continues to mindlessly create new tracks to this day. The fact that something so gruesome and sad in a game that's so lighthearted only makes it much more jarring.
  • Marina, to an extent, is also a bit of a woobie when you consider the she has lost almost every Splatfest outside of Japan thanks to her teams being the popular pick but underperforming in the battlefield. It gets to a point it becomes more sad than funny, especially when she snapped at Pearl after losing the Fork vs. Spoon Splatfest after previously losing Pulp vs. No Pulp and Squid vs. Octopus back-to-back. This is in stark contrast to the first Splatoon, where both Squid Sisters had a more even win/loss rate. However, starting from September 2018 when the new scoring system was integrated into the game, her luck has done a massive 180 with her so far only losing four Splatfests since then across all regions ^note Salsa vs. Guac (NA), Boke vs. Tsukkomi (JP), Hare vs. Tortoise (Global), and Without Pineapple vs With Pineapple (JP) much to her satisfaction. This is especially notable in Europe where her luck was by the far worst where she had a nasty 5 month losing streak at one point and managed to lose every single European exclusive Splatfest until Eat It vs Save It. She also lost the Final Fest of Chaos vs. Order in every category.

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