User:DJParticle/Musings

  SPLATOON   

Callie vs. Marie
This was the first Splatfest that came up after I first found out about Splatfests in my early days researching lore, and had I not been so determined to pronounce the game 'unplayable by me' in August 2015 and not pick the game up again until the following June, I'd have known about them sooner. They seemed to me like an exciting time to splat, and I couldn't wait for the next one!

Then, it was announced! July 2016 would be Callie vs. Marie, and it was announced far in advance, because it would be the LAST Splatfest! My heart sank, but at least I'd get one Splatfest in befo--

"July 22-23, 2016"

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! That was my birthday weekend! I was planning to be out of town the entire weekend on a small vacation. I took time off work for it. I made plans with friends for it. And now, the FINAL SPLATFEST was going to take place during it!

I briefly considered canceling until I came to my senses and realized how shallow that would be. I considered bringing the Wii U to my friend's place (where I was staying that weekend) so I could splat, but realized her internet wasn't too conducive to online gaming...

So I bit the bullet and accepted that I wouldn't be splatting, but I did not go away empty-handed. I at least grabbed the tee for Team Callie and got 2 Super Sea Snails out of it, and also gave my Miitomo Mii the same tee, which she continued to wear until Miitomo shut down on May 9, 2018.

As for why I chose Team Callie: Frankly, she reminds me a lot of myself -- excitable, perky, a bit self-centered at times but meaning well. It was the natural choice.

  SPLATOON 2 (BATTLE COUNT)   

Mayo vs. Ketchup
I did not take part in the testfire Splatfest in July 2017, mainly because I hadn't gotten my Nintendo Switch yet. back then, if you wanted one, you had to keep a close eye on when your local GameStop would get them, and even then, purchase a bundle pack. It was a difficult time to get a Switch.

But when was released, I put my hunt on high gear, and as luck would have it, I was able to mail-order Switches for myself and my partner. I got a Splatoon 2 bundle for me and a Mario Kart 8 Deluxe bundle for her, and separately ordered a second copy of each game, so we would both have both games.

The Switches arrived August 1, 2017, and the first thing I did was fire up Splatoon 2...

Wow! A new Inkopolis area!

Cool! A new pop duo announcing the stag--

"DING DING DING! We have a Splatfest coming!!"

...I may have silently squeed in wide-eyed amazement. I don't remember. I did know the game was only 12 days old, so this must be the first Splatfest, I figured (I didn't know yet about the testfire Splatfest).

I was home. I was finally going to take part in a Splatfest! Being a fan of Miracle Whip, I chose... Team Ketchup! Because seriously, mayo is just dull.

When the time came, I dug right in. I fell in love with the atmosphere, the music (both Square and maps), and I just wanted to splat all day... but I couldn't, because I had committed to Valleyfair that Saturday afternoon. I splatted my way to Defender that night, slept, and resumed all the way to Champion 33/99 just before we left.

Thinking Champion was the highest rank, I rested on my laurels and went to Valleyfair.

Upon getting home (3 hours before Splatfest ended), I decided to do some more splatting and saw ranks of "King" and "Queen". Yikes! I had to max out this bar and quick! a bit over 2 hours later, I was a Ketchup Queen, with very very few non-mirror matches, which I found out meant Ketchup likely had a high popularity rating.

So I looked up how Splatfests were scored in the old game, and got excited because it seemed that such a high popularity would mean Ketchup would almost be guaranteed to win!

Then came the results, and I found out the hard truth. Splatfests this time were scored not by percentage points, but by CATEGORY points, and there were three categories so...never a tie, and Team Mayo's prowess on the splatterfield in two categories got them the win. Results were similar in the EU, but in Japan, Mayo won popularity and lost team play, but basically Mayo won around the world.

Sighing, I took my 21 Super Sea Snails and awaited the next time.

But there is one coda to this, as in January 2018, the raw numbers of Splatfest participation were released for all Splatfests from this one to the then-most-recent one. Curious, I decided to crunch the numbers for what was Splatoon 2's only "multi-region" Splatfest to that date with segregated results.

Because Ketchup won popularity by a landslide in the West, it more than overcame Mayo's slight edge in popularity in the East, taking the popular vote 55%-45%. On the other hand, Japanese players played over 130,000 team-matched battles, compared to approximately only 15,000 in the other two regions combined. This meant overall, Ketchup took this category too, with a 51%-49% win. Mayo, having won solo-matched play in all 3 regions, obviously took that category 51%-49%.

Team Ketchup was the true winner of the Splatfest after all, and I will defend that to my dying day! *heh*

Flight vs. Invisibility
A bit of background on why I chose Team Flight: At the time this Splatfest was announced, there was a series of posts in Inkopolis Square North America supportive of the LGBT community. Naturally, the USA being... the USA... this triggered a lot of closed-minded people to loudly demand that the posts stop. Posts on both sides got reported but by and large, Nintendo only removed non-supportive posts.

So I chose Team Flight, as in "LGBT will not be invisible! Fly high and be proud!"

This time, once it started, I just played through until I Queened out, and slept afterward. Interestingly enough, this was the first Splatfest in which I played some of it in docked mode. (My Team Ketchup run was entirely in handheld mode)

Saturday night 1am Central Time came...and went, with no results, and I wasn't the only one curious about that, there were numerous posts in the Square asking how long until the results would be released. What we weren't told is that, like "Cake vs. Ice Cream", and unlike "Mayo vs. Ketchup", the North American and European results would be combined, and Europe wouldn't be done until 9am Central Time, meaning it wouldn't be until 11am that we'd see results. So, I slept, and made sure I was awake for the results.

This time, I got my first sweet taste of Splatfest victory!

But this Splatfest story has a tangent, as just before this Splatfest started, it was announced that Japan would be getting a different one the following week. Until that point, I had thought the themes would be the same across all regions.

But I was wrong, and I was about to ultimately indulge what had become my biggest video game obsession ever.

Fries vs. McNuggets
Shortly before the Flight vs. Invisibility Splatfest started, news came out that Japan was getting their first sponsored Splatfest the weekend after. McDonald's decided to have the denizens of Inkopolis Square splat it out to see which is better: Fries or McNuggets.

After Team Flight's victory, I tried to keep the love for Pearl going by urging those of us who were on Team Flight to support Pearl's new team, Team Fries, by making posts in the North American square cheering them on. Since McDonald's fries are the food of the gods (well, to me, anyway), I had no problem with this, making posts declaring "Team Flight for Team Fries"! After all, if we couldn't actually splat in it, we can show our support via the greater Splatoon community.

But wait, I thought... the Switch isn't region-locked!

Holy crap... we CAN splat in this!!!

So I started researching how to do it, and gathered up a lot of the information that is now compiled in my Multiregion FAQ. I opted for the hard way, getting the Japanese version from the eShop, while my partner decided to mail-order it, understanding that it would not come in time for Splatfest.

Within minutes, my new Level 1 Japanese Inkling was standing in the Square, sporting a Team Fries Splatfest Tee.

Dear Zapfish, what have I just done?

My partner decided later on that she wanted to splat for Team McNuggets after all, and I bought a THIRD copy of the Japanese version, my second from the eShop, for her Switch.

Friday afternoon, before Splatfest, we decided to actually go to McDonald's and represent our respective teams. I got myself 2 large fries, and she got 2 10-packs of McNuggets. It was strange as a meal, but it hit the spot.

Splatfest started well into the wee hours at 1am Central Time Friday night, and I played until I Queened out. I got a lot more lost connections in the lobby than I was used to, but it wasn't too bad. My partner paused about halfway and finished up after a good sleep. To show moral support, I played more while she finished up so she wouldn't be playing alone.

The results came sharp at 3am Saturday night, and my partner had some extra McNuggets to celebrate.

Also, just for fun, while the Splatfest was live, I wondered if anyone on Twitch was playing this Splatfest, and found an American user, living in Japan, who was busily splatting for Team McNuggets. After watching his stream, and liking it a lot, I followed him...the next week, I subbed to him. Little did I know what ELSE I was getting into, but that's a story for later.

Oh, and that extra hard copy of the Japanese version? We sold it on eBay. *heh*

Front Roll vs. Back Roll
The announcement came a week prior that this would be the next Splatfest theme, but strangely enough, I didn't see any announcement about it on my North American copy of the game. I had been busily using the past few weeks to get my Japanese squid up to level parity with my North American one, and had just finished, and what a grind it was.

It then dawned on me. Oh no. Oh oh no! Sure enough, this was a Europe-only Splatfest! The first of its kind!

So I did what I had to do. I had decided that I was not going to miss a Splatfest! Soon afterward, my new Level 1 European Inkling was standing in Inkopolis Square sporting a Team Front Roll Splatfest Tee.

Dear Zapfish, I did it again!

Why Team Front Roll? Simply put, because that was how the inventor of the toilet paper roll intended it to be, and who am I to argue with that?

This time, however, my partner did not join me in purchasing yet another version of the game. At this point, I was living, eating, and breathing Splatoon so much, and had so many play sessions filled with salt, that it was starting to grate on her a bit. She still thinks I'm nuts for it.

Splatfest started bright and early Saturday morning at 9am Central Time, and I dug right in, pausing only to spend time at a local gaming convention... that I brought my Switch to. I decided to see how connecting to a European Splatfest would fare on the hotel wireless. The answer: no problem whatsoever. I took myself to about 42/99 Champion before we left the convention.

I spent the wee hours of Saturday evening finishing up my Queen run, and connections got a bit harder to get, possibly because as a region, Europe's player pool is the smallest, averaging only about 140,000 people, and I was playing during a time when most of Europe was probably sleeping in. I did eventually make it to Queen, and slept.

When the results finally came in at 11am Central Time Sunday morning, I wasn't home (was at brunch with friends), but I did have my phone with me. I celebrated while my friends looked at me like a grew an extra head.

I had another long grind for level parity ahead of me. But first...

Dexterity vs. Endurance
This Splatfest stands out for three major oddities, the first of which is that it was erroneously announced for the wrong day. When they first announced this, it was scheduled for the day after the Front Roll vs. Back Roll Splatfest, a Sunday. Voting was open for only a few minutes when Nintendo realized their mistake and withdrew it, leaving many users in their Basic Tees.

The following Friday, this Splatfest was properly announced, but with oddity #2: it would start 2 hours earlier than usual, coinciding with the North American Splatfest that was also just announced, but we'll get to that later. Once voting re-opened, I chose Team Dexterity, mainly because I like to keep moving, even if I don't always get the chance to do so. My partner chose Team Endurance.

During the week that came before Splatfest, I noticed oddity #3: My Splatfest Tee said "ENDU RANCE" in Inkling Script. Thinking there may have been a translation error, I did research over two days, including trying to decode the Inkling Script on the Team Endurance tees. I soon discovered it said "INSTANT".

They...they actually put the wrong team names on the tees! WTF?!?

I started right in at opening time. Dexterity v Dexterity. Dexterity v Dexterity. Dexterity v Dexterity. A lot of mirror matches, which also led to some long connection times, but nothing too bad. I also had the worst Splatfest performance I ever had during that run, with my Splatfest Power somewhere in the 1200s.

Approximately 9 hours and change later, I finally Queened out. Tired and beat, I slept, but it would only be for a few hours, because I wasn't done with Splatfest yet, and my partner and I had plans Saturday night!

Vampire vs. Werewolf
When this Splatfest was announced as taking place the same time as Dexterity vs. Endurance, I started making my plans. At the time, my partner and I were spending every Friday and Saturday night at Valleyfair's "ValleyScare" event.

I was all set to do this according to plan. I chose Team Vampire simply because when it comes to sentient creatures of the night, I've always had an affinity for vampires. Zombies are a close second, but I long missed that Splatfest. Wasn't in the right region for the zombie one anyway. But I have always enjoyed the concept, and even portrayed vampires in online text-based roleplay areas. Werewolves...not so much. I don't even play one on WoW.

Fast forward to Splatfest night. We came home from Valleyfair around the time the Splatfests opened, and I figured I'd Queen out the Japanese Splatfest (maybe 5 hours), sleep until about Noon, Queen out the American Splatfest (maybe 4 hours), then start getting ready for our second night of ValleyScare.

NINE HOURS LATER, I finally Queened out the Japanese Splatfest...and went to bed. I set my alarm around 1pm, and got very little sleep, figuring that I could Queen out the American Splatfest faster.

I woke up with the alarm, grabbed a quick shower, and started in on my Team Vampire run about 2pm. I was still rather tired, but I played about average (for me anyway), Queening out in about 4 hours, my partner constantly worried that my playing would keep us from Valleyfair. After all, we're often honored guests in the vampire house, and it would be a shame to miss them.

We did make it to Valleyfair just fine, and the host of the vampire house seemed pleased that I dutifully splatted for Team Vampire!

Results for this Splatfest and Dexterity vs. Endurance came at the same time. I watched the Japanese one first, and as I was reeling from that loss, I saw how Team Vampire fared...

HOLY COW! A 3-0 SWEEP!! And I helped! It made Team Dexterity's loss that much easier to take.

Warm vs. Cold Breakfast
By the time this Splatfest started, I already knew that November would give me three weeks in a row of Splatfests, a first for. When voting opened, I listened to my stomach. My stomach said, "You like bacon! Bacon is warm!... BACON!"

So this was no contest. Bacon is the Light and the Way, so I chose Team Bacon-- er, Team Warm Breakfast.

At first I noticed the odd start and end times. Starts Saturday morning at 10am Central Time, ends Sunday morning at 9am Central Time? A 23-hour Splat-- ah! It's taking the overnight time change into account, which happens during Splatfest. Europe had already ended their Daylight Time, hence the "later" start time.

All in all, it was a rather uneventful Splatfest, Queening out in just under 4 hours for my fastest Queenout time to that date, leaving plenty of time during the day to enjoy the Mall of America!

The next morning, after the results were finalized, my partner and I celebrated with a nice hot breakfast at IHOP. A rather calm end to a rather calm Splatfest weekend.

Little did I know...hell was approaching...

Lemon vs. No Lemon
Before this Splatfest, I had never tried chicken kara-age. What it is, is basically breaded and wok-fried stir-fry style chicken. Some people like it with lemon, some without. For example, Marina hates lemon, saying how it drenches the breading and it loses its crunch...

...Damn, girl, how much lemon do you think we put on fried food, anyway?

So, assuming my usual experience with fried foods, I chose Team Lemon. After all, I love lemon on fried fish, and normally I like fried chicken (if it's not too greasy), so this can't be too much different, right? My partner chose the same way.

I figured that at some point before Splatfest, we really need to see what chicken kara-age is actually like. Luckily, there is a Japanese restaurant not far from us that serves it, so Friday afternoon, we went there. They served the chicken in a bowl, with lemon on the side, and a small dipping bowl of their house sauce. I snapped a photo of it and shared it on the Discord of an American-Japanese streamer I know.

He amusedly replied: "Never seen it served with sauce.  How American!"

However, I did put lemon on it, and realized that I indeed did back the correct team for my tastes. My partner agreed with the assessment.

Splatfest time came, and I dug right in. My partner, remembering the connection issues of Japanese Splatfests past, decided to wait and see how the connections were. So I lobbied...

...and lobbied...

...and lobbied...

It wasn't until 30 minutes passed that I got my first match, a mirror match. At that point, I knew I was on the popular team. Another 30 minutes passed before I got my second match...and I knew that hell had come for me. Oh well, not like I had plans for Saturday anyway.

To pass the time between matches, I browsed Twitch to see who else was splatting in this Splatfest, and came upon another American streamer in Japan (that again, I would later follow and sub). We'll call him 'Zen', since he figures prominently in future Splatfest musings. Turned out he was Team Lemon, and one of his American viewers was also multiregioning and was also Team Lemon (having the same connection troubles I was), and of course, I was Team Lemon!

Sadly, my partner had already given up and fallen asleep at this point, so we didn't have our fourth. All I could do was watch Zen Queen out, while I was getting matches about every 20-30 minutes. He ended stream shortly after that, but we made a plan to help him out with Team Sci-Fi the next week, and meet up for Japanese Splatfests in the future.

I kept browsing Twitch after that, watching other Japanese players King/Queen out, another American streamer who hopped on stream just so he'd have company through the connection issues, the first American-Japanese streamer I mentioned from the kara-age photo (who was Team No Lemon) Kinging Out. Numerous squids coming on, finishing, and here I am still struggling for connections.

At 9am Central Time, I started getting some faster connections, and won more, but that party didn't last very long as 2 hours later, I was back to long connection times and about 30 points to Queen.

At approximately 2:45pm Central Time, 14 HOURS and 45 MINUTES after starting Splatfest, I finally Queened out. My partner was complaining how I "ruined the day". Determined to prove her wrong, we went out and did stuff afterward...coffee, mall walk, um...I can't remember much else. I just remember coming home and almost literally falling into bed.

I did wake up in time to see the Splatfest results. All that waiting, all those hours and... we lost!

I vowed...NEVER AGAIN will I be subject to a nearly 15-hour Queenout time. Hopefully, I will remain correct in that declaration.

Sci-Fi vs. Fantasy
Science Fiction in media is in my blood. I collected Star Wars memorabilia when I was little. My first anime were sci-fi classics like Yamato, Grendizer, and Gaiking (albeit the crappy American dubs thereof). My first true fannish obsession was V, to the point where I created a Mary Sue for the universe (hey, I was 10). Doctor Who and Star Trek would soon follow.

Fantasy, not so much. Never cared much for D&D, Lord of the Rings, anything like that. The only real exception would be Warcraft, but even that tends to have branches in numerous genres, including Sci-Fi (Orcs, Draenei, and the Legion are basically aliens from outer space in the Warcraft universe...seriously)

After all that introduction, do I need to tell you which side I chose in this Splatfest?

In the lead up week to Splatfest, I drew single-panel parodies of numerous Sci-Fi staples in the Square. "Squid Trek" first, then "Doctor Woo", "W" (We Grill in Peace, Always!), "Space Splattership Woomato", and ending it all with "Mystery Inkling Theater 15000". All these can be viewed on my Twitter. I was hyped for this Splatfest!

When the time came, me, Zen, and two other Twitch viewers formed "Team Zen" (so Zen wouldn't run into the same issues I ran into the weekend before), and went at it. Zen wanted to try and Queen out in one rotation but...it wasn't going to happen. I admit, I'm not exactly an X-Rank player. Hell, I'm barely an A. But we did end after 3 hours and 20 minutes, a new personal best for me at the time!

The celebration was short-lived, however, as the then-unthinkable happened: Marina won a Splatfest outside of Japan! We were all dumbstruck at the time. She even got the popular vote (which more often than not, the Splatfest losing team tends to get).

But this would be just the start for Team Zen!

Inner Wear vs. Outer Wear
So Japan got their second sponsored Splatfest, while North America and Europe still haven't gotten any. This time, it was a lot less kid-centered, as the Uniqlo clothing company decided to let Inkopolis Square splat out which is more efficient. This to me is probably the most 'adult' a Splatfest has ever gotten.

I live in Minnesota. It gets cold here. It gets VERY cold here. I had never heard of Uniqlo (though I'd find out later that they DO have stores in the USA as well, most famously in New York City), so I had no idea of the quality of their merchandise, I just knew that ideally, you want BOTH layers to protect you from the cold.

But I had to choose one, and I went for Warm Outerwear, simply because the first defense against the cold is usually the best. What's underneath is more or less moot as long as there are layers. This was also the first time since Team Ketchup that I chose Marina's team, which I saw as a relief. After all, I actually like Marina better as a character (we DJs have to stick together!), but we just never clicked much on Splatfests, so finally being able to choose her side made me fangirl squee all over this Splatfest!

We got the Team Zen band back together for this fest, with my partner filling in for the one player from last time who didn't have the Japanese version of the game. With Zen hosting the lobby from Japan, we finished this Splatfest in just over 3.5 hours. We also kinda got attached to our team's color, sort of a faded lavender, not quite grey. Too bad it hasn't come back since.

Choosing Marina's team paid off in another way too, as this was the first Japanese Splatfest that my team won at.

I didn't have too much time to celebrate. I had to get some sleep toute suite, because this Splatfest weekend wasn't over yet!

Film vs. Book
Books and I usually don't get along. It's not that I can't read, it's just that a combination of childhood ADHD, and a LOT of utterly dry and boring books I was forced to read for school, turned me into a mostly book-hostile person. Unless a book can jump out at me and grab me in the first chapter, I lose interest fast. My short attention span just can't sit still for a lot of build-up.

A good movie, on the other hand, will grab you within the first 5-10 minutes, and never let go until the credits run. It's the perfect way to get in a good story in limited time, and whereas it tends to be passive entertainment, you can still do other things while watching a film, like cook dinner or play a simple video game.

Damn, that means I have to go with Pearl again! At least they have indigo ink. That's almost purple.

To cap off the week leading into Splatfest, I actually did something I had never done before. I decided to attempt to draw the same art on both the Japan and Europe versions. The art featured an inkling complaining about the Uniqlo ad playing in the movie theater. It seemed funny at the time.

Splatfest started bright and early at 8am Central Time Saturday morning, with the same Shifty Station used for the Uniqlo Splatfest, so here I had the advantage, as I was already used to that course. I noticed I was winning more often than usual, and by the time I Queened out...

3 hours 16 minutes! Shaved 4 minutes off my personal best! I was not expecting that, especially not from an overseas Splatfest! And once again, the day was saved!

Due to all the mirror matches, I knew Film had the popular vote by a landslide, which usually means the battles don't go our way, but we had an overwhelming percentage (53%) in team play to hand Pearl yet another victory in Europe.

At this point, people started noticing a pattern of these wins...

Sweater vs. Socks
After this Splatfest was revealed, I admit to being a bit puzzled. Yes, it was a holiday themed Splatfest, and North America only getting the previous one made sense, as Halloween is a far bigger deal in America than it is in Europe, due to old stigmas.

Christmas, on the other hand, migrated to Europe long before most Americans even saw a person of European descent, so it would seem odd that this Splatfest, revolving around gaudy holiday wear, was exclusive only to North American copies of the game. Even Europeans looked at the situation like "what the hell?"

That said, the meme of the "ugly holiday sweater" does run strong in America, but for this Splatfest, I had to go with Marina again. You can hide socks, and they still keep your toes toasty warm!

Also, whereas "Squidmas" was previously canonized in the "Naughty vs. Nice" Splatfest in the original, this new Splatfest canonized the Octarian equivalent, "Octivus", which Marina celebrates. Strangely enough, these holidays still have yet to be mentioned in either the European or Japanese versions of the game.

Again, the same Shifty Station from the week before, and this time, the whole team had the advantage, as we got Team Zen back together! We won a lot at first, but a more people got used to the Shifty Station, the wins started to drop off, again taking over 3 and a half hours to Queen out.

And as the final insult to this ugly Splatfest, Team Sweater swept! Pearl's second sweep. By this point, many players resolved themselves to the pattern of Pearl winning in the West, and Marina winning in the East.

This dynamic would face its biggest challenge in the next month!

Action vs. Comedy
In a world... where squids battle it out for control of territory... one woomy... takes it upon herself... to buck the trend... in an action-packed world...

And decide to go with Marina and laugh it up with Team Comedy!

This was the first all-region Splatfest since Mayo vs. Ketchup, and the first since Callie vs. Marie to have all three regions amalgamate their results together. This fact posed one burning question... since Pearl tends to win in the West, and Marina tends to win in the East, who would come out on top?

As for me, I had to decide which one I wanted to Queen out, and I chose my American squid, but since Zen chose Action, I would not be on a Team Zen this time around.

By this time, I had started streaming on Twitch, and I decided this would be my first ever streamed Splatfest. I was using an ElGato HD60S on a 2014 Mac Mini. A bit below the system requirements, but I had a way to coax it into working. That day, I had to install the new macOS patch, which I did with no trouble.

Except...after the update, I could no longer coax the capture box into working. Sadly, there would be no stream that night.

There would also be no team, as I struggled to try to get an alternate team together. I started randoming, then joined other streamers' teams as they came up (much thanks to LoneWolf1600 and NineLivesNate for that, by the way). Wasn't any record Queenout time, but I was done within a few hours.

The next morning, I decided to try some different things with the capture card. It turned out it wasn't the card or the computer, but the convoluted setup I had. After re-wiring it for more direct connections, the capture card worked better than ever, and I no longer had to 'coax' it into working.

At that point, I had come close to Queening out my Japanese toon, so I decided to stream that Queenout, and the beginning of my Euro toon, so I could say I did a Splatfest stream. I ended up streaming my Euro Queenout long after Splatfest ended in the other two regions, during a time when no one else was streaming Splatfest.

I hadn't intended it, but I got the triple-Queenout! It felt good!

What else felt good was the answer to that age-old question. Whose Splatfest streak would snap? Well, due to the fact that Japan players outnumber the other two regions considerably, the results followed the Eastern pattern. Marina took it for Team Comedy!

NA/AUS: "Yay! Marina's catching up!" EU: "Yes! Marina finally won one!" Japan: "WTF?!? IIDA WON AGAIN?!?"

Can't please everyone, I guess.

Champion vs. Challenger
Another sponsored Splatfest for Japan, this time from the publisher of the Splatoon manga, CoroCoro.

By this point in North America, Viz had only put out the first few episodes of Season 1 of the manga, while in Japan, Season 2 was coming to a close soon, leading to a grand battle between the manga's protagonists (Team Blue), and that season's main antagonists (The Kings).

Team Blue, of course, is led by the ever-perky "genki guy" known only as "Goggles", who just thinks Turf War is the best thing ever, and win or lose, he always has fun playing it.

The Kings, the reigning champions, are led by "Emperor". "Emperor" is self-centered, cocky, and not even close to a model of good sportsmanship. He is canonically the first inkling to ever wield Dualies, and consequently, he is the best at their use.

This was not the first time the game and the manga crossed paths. Back in November 2017, CoroCoro magazine released a code that, when entered into the Japanese version of the game, would give you access to the outfit worn by "Emperor" in the manga. This time, since Season 2 was coming to a climax, they wanted to know who Inkopolis Square was rooting for? The Champion team... or the Challenger team.

Of course, Pearl and Marina phrased it more generically, preferring a champion's hard work and a challenger's unending drive respectively, but the use of "Emperor" and "Goggles" to represent the teams told more of the true intent of the Splatfest.

The choice was clear to me. I always liked "Goggles" and his sportsmanship, and his willingness to take a loss and say "Damn, you really got us that time! That was fun!"

"Emperor", on the other hand, is just a jerk. Team Challenger it is!

On the day of Splatfest, we got Team Zen back together on the splatterfield and...truth be told, we struggled a bit for a Queenout time of about 3 hours 25 minutes. Later, I'd do my own Splatfest stream for funsies, and noticed that in random matching I was...actually getting matches fairly regularly. Has the curse of Team Lemon worn off?

I was pleasantly relieved when it turned out Team Challenger won both popular vote and single play. Though it explains why we struggled in team play, it showed that the average player also sided with Goggles.

We all...need to be more like Goggles! :)

Gherk-OUT vs. Gherk-IN
o/~ Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, PICKLES, onions, on a sesame-seed bun! o/~

There's nothing more American these days, when it comes to fast food, as the cheeseburger. All the biggest fast-food burger franchises started in America! Burgers and fries are as iconic as hot dogs and relish. And any American worth their red, white, and blue tops their cheeseburger with some crunchy dill pickles!

Which I guess is why instead they chose to run this Splatfest only in Europe. Perhaps Europeans are a lot more fussy when it comes to pickles for this to be anything but a popular vote blowout.

Being an American, and a pickle-lover, I once again sided with Marina. I'd been doing that a lot lately. I just love that tasty crunch.

I cranked up the streamer and started right in when Splatfest opened. Once again, it was the same Shifty Station as the week before, so I had the edge there, and after all was said and done, I had a first for me: an overwhelming winning Splatfest record!

But what was even more amazing was what that meant! I had a new Queenout personal best of 2 hours 50 minutes, smashing my old best by almost half an hour! Perhaps Europeans are easier to play against? Either way, I took this as a good omen. If I had this easy a time against team Gherk-OUT, then we should have this Splatfest in the bag!

Imagine my surprise when Team Gherk-OUT not only won, not only SWEPT (for Pearl's THIRD sweep!), but WASTED US! Team play was 55%-45%! Seriously, who wins a battle category by that much?!?

Apparently, team Gherk-OUT.

My next burger had extra pickles. Just out of spite.

....damn pickle-haters!...

Money vs. Love
After the European Splatfest was announced regarding pickles on burgers, with no American Splatfest announced, I gave up on a special Valetine's Day themed Splatfest, as it would take place after Valentine's Day. I was wrong.

What we did get, is only the second Splatfest recycled from a  Splatfest (The first being Rock vs. Pop, which was Europe's first  fest and Japan's first  fest). When this Splatfest first happened on October 31, 2015 in Japan, Team Money, sponsored by Marie, won the popular vote, but Team Love, sponsored by Callie, won enough in the battle category to make up the popularity deficit and win the Splatfest.

Now it was time for a rematch, this time in America. Pearl, who canonically comes from big money, expectedly took Team Money, while Marina and her sweet demeanor took Team Love. Siding with Marina again, I eagerly awaited this Splatfest rematch, including going back to the '60s with my Splatfest art: a hippie inkling giving the peace sign with a flower crown in her tenta-hair.

No Team Zen for this one, as he chose Team Money, but Team Particle was ready to stream when Splatfest started, and we noticed a lot of Love v Love matches, which warmed my heart knowing that most players sided with Love. But my heart sank at the same time, knowing what usually happens to teams that win the popular vote.

We even splatted against a Team Money team with user names like "MoneyIsReal", "LoveIsFake", "IAmRich", and "YouArePoor". We beat them. That victory felt damn good!

Queenout time 3 hours 21 minutes, my 4th best at the time, so respectively fast for me. I would later join other streamers' teams to help them Queen out, but I had a weird feeling about this Splatfest.

When the results came in...I think I visibly squeed! Love wins yet again.

But then again, as we all know... love always wins.

Hana vs. Dango
I knew it would happen someday. A Splatfest taking place during one of the major fan conventions I attend here in the Minneapolis area. After the only 3-week gap between Action vs. Comedy and Champion vs. Challenger, I had been afraid of this. But here we are.

And a Japanese Splatfest, no less. Well, I figured, I'll bring my Switch to con and however far I get, I'll get.

Now for those who don't understand the cultural significance of this Splatfest (I didn't either. I had to look it up), this is more than just "which do you prefer at the flower festival", there's an entire Japanese proverb that revolves around this, and it's called "Hana Yori Dango". It says there are two types of personalities: the type who cares more about the aesthetics, how things look... and the type who is more practical, who thinks more of what use an item has. In this case, the flower, or "hana", parallels the former by using the example of those who go to the festival to see the flowers. The dumpling, or "dango", parallels the latter by using the example of those who go to the festival for the refreshments.

I tend to be a more practical sort, so again I went with Marina and Team Dango.

Since the Splatfest on Friday night didn't start until late (Midnight Central Time), It had only been going on for an hour or so by the time parties ended and I went back to my hotel room. I decided to see how the hotel wireless would handle a Japanese Splatfest.

The answer: surprisingly well. I connected rather frequently. Granted, it still wasn't as quick as a domestic Splatfest, but it was enough to not go crazy from waiting. After a couple hours, and getting to Defender, I turned the game off and got some sleep.

The next day, I snuck in play time here and there, mostly in the 2nd floor lobby, where the wi-fi was strongest. One other con attendee saw me playing and assumed it was Breath of the Wild.

"Nope," I said, "Splatoon 2! It's Splatfest!"

His friend turned around and his eyes lit up! "Splatfest! What are the teams?" he excitedly asked. I told him the teams and that it was the Japanese Splatfest. He seemed rather interested. I wish I had kept contact with him. It's always good to meet other Splatoon fans.

By 8pm Central Time, I was 42/99 through Champion, but I had to sadly call off the run. Parties called my name and, well, there are some things that are still more important than the game.

And after all that, we even lost anyway. A rare loss for Marina in Japan.

One more thing, and it's in regard to the Shifty Station that would be used in this and the next Splatfest...as much as I loved this course, can't we all just get... Beyond Thunderdome? ;)

Chicken vs. Egg
Contrary to some belief, this Splatfest was not about which you prefer to eat, but rather that age old question that's a simple stand-in for the creation vs. evolution debate: "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?"

Scientifically, there is really only one answer. Before chickens, there were proto-chickens. At the same time, an egg that hatches a chicken is a chicken egg. At some point, you need to draw the line between what is and is not a chicken as we understand it. Wherever that line is, is where the last of the proto-chickens laid the evolutionary mutations that became the first chicken eggs.

So yeah, the egg came first. Scientific evidence-backed theory. And keep in mind that in science, a theory is just short of a law, and is taken as scientific fact, since the preponderance of the evidence supports it.

Needless to say, I once again sided with Marina, and I spent the entire lead-up week educating people on this fact of science. Turned out it didn't matter, since the majority of those on Team Chicken only chose that team for the white ink. I'll leave it to your imagination as to why.

Since I knew Zen would want to try and Queen out in one rotation, I decided not to join his team, but I did make up a Team Particle for this Splatfest, and we ended up Queening out on stream in about 3 hours 35 minutes. THUNDERDOME!!!

But this was a bi-regional Splatfest, and I had yet another chance to set a new Queenout record! I got a nice carry by Twitch user SheriffCrazy to give me a nice head start on my way toward Queen on Eurotoon, but had to finish on my own later that afternoon on stream. Didn't get a new personal best, but I got a new 2nd at 3 hours 15 minutes!

And the conclusion of the results showed us just how far Splatfest law goes. Team Chicken won, and Pearl even went to far as to say Splatfest law overrules science! A dark day for science indeed.

Newest vs. Most Popular
So I had an event on World of Warcraft planned out for the night of March 23, mainly because I figured that since Splatfests are usually a "beginning of the month" thing, I was safe scheduling something long after Splatfests were done for the m--

What? A SECOND Japanese Splatfest in March?!? Damn! I had it all planned out too!

Well, another fashion Splatfest, sponsored by Nike. This is the first Splatfest where I can honestly say I didn't really have a preference one way or the other. When I buy shoes, I just go with what looks purple and good. So after deciding that I thought the Most Popular model (Air Max 95) looked bland, I went for the Newest model (Air Max 270), and I also made sure that all 3 of my inklings had both sets of shoes, as lookalikes were featured in the SplatNet 2 shop. This was my first time choosing Pearl's team since Team Film. Sorry, Marina.

In the leadup week, I wanted to stop by the Mall of America and have my picture taken with both sets of shoes. True to form, though, they were sold out of "Most Popular". I wasn't really surprised, to be frank, so at least I took the picture with my team's shoe. I was happy.

Team Zen was back for this Splatfest, and we dug right in. By this time, we've all been noticing that the Shifty Station features a new gimmick each month, but the Grapplink hooks were a big ho-hum. I just simply didn't use them as much as I thought I would, as you could still get everywhere just fine without them. As Shifty Stations went, this was underwhelming, right up there with the one that only had inkrails as the "gimmick".

After all that, though, true to Eastern form, Marina's team won yet again, though just barely. It was the closest Eastern Splatfest, battlewise, since the Lemon Splatfest in November. Afterward, I had to redo my "Splatfest record" graphic.

Never expected a region to have 2 Splatfests in a month.

At least we got to keep the shoes...

Baseball vs. Soccer
This choice was no contest for me.

I grew up with Baseball. My dad was a Little League baseball coach (and played Little League himself in the late 1950s/early 1960s) who led kids' Pee Wee teams to numerous undefeated seasons, and brought a consistently last-place Little League team to their first local championship title in decades. Back in the day, he may not have been much of an athlete himself (save for candlepin bowling - he was literally a pro in that), but he knew baseball.

A lot of that rubbed off on me. I played on that Pee-Wee team. I collected baseball cards. I'm also a fan of the Boston Red Sox.

A LONG-SUFFERING fan from the days when the "Curse of the Bambino" was alive and well. I was watching live when Bill Buckner bobbled that grounder and lost the 1986 series for the Sox for a Mets win. Granted, the Mets have never won the World Series since. A fitting punishment!

Anyway...yeah, I went with Team Baseball, and a lot off people figured Baseball would have the popular vote easily, with Baseball being "America's Pasttime", and America having far more players than Australia. I did tell people though that Soccer is (finally) on the rise in the USA, and there's hardly any Baseball in Australia, and that could make up the difference. Also, Baseball hasn't truly been "America's Pasttime" for decades, having yielded that spot to the NFL long ago. After all, the top sporting event in the USA on an annual basis is the Super Bowl, not the World Series.

Team Particle dug right in when Splatfest started, and we hardly got any mirror matches, so yeah, Baseball was not getting the popular vote. In fact, it wasn't even close, with Team Soccer getting that honor 60%-40%. Looks like my prediction in that matter was correct.

Hell, the Twin Cities, Minnesota metro area is building its 5th major league sport-specific stadium, and it's for their Major League Soccer team, the Minnesota United FC. Soccer is finally getting the recognition in America it deserves.

Too bad Team Soccer didn't splat as well though, as Team Baseball took both battle categories to win the Splatfest.

Time for a nice snack to celebrate...perhaps a big bowl of popcorn?

Salty vs. Sweet
After the Chicken vs. Egg Splatfest, our entire struggling team was feeling a bit haggard, a bit tired, and a bit annoyed, to the point where we nicknamed the entire thing "Saltfest".

Well, all jokes aside, here's the real "Saltfest", as the Nintendo powers that be asked us all how we prefer our popcorn: salty or sweet.

Naturally, I chose Team Salty. Don't get me wrong, I love Cracker Jack and caramel corn (in fact, the Team Sweet tees said "CARAMEL" on them in inkling script), but when I think popcorn, I don't think of that little box with the crappy surprise inside, I think of going to the Riverview Theater, getting myself a big vat of popcorn with real butter (which has a salt base)....and slathering it with salt-based cheese dust. It just isn't the movies without salty popcorn.

I didn't have a team, simply because I don't know enough people with the Europe version yet (though that is changing slowly), but I started right in streaming with solo matching as soon as Splatfest opened.

Now, one thing you need to know about European lobbies: they're generally easier than their North American counterparts. Video games simply aren't as much of a cultural phenomenon in the EU as it is in the USA or Japan, and all the better players tend to form their own teams and participate in Splatfest that way. As a result, solo lobbies become, on the whole, rather easy.

That resulted in something I didn't think would ever happen. I got another new personal best Queenout record of 2 hours 41 minutes, shaving 9 minutes off my prior record.

And of course, with Pearl sponsoring Team Salty, and the EU being... the EU, Pearl won both battle categories, and I celebrated with a huge bowl of Smartfood, though I was surprised Team Sweet got the popular vote.

I guess Europe is just a sweeter place to be. Makes sense...all the best chocolate comes from there, after all. A win-win situation!

New Lifeform vs. Future Tech
This Splatfest was announced on April 1, otherwise known as "April Fool's Day". Because of that, there was some question at first as to whether this Splatfest was real. After hype for this Splatfest continued beyond April 1, we had the answer to that question.

This Splatfest was announced as early as it was because this was obviously a Splatfest planned far in advance, and the first Splatfest sponsored not by a corporate entity, but rather a government organization: JAMSTEC

JAMSTEC is the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology. Basically, they are a team of government-funded scientists who research marine science, and what better way to get kids interested in marine science, than to tie it in with one of Japan's best-loved video game franchises that happens to revolve around anthropomorphic marine life? This Splatfest asked players what they look forward to most in terms of marine science: the discovery of previously unknown marine life, or the futuristic technology used for said discovery? Being a tech geek, I had to go for Team Future Tech!

As for an idea of how long this had been brewing, the Autobomb's design was even based off the look of the DSV Shinkai 6500 submarine.

But I had a fear about this Splatfest, as Team Zen would not be happening for this event, as he would be out of town. I desperately sent "Looking For Group" messages on Discord, Twitter, anywhere I had connections with the greater Splatoon community. No dice.

I prepared to be in for the long haul, until the day before Splatfest, I finally got a team together...until Splatfest started, my stream was up, and one of my teammates just...didn't show up.

No. Not again. I audibly swallowed and got myself into a solo queue, and... surprisingly, not only did I match up quicker than on Team Lemon (still not at fast as NA or EU Splatfests, but fast enough that I didn't get too bored), but I was winning more matches!

After all was said and done, and a short period where it WAS connecting as slowly as Team Lemon, I Queened out in about 6 and a half hours with a winning record, my fastest Japanese Splatfest Queenout time, in solo queue, since Team Fries! Is the 15-hour curse finally broken? It would seem so.

And to cap off this weekend of eventual good fortune, Marina got her first ever 3-0 Splatfest sweep! Technology ended up being the lifeblood of this Splatfest!

Version 3.0.0 came shortly after this Splatfest ended, and with it came some new music, a new rank, new stages, code for a whole new expansion... and a new concept in Splatfests!

Raph vs. Leo
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were never really my nostalgia. The comic series from 1984 (which was dark, gritty, and aimed at mature audiences) was under my radar until it became too expensive to purchase, and when the first animated series came three years later, I was already 15, far older than the demographic, which created a dichotomy in my head. When the first animated series was announced, my reaction was "Ninja Turtles? As a kids show?!?" I watched the odd episode now and then, but was never really a fan.

That said though, when Nintendo decided to introduce the concept of a Splatfest Tournament, Nickelodeon decided to sponsor the first one, and revolve it around their upcoming show Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which is likely the biggest deviation yet from the original source material (each turtle being a different species of turtle, and some weapon changes). Obviously, the question would be "Which is your favorite Ninja Turtle?", but with four turtles, this new concept would get its test run. Raphael vs. Leonardo the first week, Michelangelo vs. Donatello the second week, and the winners splat it out in the finals for the third week. I could only call this a "Mega-Splatfest"!

This theme for the first Splatfest tournament is perfect, as Ninja Turtles have pretty much remained in the public eye in one form or another for kids over the last 30 years, which means current kids all the way to younger Generation X'ers can feel connected to this theme.

Even I, as an older member of Generation X, at least have my favorite turtles, despite not being much of a fan of the cartoons. For Week 1, that would be Leonardo, the leader of the group...or at least he was in the comics and the original animated series. He was the strategist, the tactician, the main overall brains of the group. granted, this dynamic would change later on as later series and even the comics would eventually make Raph the leader (either by default or by battling Leo for it), but Raph is pretty much the main brawn and hothead, and I always will prefer brain over brawn. Apparently, so did the greater community, as Team Leo did take the popular vote.

I started Splatfest with a team, but unfortunately my teammates couldn't stay until the end for one reason or another, so I ended with solo play, and...it was very rough going, as game would imitate art. I couldn't get many wins to save my life, and it resulted an a Queenout of over 4 hours! My second Queenout with my EU toon fared better (got my 3rd-best time of 3 hours 4 minutes), but I ended that one with a team, and team play was still very difficult.

I knew Team Raph had this before the Splatfest was even over, and I even gave a rare non-51-to-49 prediction for team play after it ended. I was right, and more than that, I underestimated just how much Team Raph would win by. It was basically a blowout, and Raph advances to the finals.

So I picked up my 42 snails and started awaiting Week 2. Whereas I like Leonardo enough, my true favorite turtle was always Donatello, the gadget geek (though you may not want to know his fate in the comics...it's pretty brutal). I just hope the better players agree this time, now that they won't have a double-entendre ink color to choose.

Mikey vs. Donnie
It's time for Round 2!

Anyone who knows me knows I love parties, whether it be of the real life kind, or the squid kind. I always do the party room circuit at conventions (in fact, I ended my Team Dumpling run before Queenout so I could party). So you'd think I'd be a natural fit for Team Mikey.

But Donatello is a geek. Donatello is a mechanical genius. We geeks need to stick together. Team Donnie it is!

Not to mention, they actually killed Donatello in the original comic series, having gotten his shell bashed in by Bebop and Rocksteady in 2015. So there is that "memorial" aspect to this choice. (Again, the original comic series, that started in 1984, is NOT for kids!)

Granted, he got better within a few issues (you know how comic book death works), but still..

For this round, we didn't even get to choose our teams until that Wednesday morning, so very limited time to grind the Splatfest Tee. I think I only got 2 rounds on each shirt before the Splatfest started.

I ended up having a rather dynamic team once Splatfest got rolling on stream. Not everyone could stay for the whole thing, but it went a lot easier than it did for Team Leo. We were winning far more often, and it gave me hope. No mirror matches on either side of the fence (at first), so I figured the voting was close. After all was said and done, We had teams until I got to about 30/99 Champion, and I had to solo the rest, so I got a feel for both sides. Ended up with my 3rd best PB. When I Queened out my Eurotoon the next day, we had a team for the full run, and got a new 2nd best PB. My brain was high from hope.

After hosting a couple other streamers, I literally ran out of people to host around 01:00 ET, as no one else was streaming Splatfest, so I hopped back on the stream myself, and was originally planning to only go until someone else popped on. But then I got an active chat...and still later a team!

A team made up of myself, a couple rather good players from Central Europe.... and a 10-year old girl from the UK.

It took me a while to figure out that said girl was still only a beginner, but once I did, I saw this in a whole new light. You only get better by challenging yourself, and having someone on the team who was only inking 100-300p was definitely that, but there was one fact that really made me proud of this team: We were still occasionally winning matches!

But the highlight was the final match. When the power levels popped up, we were 1800. Our adversaries were 1970. I thought we were kibble. But then came that final 30 seconds. You know how you feel when it seems the opposing team suddenly takes a level in badass in those last 30 seconds to come back from "Danger" to win the match?

Well, in that match...we WERE that team! What a way to end the stream, and my participation in that Splatfest!

And as for the results...it was the first time Marina won a Western Splatfest by only taking both battle categories! A true coup indeed! Could the Splatfest win meme finally be broken? That remains to be seen.

Raph vs. Donnie
This is it, the finals! After 2 weeks of splatting it out, we finally end this first ever Splatfest tournament!

Needless to say, since I went with Team Donnie the prior week, I stayed with him for these finals. A classic battle of brawn vs. brain. So, just how many geeks are out there who can play the game well?

I decided to be on Team Zen for this one, and we actually coordinated our streams with a third teammate for a three-way stream collab. It was really fun, and I hope we can do it again soon...but we struggled in splat battle. Even with Zen and Kat, who are two very good players, it took us over 3 and a half hours to finally Queen out!

This wasn't looking good.

I took some time out to handle another Splatfest that was going on at the same time, then got some rest, planning to once again take up Donnie's defense the next night with my Eurosquid. And take it up I did.

FOUR HOURS LATER, I Queened out my Eurosquid. Granted, I mostly lost to my own team, but it still wasn't looking good in the long run. It seemed that with all the mirror matches, we'd obviously have popularity. Around 1am my time, I did one last stream when no one else was streaming Splatfest, but this time I didn't manage to put a team together for it, and I called it a Splatfest a couple hours later when I could host one of the waking Europeans.

But then came the results. RAPH TOOK POPULARITY?!? Crap! Wonder why I was getting so many mirror matches then. That's strange.

Stranger still...DONNIE WON BATTLES!! Again, Marina won a Western Splatfest by battles alone.

Wow...it seems the idol win meme may finally be broken! Time will tell!

Hello Kitty vs. Cinnamoroll
It was only a matter of time before Japan got their own Splatfest tournament, but frankly, I never expected this to be the theme. Unlike the Ninja Turtles tournament, Sanrio main characters number far more than four. I guess they simply picked the four most popular characters at the time (though some may argue that Badtz-Maru should have been here...but to each their own). Hello Kitty vs. Cinnamoroll first week, My Melody vs. Pompompurin second week.

Also unusual in this tournament is that it would take a week off between the semis and the finals. Likely because the Mario Tennis demo is being run that break weekend, and I guess they don't want Splatfest to interfere. I can see that.

Well, since Hello Kitty is THE face of Sanrio, and since I simply like cats, I had to go with "Kitty-chan".

Turns out Team Hello Kitty has... white ink! Hmm, could that be as much of a factor in the East as it apparently was in the West? Attracting the better players? Turns out it was the same white from Chicken vs. Egg, but at least paired with the blue, it didn't so much make courses look like someone cracked an egg over it, as it did make it look like a snowy landscape. It was actually rather...pretty.

But the biggest surprise was yet to come. Whereas I had a "Team Zen/Particle" lined up for this, we first lost our other regular beforehand to internet access issues, then we lost our other streamer friend because she couldn't stay awake for it.

So I had to go it alone. Again. I strapped in for the long haul again, ready for the 6-to-15-hour Queenout to begin.

First match... DING! Quick matching!

Hmm...ok. Would be nice if the rest of Splatfest went that way, but it probably wo--

DING! 2nd match! Quick matching!

Something's up here...

DING! 3rd match! Quick matching!

Then it hit me...this is the first Splatfest in Japan since 3.0 came out! Did they actually fix it so-- Could it be that they--

DING! 4th match! Quick matching!

HALLELUJAH!!! Turned out the rest of the run to Queen went that quick, with few disconnects, for a Queenout time of 3 hours 18 minutes! My fastest yet for a Japanese solo-matched Splatfest!

And to add more joy to the moment, we won! Turns out the white ink attracts the better players in Japan, too! This means that, since I want Hello Kitty to go all the way, I'll be splatting for her in the finals too!

My high was dulled a bit a couple days later, as Nintendo revealed that there was a matching bug in this Splatfest, where teams of vastly different Splatfest Power rankings were being matched together. Granted, I never experienced it, but they did explain that they fixed it for the next Splatfest. I really hope that my quick matching wasn't simply due to this bug. If I end up matching as quickly in solo play in the next one, I just may have to edit part of my Splatoon 2 Multiregion FAQ

Time will tell...

My Melody vs. Pompompurin
One thing I never mentioned from last time: I knew nothing about the personalities of these Sanrio characters. Sure I know OF many of the characters, but as to their personalities, traits, motivations... nothing.

That's why to make this decision, I had to do some research. Sure both My Melody and Pompompurin look cute, but which one would I jive more with?

My question was soon answered after reading My Melody's bio on Sanrio's website. She loves to bake! She loves to bake sweets! Cakes! Cookies! She's honest and trustworthy and nice and--

I chose My Melody...didn't even get to read Pompompurin's bio. Friends who hadn't voted yet were treated to the line, "Come to the pink side. We have cookies!"

But there was still one lingering question about this Splatfest, ever since I found out about the matching bug that apparently plagued the last Splatfest: was the previous week's quick matching due to a bug?

I didn't find out right away, as I started with a team for another Multi-Twitch collaboration, but it wouldn't last forever, as one of our team had to leave after the first rotation ended. Other multiregioning friends from the East Coast USA on Team Pompompurin reported that matching was not quick like the week before.

My heart sank...I had to solo it from here. I still had over 60 points to Queen. Would I be stuck here for another 5-6 hours? I audibly swallowed, and waited for the long w--

1st match: QUICK MATCHING!

Um...ok...and the teams were well-matched, at that! Could it be?

2nd match: QUICK MATCHING! MIRROR MATCH!

Looks like it wasn't just a bug fluke after all! WHEEEE!!!

Later on, it turned out that there was more difficulty than the week before (I had a couple timeouts), but overall it looks like things had gotten better. East Coast was still getting some long waits, but nowhere near as long as they used to be (from 90 mins betwen matches to about 10 mins at most). After all was said and done, I ended up Queening out those last 60-odd solo points at about the same rate I had been getting points with the team, ending in a tie for my 5th best personal Queenout time.

I finally have a Japanese Splatfest among my top 5 Queenouts! I think it's now safe to say the days of the 15-hour Queenout are officially over. I even updated my FAQ to reflect this. These are great days indeed to be a multiregioner!

I hope I'm still saying that come September.

But another big moment came with the results, as Pearl, who was sponsoring My Melody, ended up once again winning by battles alone! Between Marina's wins the prior week and the week before, and Pearl's wins here and the week before, it would seem the dreaded "idol meme" may finally be put to rest.

You are now free to vote your consciences, squid kids! Onward to the finals!

Hello Kitty vs. My Melody
Apparently this Splatfest needed a time out.

Granted, the week break before the finals was due to the Mario Tennis Aces preview, but it was nice to have the Splatfest Tee to grind for more than a couple days this time around.

As for the team I chose? I have a Hello Kitty kitchen clock, microwave, toaster, and coffeemaker. I used to have a Hello Kitty rice cooker too, but the coils burnt out.

Needless to say, I wanted Hello Kitty to take it all anyway, so I chose her again.

We got the band back together again with me, Zen, iMad, and Kat for the finals, and we struggled a bit, but not too much. We also had a LOT of mirror matches.

A LOT of mirror matches!

Yeah, it was clear who was getting the popular vote this time around. Though the fact that we struggled more against our own team than Team My Melody was good to see. It really gave me hope for the results.

Then Kat had to leave...and we had to solo.

Enter hell.

Granted, not as bad as Team Lemon, but it was not quite as easy to match this time around. More disconnects, but not overly so. Still Queened out with a 3h 47m time despite the difficulty connecting.

But my heart sank when I noticed that Solo Team My Melody was....more difficult to beat. As my Splatfest Power dropped further and further, I feared for my team.

And it turned out my fear was justified, but just barely, as battlewise, the results showed Team My Melody took both battle categories by razor-thin margins, some of the thinnest margins yet for Splatfests!

Oh well, after 4 wins in a row, I guess I had it coming! *heh*

Pulp vs. No-Pulp
Back in November 2017, we fought over whether breakfast should be warm or cold, but this time, one particular staple of either took the spotlight.

Orange juice is good for you, we can all agree. Great source of vitamins C and D, just like the oranges it comes from. However, the final question remains: just how 'orangey' do you like your OJ?

Being that I'm not one to condone wasting perfectly good orange bits, I went for Team Pulp. There's just something about those little bits of orangey goodness sliding down your throat, like a natural bottle of Orbitz.

Um...you do remember Orbitz, right? Like 'bubble tea', but it was soda? Anyone?

...ok I'm old.

And for those of you who ask, "Why not just eat an orange?" Well, sometimes you just don't want to fight with the peel. Just sayin'.

Anyway, this was also my Euro octoling's first Splatfest, and she got the honor of posing for the board pose this time (see below).

In the Square, other octolings peppered the festivities as well, and frankly, I noticed their animations. They were more pumped to be at Splatfest than the inklings! It was so cute!

I didn't have much luck with teams though. My first team only lasted me through the early stages of Defender, and I couldn't get another one together after that. I noticed every time we had a fourth, said fourth would bail as soon as we lost a couple matches, as if randomly team-hopping off your friends list will get you a better record or something.

'Git gud' culture REALLY needs to die...

Anyway, I did end up getting winning records in both my runs, for an 03:02 time on my American squid, and a new PB of 02:36 for Octie's First Splatfest! What can I say? She brought me good luck!

Via my play, and watching others play online, this result was easy to predict. Players on Team No Pulp were struggling, while players on Team Pulp were royaling out quick! I overestimated a bit, but the result went about as I expected.

I should celebrate with a nice glass of OJ. Pulped, of course! ;)

Squid vs. Octopus
Nintendo needed to do something big to commemorate the first anniversary of the release of, and given that Octo Expansion was still fresh in our minds, this Splatfest seemed like the natural choice.

However, when this Splatfest was announced, I was really worried for the lore.

Here we were, Squids and Octopuses living together in harmony finally, due to the Calamari Inkantation, and then this happens.

The reason why I was worried is because that due to Splatfest law, the winner of the Splatfest is legally "better" than the loser. That law has specifically been invoked twice: during Cake vs. Ice Cream, when Marina pointed it out, and during Chicken vs. Egg, when Pearl very adamantly pointed it out in a warning to Marina.

Would Nintendo go there with this Splatfest, given the state of the real world? The opening banter was not promising, when Marina said that this topic was "dangerous". I started to fear for the cohesion of Off the Hook I braced myself for the two-week tee grind.

I chose Octopus, mainly because in lore, they worked much harder to free themselves from their totalitarian oppression. As a show of cross-species peace, one of my squid toons posed in front of the board wearing an Octopus tee.

I will say this about the community though: given the talk on Twitter about "race war" and "Great Turf War II", most people in the Square posted supporting and friendly art about this Splatfest, playing on the renewed peace and friendships between the two species. It was heartwarning.

Then the Splatfest itself came, and I struggled... first with teams, and then on solo matching. I was lucky to even have one of my three queenouts make my top 10 fastest list. But the big highlight of this Splatfest was its Shifty Station...

The Shifty Station for this Splatfest was really fun and different. Whereas the "Thunderdome" station focused on closing parts of the stage off, this one was all about opening the stage via 6 tentacled wall switches, and frankly, I preferred it when all the walls were down, both on the opposing team and my own. It made for a nice open field that allowed for a lot of ink and a lot of escape routes.

But I knew Team Squid had it in the bag. I could tell from all the Twitch videos I watched. I guess even lorewise it makes sense, since the Octolings are new to Turf War as a sport. The results just confirmed that prediction.

I braced for the post-fest banter, and... Nintendo left the lore implications alone. Pearl had a couple lines celebrating her win, Marina congratulated Team Octopus for their effort as well, they talked a bit about their first year hosting Inkopolis News, and {(on the Japanese text) Pearl revealed she needed a total of 5 training wheels as a kid. Nothing about Splatfest law. Nothing about species superiority. Just a nice feel-good segment.

Nintendo, in the end, didn't go THERE, and for that I am very grateful.

One year of Splatfests down for, one year to go. Here's to more Splatfest fun!

...and here's to hope that I'll still be able to multiregion 2 months from now *heh*

Chocorooms vs. Chococones
Another repeat Splatfest from the first game, to follow Rock vs. Pop and Money vs. Love. Except this was the first to be sponsored, and given the 40-year-old meme behind these snacks, it's understandable. They say liking the same candy could bring people together, and liking differing candies can tear people apart.

Now, I've always had a love of Japanese candies and snacks, from my first Pocky stick to the countless bags of Kasugai Gummies...and I even did find the Choco Flake in America. My stomach has seen hundreds of bottles of Ramune and salty goodness of shrimp and rice crackers. I bow to the shrine of Mitsuwa and regularly visit United Noodle.

Despite all that, I had tried neither Meiji Mushroom Mountain nor Bamboo Shoot Village. Not that I hadn't seen them before, I just...never tried them.

So for the first time ever, I sought them out, and if you could believe it, not a single Asian market inside the Twin Cities beltway had them. Even the largest of said stores, huge supermarkets like Sun Foods...nothing.

Defeated, I asked my local geek connections, and they gave me a few recommendations. I ended up having to go miles outside the beltway, to Minnesota's Largest Candy Store in Jordan, MN, to even find ONE of them... Mushroom Mountain. Eager to try it, I opened it as soon as I got back into the car. The candies were basically a big mushroom-shaped glob of chocolate...on a pretzel/Pocky-like short stick. They were delicious! With the lack of the other kind, I was all set to back Pearl on Team Mushroom!

On my stream that Friday night when voting opened, I instead took the time to level up my other Splatfest Tee that voting opened for, and never got to formally choose my team that night for this Splatfest.

Enter Saturday, and a trip to the Mall of America. My partner and I usually walk a few laps around the mall on a weekly basis, and stop in and buy stuff when it strikes our fancy. About halfway through the walk it hit me...there are a few candy stores here, why not hit them up. It'Sugar and Candy-O both have import candies, why not look.

No dice.

But there was one more stop...and I didn't even realize it until halfway through our walk. There's a Japanese pop-culture shop in the mall called Tomodachi, and they tend to have a small selection of candies and snacks as well. So we stopped there and I took a look.

There they were...Bamboo Shoot Village! I bought a box and decided to make that my dessert after Buffalo Wild Wings. Again, delicious! But this time, these candies had a better balance of cookie (more like a shortbread this time) and chocolate, as these are more dipped in chocolate rather than topped with a glob of chocolate.

As for Dana (my partner)...she's a chocolate fiend, and she thought the Bamboo Shoot version "tastes like sand"!

"They do NOT taste like sand!," I replied, "They are yummy and delicious!"

The meme... uh-oh! *heh* Guess it's time to ink it out on the splatterfield!

After a slow start of losses on both our sides, things eventually picked up for me, and I started winning more, and especially against Team Mushroom! Sadly, since Bamboo had the popular vote, I was only able to meet Team Mushroom on the splatterfield 9 times, of which I won 7.

Dana, on the other hand, suffered loss...after loss...after loss.

Before I Queened out, I was already calling it a sweep for Marina. Watching other streamers only reinforced that view as I constantly saw Team Bamboo Shoot winning and Team Mushroom losing.

When the results came, I was live on stream at the time doing more matches for Team Adventure, and I streamed the results live. When I saw the battle results, I was SHOCKED!

We literally lost by about 0.45%! That's the closest battle result I've seen since Team Lemon lost in November (0.2% difference). So whereas Marina didn't win...she *was* only a handful of wins away from sweeping.

Afterward, Dana and I agreed to disagree about the candies, and even in the face of Splatfest Law, the Mushroom candies *are* still delicious. We spent the rest of the night laughing over "tech support" scammers getting pwned by white-hatters on YouTube.

We beat the meme. May a candy never come between us ever again! *heh*

Adventure vs. Relax
o/~ Holiday Roooooooooad! / Holiday Roooooooood! o/~

Europe's first single-region Splatfest since April was a perfect one for the summer. School's out in most places, and the weather is perfect to go on holiday! The question is: how would you rather spend it? Do you want to go out and see new sights and exciting new places and experiences... or just kick back, lie on the ol' hammock, drink in hand, in the backyard (or lie on the beach, taking in the sun, sand, and sound of the surf)?

Adventure vs. Relaxation.

From the way I started this blog post, I think you know where I fall in this debate. Hit the road and do all the things you'd never have time for normally! Say you're goin' to Disneyland! Make out in the dunes of the Cape! Wonder at the Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota! Find out just the way things go in AAAAAAAAAAAAALBUQUERQUE!

Ok, I guess my holiday ideas come from pop tunes *heh*  Either way, Team Adventure it is!

I started out this Splatfest with a team made up of myself and 3 central Europeans from my Twitch community (one of whom is another streamer himself, and we collaborated).

We struggled....badly! The other streamer was known for inking between 1500-2000p almost every match and he was kept low, to the point where his Splatfest power was barely 2000.

You know it was bad when even "Dude" from Ghost Gaming struggled to get a power of 2300. One of the best players in the Western World, and even he had trouble on Team Adventure. Like the other Splatfest that weekend, I was calling it as a sweep for Marina only a few hours after the fest started, and watching other streamers only solidified that more. There was a bit where it looked like Team Adventure might have had the popular vote (mirror matches here and there), but that thought faded after watching more on Team Relax, and the mirror matches they were getting closer to the end of fest.

Once again, I was shocked at the results. Solo Play results were even CLOSER THAN THE MEIJI SPLATFEST, with a difference of only 0.22%! Only Team Lemon, with its 0.18% Solo Play win, was closer! Granted, unlike the Meiji fest, Team Play was a sizable margin win for Team Adventure (which was itself a HUGE shock, because of the streamer struggles I saw), but since Team Relax took popularity, they were DAMN close to being Marina's first Europe-only Splatfest victory!

Perhaps...if they hadn't been so relaxed, and been a bit more adventurous... *heh*

Fork vs. Spoon
Seriously??

That was my first reaction upon hearing this theme. It seemed as if the creative teams from North America and Europe had switched places! "Fork vs Spoon"? How lame can a Splatfest get? You can't really compare them! They have different uses!

Then came the Spaghetti discussion, and it all became clear.

As for my own leanings, I do tend to use forks more often than spoons in most applications. In our household, we always seem to be running out of forks before it's time to start the dishwasher, so it was really no contest. I grabbed my Team Fork tee and started the chunk grind.

Cue the memes afterward, from Team Spoon's references to The Tick, to Team Fork dropping numerous puns related to a certain four-letter expletive, to the inevitable "Spoon 2: Fork Expansion", and suddenly, this lame little theme was looking like a lot of actual fun.

Perhaps we need to trust our Nintendo overlords a bit more.

When Splatfest started, I got my team together and dug in. It was the same Shifty Station from the weekend prior, and I think we finally found a good strategy for it. We had an Overflosher guarding the gate switch, another taking care of mid, and the combo of my Aerospray and my partner's Bold Marker quickly taking care of the home base (and we'd move to mid after the home base was covered. It worked.

And then we lost one of the Overfloshers to fatigue, and our strategy fell apart without that second overpowered delight. Oh well, but we still managed to have a winning record overall, and I Queened out in 2 hours 41 minutes, tying my second-fastest time (and for my partner, it was her fastest time!)

In all that time, we only had one mirror match. On the other hand, friends of mine on Team Spoon, and streamers I were watching from Team Spoon didn't seem to have any at all. It looked like it would be a popularity squeaker for Team Fork, but too close to call. That, combined with the fact that I kept seeing mostly wins for Team Fork, and I was calling it a sweep for Pearl.

Then again, I called last weekend a double-sweep for Marina, and you know what happened there. *heh*

Then the results came in, and the only thing I was really wrong about was the popularity. Team Spoon took it, but barely, with only about 53% of the vote. Team Fork's battle wins, however, were the real deciding factor, and Pearl takes another victory.

Counting all regions, that's 5 losses in a row for Marina. She can't even win much in Japan anymore.

Marina is starting to get REALLY salty about it, and Pearl's reply sure didn't help.

I swear, if this causes a real rift between Off The Hook, I think I'm going to cry. Nintendo, don't sink this ship! Please!

...poor Marina...

  SPLATOON 2 (CLOUT)   

Retro vs. Modern
So Nintendo finally decided to do something about the lopsided Splatfest results. Pearl was winning way too often. Marina just lost 5 in a row between the three regions.

So they came up with a new RAD way to do Splatfests. Instead of the other two categories being battles won in Solo and Team play, they introduced a new mechanic called "Clout", which is based not only on whether you won or lost, but also by how much you ink and how well you match with the rest of your teammates.

Wait..did they just...REWARD meme teams? More than that, they are now acknowledging that losing teams can still play well and get rewarded!

AWESOME!!

And the Splatfest Tees will keep generating chunks even when full? TUBULAR!

If you didn't guess from my choice of words, I went with Team Retro. The whole aesthetic to me is just simply... MOST EXCELLENT! There was more color in the 1980s (then grunge happened), and it just hasn't fully come back... despite the best efforts of Lady Gaga and Nicki Minaj.

When I started this Splatfest, I wasn't sure what to expect with all the changes. I especially love that I no longer need to get a full team together to splat with my friends. The news ticker is a nice touch, and lets me know how the teams are doing. The jumbotron pix are a cute addition too, and puts well-deserved teams in the spotlight.

It felt...more like a huge festival event than ever before.

And then there's the Shifty Station...far too many times to count did I bounce off the pads just to mistime my landing and fall into the abyss, and I wasn't alone. Control of that small mid platform was key, and probably the smallest "mid" I have seen of any map thus far, It was extremely odd, quirky... and actually kinda fun.

And to top it all off, my Eurotoon Queenout was a new personal best for me, at 2 hours 27 minutes...getting closer to that "one rotation" Queenout time *heh*

The results, despite the idol meme, were rather predictable. We all knew Marina was going to sweep. Just about everyone I knew on Team Retro said they were getting their butts killed more often than not. I guess after Pearl mocked Marina with "just stop losing all the time!", Marina just responded with "oh, it's ON!" And ON it was! The best I could do was sigh and collect my 42 snails.

...bogus...

Tsubuan vs. Koshian
Another Japanese food-based Splatfest was among us!

But like in March, this wasn't just any food fest. This was about sweet red bean paste, which during this time of the year is made into a soup with some fried mochi for the Moon Viewing Festival (if you were wondering why the moon was suddenly visible in Inkopolis Square).

The question was...do you like the paste chunky style (Tsubuan, with bits of whole bean in it)), or smooth style (Koshian, ground into a fine spread).

I had no idea. I had never tried the paste before, so I went to my local United Noodle and bought a package of both, and something neutral to dip in it. Turned out that eating the paste by itself is rather rich, like eating cookie dough or fudge.

And damn was it delicious...both kinds. It was a tough decision, but I had to slightly go with Koshian. Marina apparently knows her bean paste. The only problem was that it filled me up like crazy, and I still (as of this writing) have a significant amount of the paste left.

Though, due to the holiday weekend, the later start time of the Splatfest meant I would be getting the results while I'm at work. I figured as long as I can Queen out, I'm fine.

Things started looking up when Splatfest started...the ticker was constantly showing wins for Team Koshian...at first. Then Tsubuan just seemed to rack up the wins on the ticker, and my heart sank.

And also, cue more of the falling to my doom on the Bounce Pads.

Over 4 hours later, I finally Queened out. The cavalcade of suck was over. My first losing Splatfest record in a long time, and watching others on Twitch on Koshian have similar troubles, well... it didn't look good. I predicted the Splatfest for Pearl, with Marina getting only the popular vote.

But I would be made the fool.

Marina hecking SWEPT ANOTHER SPLATFEST! The first time ever that every Splatfest in a given month was a sweep, and Marina took both of them! That girl is no longer playin' around, and I took home the spoils!

And now...now that I know how to make the soup (it's surprisingly easy), I need some mochi.

Trick vs. Treat
Where to start for this one...

First...this is the first time we have had an event like this, in either version of the game. The closest we had was the final Splatfest of, which was also a 48-hour Splatfest, but didn't feature any special stage/plaza decorations, just a new song.

But Splatoween was different. They went all out for this one with spooky decorations on both the square and the stages, special festive gear...even Off The Hook and the Jellyfish were cosplaying. It was to be one of four Splatfests (the other three are still to come) that have a "special" designation in the game's code. Truly an event among events. But we'll get more into the "special designation" part later.

As for the Splatfest itself, they gave us our Splatfest Tees two weeks in advance, like the Squid vs. Octopus contest. Me, being an old Kandy Kid from the 1990s, had to choose Team Treat. Besides, Tricks are just mean. You're supposed to disguise yourself and prank the dead, not the living.

When Splatfest started, I liked the little effects they added in addition to the decorations...the spooky game start noise when you first click the ZL/ZR buttons, the ghostly apparitions, the film-scratch effects at the start of each match. This was a lot of effort for a one-time event in a game over a year old, and it was glorious!

Then I started my first Queenout, with my Japanese toon. At the time, Splatfest hadn't opened yet in America, and as usual, it paired me with the closest players available (Europeans). There was just one problem...

We kept getting paired with Japanese teams from Team Trick...

We kept getting our butts wasted as a result.

Final Queenout was 3:24...ouch.

I did my second Queen run with my Eurotoon. At that time, Splatfest was open in every region, and we had an ace in the hole, as one of the best Australian players from my Twitch community joined us. We still struggled with Japanese teams, but still won enough to manage a shockingly short Queenout time of 2:04.

Even more shocking, my partner Dana ended up playing a match without the rest of us due to a lobby snafu, and won one where I lost...she Queened out in 1:58 as a result.

She...has a shorter PB...than I do... Um... O.o

Anyway...by this point I was starting to notice that overall Team treat was winning more matches, but when Trick would win, they were blowouts, heavy victories...compared to Team Treat, whose victories were more often than not sqeakers and last-minute wins. It seemed possible that the clout from Trick's blowouts could tilt the battle categories their way, despite losing more often.

The third Queen run, for my American toon, initially started out worse than the first run, literally getting to Fiend 20 loss points at a time. Help came in the form of a hardcore Canadian gamer from my Twitch community, and we salvaged the run to 3:15 thanks partly to him, and partly to the fact that after the first couple hours, Japanese opponents were no longer a concern, as Splatfest closed in that region at that time.

I'm glad to see the matching servers are still region agnostic but...they failed us a lot this Splatfest. STOP MATCHING US AGAINST GODS, ZAPFISH DAMMIT!!

I ended up having one 10x match per run...and lost all three of them. Someday I shall see my toon on the big board...someday...

I called the Splatfest for Team Trick, taking Popularity and Pro, based on my own experience and watching numerous Twitch streamers from both teams. I held off on calling a sweep because by and large, Treat players in Normal Mode tended to play better and had a better chance at holding off the clout onslaught.

Well, I was nearly correct on two of three. I was 1% off on the popular vote. I was pretty much on the nose for Normal Mode, though the actual difference in percentages was less than half a percent...but I couldn't believe it when I saw the Pro numbers...

Treat!! At approx. 52-48! Treat's Pro teams were the better ones after all!

Send out Marina's Candy Corn Tenta-Missiles in celebration! That's 3 victories in a row for Marina, and the post-Splatfest banter was pretty upbeat on both sides of the studio, even in the Japanese banter.

But there is still one unanswered question, and it comes from what the English Splatfest banter WOULD have been if Team Trick had won...

Marina would have said to her team, "Nice try, Team Treat. We'll get 'em next year."

Wait... "Next year"??

Isn't the final Splatfest JULY 2019?!? That is decidedly BEFORE next Halloween!

Ah! We go back to the OatmealDome leak of the 4 "special" Splatfests!

Could it be that those 4 "special" Splatfests are "special" for a reason? Think of it...3 more elaborate seasonal Splatfests, placed, say, one approximately every 2-4 months?...

...that, maybe, REPEAT ON AN ANNUAL BASIS?

Think of it...Marina's comment of "next year", the dichotomy of the elaborate work for how soon the game's end-of-support is, the special code...and the fact that Nintendo wants the Switch to last 10 years. What better way to extend the life of Splatoon 2 than to keep Splatfests going, quarterly, in some form for years to come, with minimal further work needed by the devs, even after monthly Splatfests cease to be?

Could we be splatting out Trick vs. Treat AGAIN next year at this time?

If that is the coming future for Splatoon 2, I welcome it.

Pocky Chocolate vs. Ultra Slim
I used to be a hardcore anime fan. Still am, to an extent, though mostly of shows that premiered in the 1970s-90s. Went to my first anime convention (Otakon) in 1997, and it was there that I discovered the food that has since become one of fandom's biggest snacks...in or out of Japan...

Pocky.

Little thin lightly-toasted pretzel biscuits covered with chocolate...or strawberry cream...or cookies-n-cream-- basically, they make a lot of flavors. But this Splatfest focused on the oldest and newest flavors of the line: the original chocolate, and the new "Ultra Slim", which is basically the original chocolate, just dipped on thinner pretzel sticks, 50 to a box instead of 25.

After grabbing some original Pocky at It'Sugar and some Ultra Slim at Tomodachi, I was ready to have the side-by-side taste test. Frankly, there isn't much difference between the two, tastewise. Once is truly just...thinner.

I can't make a TASTE test based on thinness.

But I had to choose one, and I went for the classic chocolate. If you're not going to make any real significant changes, don't mess with the classic.

And for the record, the meme about the "bad Thai Pocky" is dead. The original I had was from the Thailand plant, the Ultra Slim I had was from Japan. They tasted the same. They finally standardized the taste of the chocolate between their factories, so you can rest assured that nowadays...Pocky is Pocky.

But we're here to talk about the Splatfest itself. It actually took place on the weekend of "Pocky Day" in Japan, albeit a day early (Pocky Day is November 11 each year), as part of a major cross-promotion campaign between Nintendo and Glico. Whereas I couldn't partake in the other festivities, I could still splat!

It was a struggle, however, especially on the Shifty Station. I won very few, if any, matches on that map, and certainly not the 10x match I was in (I still have a winless record with 10x matches). Again, it was yet another "control the realy small mid" map that really bunched my nerves...

...and I'll have to deal with it the next week...AND the week after. Dear Zapfish, it's hell.

How I managed a Queenout time of only just over 03:30, I'll never know. Maybe I should have played Pro for a bit, as my team seemed to fare better there.

At least I got to bring the red ink "BLOOD" meme to Japan. *heh*

I knew where this was heading, and I called it for Team Ultra Slim to get popularity and Normal mode. I was right, only underestimating Ultra Slim's popularity by 4%.

Marina has now won 4 in a row, after Pearl won the previous 5, coming back within one point of re-tying the standings. Marina still has yet to lose a Splatfest under the new system, which has some people crying foul. But let's look at those results again:

Marina won both September 2018 Splatfests by sweeping. Marina won Splatoween by taking both battle categories. Marina won this fest by taking Popularity and Normal mode.

So...she won three different ways.

Folks, isn't this what you were asking for? More variety in the types of results? If the problem you had was that the popular team kept losing, you should be relieved by these results! It's not as predictable anymore.

I swear, some people are never satisfied.

Well, while they're off in their corner complaining, I'll be over here...

...munching on some sweet, crunchy, losing-team, classic Pocky. *heh*

Salsa vs. Guacamole
Upon first seeing this Splatfest, you wouldn't think these two toppings would be pitted against each other. After all, people tend to like both on their Tex/Mex food. It's not like the two are mutually exclusive or anything. It's just a fact of life: salsa and guacamole both belong on Tex/Mex food.

So asking which one is better seems to be like a moot point...

However, the Splatfest was asking which is better as a dip, and some missed that part. I chose salsa. After all, have you ever heard of "Chips 'n' Guac"? Guacamole, by itself, IMHO isn't enough flavor for just a dip. Put it on sandwiches, put it in a burrito, put it on a taco...but as a dip? I need more! I need spice! I need tomatoey goodness! I need onions! I need chunky chompy flavor!

Apparently, there are people who prefer Guacamole as a dip as well, and they were willing to defend their honor on the splatterfield! I will never understand them. Poor unfortunate flavorless souls. *lol*

The Splatfest started out ok enough, but that Shifty Station from the week before was back, and continued to be a source of misery for me. Luckily I had a team of good players from the Twitch community to back me up...

...even if my 10x record is now 0-7. Will I ever win one?

I got the Queenout at 2 hours 35 minutes, which is on the higfher end of my Top 10 List. But once again, Dana got it 10 minutes before I did, and this time, we didn't break group from each other. Still curious how she's getting larger Synergy Bonuses than I am.

It was still a struggle though. Our victories were hard fought and close, while our losses were more often than not due to us getting massively outclassed...not to mention all the mirror matches we had being on the popular team. Pro players were having an easier time, it seemed.

Because of that, I called the Normal category for Team Guac with an overall win for Team Salsa.

I was wrong.

I was DEAD wrong.

But I was wrong in a good way.

Turns out Pearl finally got her first win under the new system, and we not only won, but WASTED Team Guac in a three-category sweep. There were no 50.xx-49.xx victories here, either. Pearl's win was about as decisive as her win with Team Gherk-OUT. Blew me away.

Then again, I should have expected no less from Team Salsa. What can I say? We were...

...RED HOT! ;)

Eat It vs. Save It
I feel I must apologize to "Weird Al" Yankovic...

After all, Pearl's side of this contest was literally named the same as a "Weird Al" song, if not necessarily named *after* it. But I had to betray my comedy music background and go with what I actually do in real life.

A good meal should be a build-up of flavor. Let the tongue taste more and more until the end of the meal becomes an explosion of taste! And then, of course, there is always dessert! That's why I chose Team Save It!

Lay off the "Weird Al", and put on some Vanessa Williams!

When the Splatfest itself started, of course we had that same god-forsaken Shifty Station from the last two weeks, but this time I noticed something else. I was actually winning against Team Eat It!

I did not lose a single match to Team Eat It.

The fact that for the length of a Queenout and change I only battled against them a total of 6 times is notwithstanding. That's how lopsided the popular vote was! For a while, I had thought Team Save It hit that magic 70% of the vote, until I saw things settle down a bit later. Still a lot of mirror matches on Team Save It, just not as much. I also actually went through a Splatfest without a single 10x match.

The results were actually predictable, despite the game-historical significance of the result. Not only did Marina easily sweep, but it was her first win on a Europe-only Splatfest!

So now that we have 6 Splatfests under the new system, let's look at some stats...
 * 4 were sweeps
 * 5 were won by popular team
 * 5 were won by Marina
 * 4 were food-based

The meme is dead... long live the new meme? We'll see what happens in next month's likely global Splatfest!

Hero vs. Villain
Before 2015, I had never played a single lick of Super Smash Bros. Sure I knew of the game, and had watched others play Melee and Brawl, but I never had an N64, Game Cube, or Wii before that time, so when I got my Wii U, I made sure we got Super Smash Bros. for it (and our 3DS systems, too), so "Smash 4" pretty much became the one I was used to, and as such, I also never got used to playing it with the storied Game Cube controller, either.

My main in "Smash 4" was Zero Suit Samus. And I sucked at it. Still do, to be frank. Even the few times I played it on my stream, I'd always get my butt kicked, though I'd win the occasional game. VERY occasional.

So since I sucked at the game anyway, I figured I'd main Inkling in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and it turns out she's very fun and easy to play...even if I do still get my butt kicked by the skilled Smash vets in my Twitch community.

That aside, we didn't initially think we were going to get a Splatfest in December 2018. Nintendo announced FrostyFest very early December, and we figured that would be the next one, as too many people would be spending December playing Smash.

But on December 7th, not only did Smash Ultimate come out, so did this Splatfest announcement!

Needless to say, since my choices of main were "good guys", I went for Team Hero. After all, who roots for the villain? Only villains do that!! ;)

And I do have to say the Shifty Station this time around was far better than the past three. There was actually a sizable mid, and a lot of open space, and I got more use out of the Dash tracks than I thought I would. They were good for both quick escapes...or super-launching a bomb or two.

Luck was with me for my first two Queen runs (even if Dana once again Queened out before I did), but we had a lot of mirror matches...though, so did Team Villain, but by the time things settled down, it became more obvious that Team Hero had the popular vote.

My third Queenout started great...and then we lost our tank. Let me explain for those who don't know... the "tank" is the one in the party whose job it is to make the rest of the other team pay attention to them and only them. There was me, the inker...Dan, the player-splatter...and then there was Zordias, our tank. It was his job to break into the enemy home base and start inking, with the strategy being that the other team would panic, rush home, and try to get him...and it worked! We were on pace to match the other two Queenout times!

Then he left, and things went to crap. Without our tank, mirror matches consisted of us being walked all over, and matches against Team Villain went better as a whole, but we split about 50/50.

Though, during the 2nd Queenout, I did still manage to win three 10x matches, the first Splatfest where I ever won such a match! We proudly marched back out into the Square and grabbed our pix!

This was hard to call for me, but judging by my own play, and that of other Twitch streamers, I decided to call it a just BARELY sweep for Pearl.

Imagine my surprise when Marina not only won...but it wasn't even close in the clout. Again, no 51-49s here.

Marina has now won all but one Splatfest in the Clout Era.

Fear the cute ones.

Family vs. Friends
Celebrating the Winter Solstice is a tradition that goes back thousands of years. It's the time of year where we celebrate the fact that the days will start getting longer again... even if it still takes a few months for the temperatures to rebound back to comfortable levels. Most religions tend to hold their largest celebrations at or near the Winter Solstice as well, taking cue from these older traditions and slapping their own special twist on them.

The fictional world of Splatoon is no exception, as holidays called "Squidmas" and "Octivus" have been mentioned as taking place around this time, celebrated by Inklings and Octarians respectively, and whereas there have been two Splatfests centering around the holidays, it's largely only been the North American versions of the games that have referenced these holidays.

That is no longer true. Enter "FrostyFest"!

FrostyFest is the second of what will be 4 special Splatfests before monthly Splatfests end. This Splatfest, scheduled slightly after the holiday season, asks who would you rather spend the holidays with....your family, or your friends?

Because I happen to be on good terms with my bio relatives, and they say your best of friends are the family you make for yourself, I chose Team Family.

After 2 weeks of tee grinding, I dug in that Friday morning on my Japanese toon. At the time, Splatfest was only open in Japan and Europe, and I ran into a problem I had run into before: "East vs. West" matches where my team was horribly outclassed. Zordias came about halfway through and we salvaged it into a 3:15 run, but even with him on the team, it was difficult.

Once the Americans and Australians joined in though, it was a different matter. I basically ended up putting together "dream teams" with some of the best players in my Twitch community, resulting in my first personal best time under two hours for my Eurotoon, and tying my old best with my American toon.

Dana still beat me by 5 minutes though, due to a disconnect I had early on in the Eurotoon run. And she says she's a bad player... my Twitch community disagrees profusely! *heh*

Numerous others on Team Family had similar quick Queenouts...in Normal, anyway. Pro was an entirely other story, as Team Friends seemed to just dominate in the higher bracket.

When Splatfest ended, it was obvious that team Family had the popular vote, and Team Friends had Pro. Normal was a bit trickier to call, but I had thought that perhaps we pulled it off, so I called the Splatfest for Team Family.

I was wrong. Team Friends took Normal as well, with a semi-comfortable 52-48 score.

Marina's utter domination of the Clout Era continues (7-1)...and now, for the first time since Spring 2018, Marina took the lead in cumulative Splatfest victories across all regions, having won 22 of the 43 Splatfests so far in ...if you count Team Ketchup's combined-result victory, that is.

Though, to be frank, even if I don't always choose her teams (since I don't choose by idol), I still feel happy for Marina. I just like her overall as a character, even more since finding out her backstory in Octo Expansion, since I always love a good story of redemption. And the presence of Flooders in the Shifty Station this time makes sense as well, since she was on the design team for them and all, now using her creations for sport instead of submission. The story of Marina Ida just warms my heart all sorts of ways.

Keep your streak going, Marina. You deserve it! :)

Boke vs. Tsukkomi
The comedy duo. It's one of the most basic forms of comedic theater. You have one who is the "funny" one, the "comic", supplying all the jokes and miscommunications, coming off as the buffoon who can't tell their right from their left, and you have the "straight" one, the everyperson, the "stooge" who has to stand there and deal with the former's antics. We in the West have many examples of this in our theatrical history: Laurel & Hardy, Abbott & Costello, Martin & Lewis, Burns & Allen, Pete & Dud, the Smothers Brothers... hell, even cartoons like Pinky & the Brain follow this trope.

In Japan, this trope has a history as well. The comic of the duo is called the "boke", while the stooge is called the "tsukkomi", and much like Oliver Hardy had his hat to smack some sense into Stan Laurel, the tsukkomi in Japanese comedy tradition tends to carry a paper fan for the same purpose. This style of comedy is so globally known, that I'm surprised they didn't save this topic for a global Splatfest.

And this isn't even an original Splatfest topic. Back on September 13, 2015, this was splatted out in as well, with Team Tsukkomi sweeping both popularity and battles to win 261-239. Needless to say, right out of the gate, it didn't look good for Pearl, who at this point so far has only won ONE Splatfest in the Clout Era.

This was also sponsored by CoroCoro magazine, who publishes the manga based on the game, with Team Blue members Goggles (a boke) and Specs (a tsukkomi) leading their respective teams for the Splatfest event in the comic...the first time a Splatfest has taken place in-universe within its pages.

Because I enjoy the antics of those silly simpletons, I had to choose Team Boke.

I got the gang together for this Splatfest, with myself, Zen, Ranko, and a new streamer called iMad for a 4-way Splatfest collab stream for Team Boke. Right away, we were running like a well-oiled machine! Win! Win! Win!

And then came the Shifty Station...

We lost our first 3 battles on the Shifty...we lost them HARD! It took us a while to realize what we had to do. For the first time, my usual strategy of "ink the home base" failed. I had to chuck it in favor of "take our side's Splat Zones first".

Yes, you read that right. This Shifty has SPLAT ZONES in Turf War! Two in each team's base, and two in mid. Control of those zones is KEY! And to add insult to injury, you also have to keep an eye on your side's inkable wall in mid, because if the opposing team gets it, your base is as good as invaded! It took us a few tries to finally understand that, and even afterward, it was still tough!

Queenout came at 2 hours 24 minutes, for my best time ever for a Japanese Splatfest. Getting carried can be fun sometimes *heh*. Got 3 10x wins out of it too! (4 if you count the post-Queenout one I got at the coffeehouse)

Sadly though, I was worried for my team. Afterward, while watching other streamers, I saw Team Boke getting killed in Pro, and while Boke seemed to win more in Normal, Tsukkomi had more decisive wins. I was sure Tsukkomi got the clout from that. I called it a sweep for Marina because of that.

Luckily for my team, I was dead wrong. Tsukkomi got popularity, but Boke ended up taking both battle categories... it was VERY close though. Had Boke gotten about 0.3% less wins in Normal, we would have lost. Pearl finally gets her second win in the Clout era, avenging Callie for the previous Team Boke loss.

After all, when all is said and done, in this game, we're all just a bunch of silly squids and octos!

Say goodnight, Gracie! :)

Pancake vs. Waffle
Who's up for some hot battered breakfast?

For centuries, Europeans have been frying up cake batter for breakfast, serving it with various fruits, butter, and of course maple syrup! When they colonized across the world, they took these traditions with them, but over those years, we never could decide which is actually the better way to serve them?

Pancakes are just what the name says it is...batter is poured into a frying pan. Cook one side, flip, cook the other. Simple, right? Granted, the toppings don't always stay on, though, so how else can you prepare them?

Waffles require a special griddle and iron to prepare to get that trademarked cross-hatch shape, so they may be a bit tougher to prepare, but in the end, you have a cake that's thicker, more crisp, and can actually hold its toppings!

Here in America, we have a chain of restaurants for each of these (The International House of Pancakes (IHOP) and Waffle House), but of course, both places serve both types. It all depends on which sounds more appetizing to you.

Because I don't want to fight with my food or toppings, I chose Team Waffle.

It's also been a while since I chose Marina's team. Last time I did, she swept with Team Save It. I told myself the meme is dead, but now the last 3 Splatfests had ended with the unpopular team winning all battle categories. I started to fear for the stats, despite the popularity.

It was obvious Team Waffle had the votes, as evidenced by all the mirror matches I had, but the competition was far more fierce than the weekend before. There were no sub-2-hour Queenouts here.

There was also the fact that the randos didn't know what to do with the Shifty Station. Hell, some of my crew didn't either, though a Splatling from my gang did do effective wall defense, but we sadly lost her halfway through the first run.

We barely got our victories, while Team Pancake often stomped us. I gave up Normal Mode for a loss, though Pro looked promising for Waffle after watching someone on Team Pancake get loss...after loss...after loss on Pro. Sadly that elation would be short lived, as near the end of Splatfest, Pancake was racking up the Pro Clout.

In my predictions, I called it for Team Pancake, sighing in the possibility that perhaps the meme wasn't dead after all.

But get out the wooden stakes, folks!

Marina ended up getting her FIFTH sweep! Granted, it was just barely, as all three categories were basically 51-49 wins...even popularity! In that sense, it was likely the closest sweep in ! Marina now leads Pearl not only in the cumulative, but also in sweeps!

This also means of the last 10 Splatfests across all regions, Marina has won 8

Marina wining is suddenly a cross-region meme! And she has yet to lose at all in Europe in the Clout Era!

And there's no waffling around that fact!

Knight vs. Wizard
CHOOSE THY DESTINY!

After Fantasy won over Sci-Fi in November 2017, I guess they decided to make things a little more specific this time. And with the gear that came with the Octoling Amiibos, I guess this Splatfest was inevitable.

They took two major tropes from the fantasy genre and decided to pit them against each other. On the one hand, knights can take a lot of punishment, they're skilled at hand to hand combat, and they would often live by a warrior's code...

Wizards...can bend reality to their will.

It's no contest. I chose Team Wizard. Not only because I mained magic-users in World of Warcraft, but also because of practical special-effects master Mike Jittlov, who fancies himself the "Wizard of Speed and Time"! My Splatfest art even featured his distinctive logo. (Seriously, if you haven't seen the movie of that name, see it! Great deconstructive parody of the Hollywood movie-making process  :) )

Also, speaking of that Amiibo gear, there was a mechanic in this Splatfest where if you wore the Knight or Witch headgear and shoes, the Splatfest Tee would morph into that set's shirt. (Turned out this was also the case with the Woomy World mascot gear too, but it wasn't publicised). After saving and re-wiping my Amiibo enough times to get the witch's gear on all 3 toons, I was ready!

Once I dug in my American toon, it was mostly mirror matches, and about half the time on those, we got our butts kicked. However, out of 9 matches against Team Knight, we took 7. This was looking good. We finished up at about 2h 25m, still in my Top 10.

Then I switched to my Japanese toon...and I basically put together my dream team. It was me, Zen, and another from my community named Angel. We also got a good rando called Apples. And we just kept winning. Over and over again. We didn't have a perfect record, and Angel got replaced by a new viewer later on (who ended up MAXING OUT our synergy!), but it was enough to Queen out at a blazingly fast 1 HOUR 18 MINUTES!

We were truly "Wizards of Speed and Time"! The mirror match that ended the Queenout even had us using green ink, just like Jittlov's robes!

The Eurotoon run had "Zordias the Ink Machine" with me, but it was a more average run for me, finishing at 2 hours 12 minutes.

The Shifty Station was one of the more interesting ones, with a combo mechanic of Splat Switches controlling Spreaders. Control of mid, or rather its central switch, was key. Again, my usual "ink the home base" strategy took a back seat to rushing the central switch. It was also VERY easy to get to the home base via the side switch. It was one of the better Shifty maps, and I hope my thoery of the Shiftys being added to regular rotation after the final Splatfest comes to fruition.

After watching other streams, I had predicted Wizard to sweep, even if just barely.

Instead, we just barely WON! O.o The same percentage we were away from a sweep, we were also away from a loss. About 0.3% either way. But a W is a W.

Marina just can't lose anymore, as she goes 9-2 for the Clout era! All hail the new meme? It would appear so! This is also the first time Marina has taken a 2-Splatfest lead in the cumulative totals (24-22).

There is still one burning question I'm left with though: What wizard decided to shift the European start/end times backwards two hours? Seriously! Some friends of mine across the "big pond" missed out on their royal titles because of that! What a rip off!

Only 4 more months of Splatfest to go, and it looks like next month wil be the next 48-hour one, mainly because we got a taste of it this weekend in the "Turf War" splash logo at the beginning of each match, which featured images of Easter eggs and candies around it.

Is next month Easter-themed? Weird considering Easter isn't as big in Japan, but the proof may be there. See you for "Egg vs. Chocolate"? Time will tell. :)

Hare vs. Tortoise
It's time for SpringFest!!!

It's the third of the four "special" quarterly Splatfests to mark the passing of the seasons, and they actually held it over Easter weekend (surprisingly, since the previous two were not held over the actual holidays themselves), so I had to share the weekend with another science fiction convention...MiniCon.

Luckily though, I half-planned for this. I got that Thursday night off from work, so I was able to start the Splatfest right when it opened in Japan, and I didn't have a hotel room (it's a very local convention), so I simply went back home each night and streamed another Queenout.

As for the subject matter of this Splatfest, you'd think they'd have gone with something like "Chocolate vs. Eggs", or "Bunnies vs. Chicks"...but no. Instead, they rehashed the fable of the Tortoise and the Hare and their infamous race, where the Hare tired herself out and took a nap in the middle of the race, and woke up too late to realize the Tortoise had already won.

The question is...who would win a REMATCH? Would the Hare learn anything, or will she make another grave mistake that costs her the race?

TO THE SPLATTERFIELD!! I chose Team Tortoise, not just because of fable canon, but also the reason why the Tortoise won...he paced himself. Smart strategy and smart use of bodily resources instead of trying to expend all your energy trying to be Sonic.

I ground a lot of chunks on my Splatfest Tee this time, as I had a ton of unused drink tickets that I finally decided to use, causing the tee to gain XP at a rate of 1.5x normal. I also used the opportunity to get my gear (both main and special fest gear) to exactly where I want them for the first time in...well, ever. I also finally used about 100 of my 1500+ Super Sea Snails toward the goal in rerolls. Feels good to finally have that bit of synergy between my three toons.

This Splatfest had a very interesting Shifty Station, and yet another one where the first order of business was to get to mid first, and worry about home base later. Not getting to mid could lose you precious turf as the mechanic was to ink a piece of mid, and lock it away behind a sealed area. An Ink Switch controlled how fast the floor moved underneath you toward the sealed area. In all, the locked area (after full extension) was about 3x as large as mid itself, making control of that turf key.

However, a Shifty that complicated meant one bad thing that permeated this Splatfest: glitches. Glitches everywhere! There was a glitch that allowed Booyah Bombs to ink the locked area. There was a glitch that allowed Sprinklers to ink the locked area. There was a place in the wall you could glitch through and directly ink the locked area. Use of some weapons caused disconnects aplenty. Someone even reported the game crashing when watching Pearl and Marina on stage!

Basically, it felt rushed. And the presence of Splatoween slime and ghost decorations didn't help matters, despite the newer colorful decorations among them. They also used pre-existing outfits for Off The Hook...basically, their Octo Expansion gear.

As for the battles themselves...well, Tortoise got popularity obviously due to the number of mirror matches I had, and with Hare showing up on the ticker over and over again...it was a foregone conclusion, and my predictions were mostly correct.

Congrats to Team Hare for Pearl's third Clout Era Splatfest win. Fable be damned.

...Kill da wabbit! Kill da wabbit!...

Central League vs. Pacific League
PLAY BALL!

Ah yes, baseball, the American Pastime! Invented just after the American Civil War, based on the British sport Cricket, baseball has become one of the biggest sports in North America, with high-profile teams and leagues spanning from Canada to Panama!

And with world travel getting more and more prevalent with the advent of air travel, it wasn't long before Americans brought this sport to the East, and Japan quickly took to it, first forming the Japan Baseball League in 1936, and then reorganizing in 1950 during the country's post-World War II reconstruction as Nippon Professional Baseball, as it is known to this day.

Just like North America's Major League Baseball, NPB is separated into two league conferences called the Central League and the Pacific League, though teams from both are located all across Japan. For short, the conferences are known simply by the first characters of their kana: Ce and Pa Leagues, similar to how we Americans refer to the American and National Leagues as "AL" and "NL". They also have a playoff season that culminates in the Japan Series, similar to the World Series of MLB.

Their rules are mostly similar to MLB, but with a slightly smaller and denser ball, and a limited number of extra innings allowed (allowing for ties). They also play in all weather conditions (save for dangerous conditions like typhoons), so rarely a rainout.

Now given that I'm an American, and knew very little about NPB going into this, I decided to do some research on the teams, and that was when I found the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks:
 * They won a couple championships near the beginning of their franchise (1959,1964)
 * They had a HUGE championship drought that lasted decades, finally breaking in 1999.
 * They have since become the team with the most Japan Series wins of the 21st Century

Sound like any particular MLB team we know? ;) #RedSoxNation  ;)

So I put my backing behind the Hawks' conference, the Pacific League, as did the vast majority of my friends list, initially making me think Team Pacific would easily have popularity.

When the Splatfest started, though, I rarely had a mirror match, while Team Central got many of them. This dynamic would chhange by the end of the Splatfest, however, making me think Team Pacific could eke out a win in that category after all.

The highlight of the Splatfest, however, was the Shifty Station. Unlike the last three stations, which prioritized taking "mid" as fast as you could, this one was a refreshing return to semi-normality...with one exception...

Rolonium

Oh the rolls did fly, and you had to be on your toes else you get bowled over by the spongy projectiles, but all in all, this was probably the most fun I've had on a Shifty Station in quite some time!

Also, thanks to Zen, Lunaaa, and iMad, I got my fastest Queenout time for a Japan-exclusive Splatfest at 1 hour 56 minutes!

I even did a second Splatfest stream the next night just for funsies. Got more losses than last time (mainly due to numerous instances of Team Central coming back in the last 30 seconds), but all in all this was really fun!

And I get to splat on that Shifty all over again next week as we go from America's Pastime, to going back in time! :)

I called it a sweep for Pacific, but it turned out Central got popularity after all. Pacific got the clout to win though, giving Marina an impressive 10-3 record in the Clout Era, and a 25-23 record overall. In the post-banter, she and Pearl basically made plans to catch an Inkopolis League game..after all, the Hozuki family (Pearl's family) OWNS THE LEAGUE! *heh*

Grab us some hot dogs on your way back, ladies! :)

Time Travel vs. Teleportation
It's a battle between two of the most persistent tropes in all of science fiction. There is nary a sci-fi writer or franchise who hasn't dabbled in at least one of the two. Who wouldn't want the convenience of just jaunting from place to place instantly, reliving great moments of the past, or seeing where the future will take us?

Some of the most popular franchises of all time feature these heavily, from the temporal adventures of The Doctor, to the transporters of Star Trek (and hell, Star Trek has even dabbled in time travel, especially Star Trek: Enterprise). You have Doc Brown and Marty McFly, the creepy puzzle game Portal, even World of Warcraft regularly features both!

As much as most of us would love to be able to do both, we are forced to choose one or the other, and since time travel has fascinated me pretty much since grade school, I had to choose Team Time Travel.

In the lead up to Splatfest, among some of the usual artwork in Inkopolis Square, my heart just melted when I saw why some people chose Team Teleportation...mainly so they could instantly be with long-distance friends and loved ones. It's actually a rather sad side effect of the Internet, and connecting with people who could live as far away as the other side of the world. Sometimes those connections grow and flourish into more. I have had personal experience with that myself (and still do in regards to how far I live from the rest of my bio-family), and it can be quite heart-wrenching. I felt so bad for them.

When the Splatfest began, I gathered up myself, Zen, Ranko, and my partner Dana for the Queen run. The Shifty Station was the same one from the week before, and we were ready! We got a nice string of wins at first, but it did get more difficult as time went on, and our synergy wasn't the best, but we salvaged it into a 1 hour 47 minute run, tying my 2nd personal best from the month before, except this time, we had little enough down time that we finished it before the maps changed. The first time that had happened to me (I don't count my 1h 18m run because it was still done across two sets of maps, since we didn't start that run at its region's beginning)!

Then came watching others play it on Twitch. We seemed to be holding our own in Normal, but Pro was another story. Also, it was pretty evenly matched among 10x and 100x matches on the ticker. And of course, I didn't get any mirror matches on Team Time Travel until the fest closed in North America. I predicted Teleportation to take Popularity and Pro (and therefore the Splatfest), with both battle categories being close.

I wasn't off by much. The popularity was a bit more than I predicted, and while both battle categories were close, they both went for Team Teleportation, making it another 3-0 sweep for Marina!

Marina is now 11-3 for the Clout era, and 26-23 overall (counting Team Ketchup as a global win for Marina). The only ways Pearl can overtake her now are (a) next month has NO multiregion Splatfests, or (b) July has a Splatfest tournament. Right now, neither is likely to happen, and even if one or the other happens, Pearl would pretty much have to win EVERY REMAINING SPLATFEST!

Ouch. Poor Pearl. Maybe someone should loan her Doc's DeLorean to get more Splatfests.

All this talk about the coming end of Splatfests is getting me sad. Pardon me while I curl up somewhere...

Unicorn vs. Narwhal
This was a rather odd theme for a Splatfest.

Seriously...exactly what do unicorns and narwhals have in common?

Unicorns are mythical, magical creatures of lore and adventure, supposeldy granting wishes/powers/etc to whoever is lucky enough to come across one. They are a staple of many a fantasy story told...also, they don't exist.

Narwhals, on the other hand, DO exist, but when was the last time you came across a work of fiction touting the magical properties of the narwhal? They are basically just whales with long spiral tusks protruding from their heads.

And that's another thing, whereas a unicorn's cranial protrusion is a horn, a narwhal's is actually a tusk.

Like I implied, not much in common at all. They likely just paired these two animals against each other because they both have large spiral protrusions growing out of their heads. My guess is they needed something to go up against the unicorn.

And I can see why they wanted to bring unicorns in. The unicorn is one of the big symbols of LGBT Pride month, especially since a very large portion of the Splatoon fanbase in the Western world identifies as such. June is generally considered to be Pride month. The ink colors were the pastel colors of the trans pride flag, and many other colors associated with various LGBT flags were present on the announcement graphic.

Now I may be lesbian, but I'm also a bit of a realist, so I had to choose Team Narwhal. Because reality.

This was also a rather busy weekend for me, as every region got its own Splatfest, and they were all held on the same weekend, so I wanted to get this Queened out quickly so I could get right to the next Splatfest!

Sadly though, of my Twitch community, all my real heavy hitters chose Team Unicorn.

I put together a team of myself, Dana, Ranko, and SplatTV and we went at it. It was tough chewing for a while, and we didn't have too much in the way of synergy. Far too many close losses for our taste, and we didn't Queen out for nearly 3 hours!

I've been spoiled by the superteams I've been able to put together in the past. At least we got a fun stream and voice chat out of it, and there may or may not have been alcohol present to soften the blow of defeat. *heh*

And the Shifty Station was interesting in that it brought back a mechanic from Mahi-Mahi Resort in the old game. About halfway through the match, the water surrounding the stage would drop, revealing more territory to cover. Add Inkfurlers to the mix, and you had a memorable Shifty, indeed. I fell to my doom more than once after charging a Booyah Bomb over an inkfurler that retracted under me.

And as stated earlier, I had more Splatfest to take care of afterward. I was worried about my sleep schedule. At least when we DID get a 10x match, we won it.

Due to our lengthy Queenout, and seeing far more 10x and 100x posts from Team Unicorn on Twitter, and watching others on Twitch struggle with Team Narwhal, I felt sure that Team Unicorn would take clout, and by a rather large margin.

I couldn't have been more wrong. Instead, Team Narwhal brought out the brooms for a 3-0 category sweep against the fictional equines! Imagine my shock!

This meant that Marina takes the prize for most Splatfests won in Splatoon 2. Taking the 27-23 lead, and only 3 Splatfests to go (2 of which were this same weekend), there was no way for Pearl to catch up.

So reality won out over fantasy after all. A bit of a refreshing take. As much as I like the imagery of unicorns and rainbows this month, I also like to stay grounded in an era where even truth is so easily dismissed.

Like the truth of who I am, and how years ago, I was brave enough to finally face that truth.

Like so many others who have had to summon up that bravery over the last 50 years of the modern LGBT civil rights movement.

Happy Pride, everyone!

No Pineapple vs. Pineapple
Rev up those fryers! We have another mouthwatering food Splatfest for your gaming pleasure!

This Splatfest is all about Sweet and Sour Pork, a staple food on the menus of many an Americanized Chinese restaurant, and since Japan in the late 1940s and 1950s had heavy American influence at a time when the modern Chinese-American restaurant was in its infancy, that style of food showed up in Japan as well. While things have gotten more authentic in Chinese restaurants in Japan over the intervening years, the allure of the classic Sweet and Sour Pork remained. That tempura-breaded pork covered with that succulent red sauce, made better with peppers and pineapple, is too hard to resist!

But wait! Apparently that last ingredient is up for debate! Some like the dish with pineapple, some without.

Whether Pizza or Sweet and Sour Pork, I tell ya, pineapple gets no respect!

I chose Team Pineapple, because pineapple belongs on stuff, dammit!

I couldn't start this Splatfest right when it opened, because at the time it did, I was still in the middle of a rather difficult Queenout that still had about an hour left. Luckily though, my planned team waited for me!

Unlike the previous Splatfest, this time, I had a couple of my heavy hitters with me: Zen and Angel! Synergy was on our side. We communicated over the voice chat like a well-oiled machine! We got some great randos with us! We won 2 10x matches BACK TO BACK! All this came together for a Queenout only one minute longer than my PB! A rather quick 1h 19m ride!

The Shifty Station was the same one from the Unicorn/Narwhal Splatfest...cue more people falling to their doom after a Booyah Bomb! *heh*

What a way to cap off the final Japan-only Splatfest! Sadly though, Dana expressed regret at not joining us.

Saturday afternoon, I decided to celebrate the quick Queenout with some Sweet and Sour Pork at a local restaurant in my area....WITH Pineapple, of course.

Later on at a local indie game shop, I decided to hop back into the fray with Ranko and Angel, and I swear, it was like Team No Pineapple took a level in badass during Japan's overnight! We rarely won at all, and even dropped an attempt at another 10x. This did not make me feel very confident of our chances, but I was at least able to help Ranko connect to matches quickly, which was the main point of that run.

Looking on Twitter, I saw three postings of 100x wins by Team No Pineapple, but Team Pineapple had a myriad of 10x wins, and a 100x of their own, so that could have made up for the shortfall. Granted it was only a small sample, but I called the clout for Team Pineapple by a slim margin.

It was a slim margin, alright...but not how I thought.

Team No Pineapple got the edge and swept the Splatfest by about a razor-thin 0.1% in both clout categories, giving Pearl her 4th Clout Era win, and second sweep in such, having swept with Team Salsa the previous November.

This echoes both the last time pineapple was put on splat trial, in, and the last times there were controversial ingredients in popular food in ...the added ingredient lost.

Maybe there's something in common between better splat gamers and the preference of bland food. *heh* We may never know.

Damn pineapple-haters! :P

Kid vs. Grown-Up
This was a Splatfest that played on either nostalgia or naievity. If you're a kid, you either like your life as it is, or you just can't wait for the autonomy of adulthood. If you're an adult, you either like your life as it is, or long for the days when you didn't have so many responsibilities.

This was also the final Europe-only Splatfest, of which there were only two in the entire Clout Era. I guess for the final month before the last Splatfest, they decided to let each region have one last exclusive blowout! Which is a bit too bad, because Pride Month is also a thing in Europe, but depending on who you ask, they made up for it by releasing the official artwork, showing Pearl and Marina gazing into each other's eyes...

...yeah, I'm a "Pearlina" shipper. I admit it. *heh*

As for the pros and cons of both sides...as a kid, you have little to no responsibilities, but have the rule of parental authority. You don't have to get a job, but you have to go to school. Everything is new, everything is exciting, and you have the vitality of youth on your side.

Whereas as an adult, you have responsibilities, but you answer to no one who isn't a municipal authority. You have to get a job, but it gets you money, which you didn't get from school. Everything is familiar, but comfort comes from that familiarity. You may not have your youth, but you have your experience.

Kids get a lot of free time, but adults get to define what they do with their own free time, and can spend their own money to do it.

Basically, as an adult, you can still choose to be young at heart when the need arises. It's the best of both worlds, and that's why I chose Team Grown-Up. You'd think someone like me who's nearing age 50 would beg to be young again, and whereas I do, I'd want to be more like 21-25...not 10-15. Still an adult.

I didn't get much sleep before this Splatfest. I had finished the previous one at about 04:45 EDT, did post-prod until about 05:30 EDT, and slept. Woke up at 07:30 EDT to start fresh at 08:00...except I had the start time wrong, and it wasn't starting until 10:00. So after messaging my social media to say I was too early, I went back to bed for another 90 minutes...

I finally got underway when Splatfest opened at 10:00 EDT Saturday morning.

The ink colors for this Splatfest were interesting. On the splatterfield, it almost looked like a liquid creme de menthe, or chocolate mint ice cream.

The Shifty Station was again the same one from the other Splatfests that weekend, so cue more drownings by Booyah Bomb! *heh*

I had Zordias the Ink Machine with me for this run, and after a slow start, we ended up starting what would be an 11-win streak! *yay* Followed right after by a 7-loss streak... *boo*  The fact that they started giving us randos under level 20 didn't help matters either. Queened out at 2 hours 12 minutes with one 10x win, but these days, that's not enough to crack my Top 10. Was damn close though.

Looking at the Twittersphere, I noticed that 10x and 100x wins were kinda 50/50 between the two teams. Team Kid definitely had the popularity, and Twitch videos showed Team Grown-Up doing ok in Normal mode, but getting killed in Pro mode. Again, a small sample overall, but it was enough for me to call the Splatfest for Team Kid...

...and once again I was dead wrong. I went 0-3 on Splatfest predicting this month. My mental algorithms really failed me. *heh* Turns out in Pro mode, Team Grown-Up won by a HUGE margin....well, huge for a clout category, anyway. When it comes to the battle categories, I haven't seen a drubbing like that since Gherk-OUT vs. Gherk-IN!

So as adults, we have the experience, we have the reflexes steeled from decades of gaming, we have the mental acuity for strategy. But the good thing about the other team is that...even when you're a kid, you'll be an adult soon enough. *heh*

Now get off our lawn! ...and prepare for the SPLATOCALYPSE!!

Chaos vs. Order
The Splatocalypse is upon us!

We knew this was coming for some time. In fact, we knew as soon as the game was released that there would only be two years' worth of Splatfests. However, this did not make the inevitability any easier to take.

Splatfest is my favorite part of Splatoon in general. I almost cancelled a vacation to splat in Callie vs. Marie (though saner heads prevailed and I took that vacation anyway). I purchased all three regions of just so I could have more Splatfest. I love the atmosphere, I love the music, I love the camaraderie. On my Twitch channel, I turned it into an event where most of my community can get together and just have a grand old time!

So I went into this "Final Fest" with a bit of melancholy. This was the last time (at least for a few years) where I'd be picking a team. The last time I'd be grinding for "Queen". The last time I see Off The Hook singing and dancing on that stage. The last time I see billboards with everyone's art on them.

...the last time.

At E3, Mr. Nogami asked us what sort of world we want for the inklings and their friends? Chaos or Order? Now, I took this to mean that the result would have some huge effect on the lore for the next game. I was ready to assume the worst, thinking that if Chaos won, we'd get a "Mad Max" style anarchy, and if Order won, we'd get a "1984" style dystopia.

So I chose based on which would be easier to recover from if toppled. That would be the dystopian Order, as those sort of dystopias tend to at least keep the infrastructure running.

Despite the announcement banter suggesting nothing along the lines of wholesale world change, I threw myself into the role on my stream, praising "Dear Leader Marina" and saluting "The Order". My partner wanted to choose Chaos, but (a) she wanted to play with me and (b) she couldn't argue with the logic of "you can't 'chaos' a pizza!"

Also as predicted, they gave us about 3 weeks to level the Splatfest Tees (one week for each day of the Splatfest, as had been established earlier...with Squid vs. Octopus being the only anomaly (2 weeks for a 1-day Splatfest).

They were really hyping this up even in-game, as stickers with people's art were showing up more and more in the Square, stuck on buildings, on the ground, on windows, even on the Splatfest podium itself! And when Off The Hook's stage was set the day before, they appeared there, too!

So with my Eye of Justice gear all set where I wanted it, I dug into this Splatfest with all my gusto, and... noticed that even with some of the best players from my community, we more often than not got our butts kicked! Elsewhere on Twitch, I saw Team Chaos players having a tougher time in mirror matches than against Team Order.

...we were doomed. Inkopolis was doomed.

My first Queenout run got us my first ever 100x win....but then we dropped FOUR 10x battles. The dropping continued on my second run, but we did get at least one 10x win out of it. We ended up getting another 100x victory in the third run, which was the only one to appear on my Top 10 Queenouts list, being the only one that was sub-2-hours. It was nice to play on the older Shifty Stations again, and we even got another run at "THUNDERDOME"! Though during one match at the dome, we took both sides and mid and STILL lost. Still wondering how that happened!

As for the final Shifty, "Dear Senpai" (since it was lovingly crafted by Marina as a dedication to her "Senpai" :) ), we actually won more than we lost there, as the mechanics weren't too hard to figure out, and we even got a couple victories despite our opponents getting the Princess Cannon. It definitely was one of the most open of the Shiftys, with a lot of space to move around, and not many places to get caught unaware. Once of my fave Shiftys.

Just after that third Queenout, I decided to get Amiibo pics on stage with Pearl and Marina, as it would be my last chance to do so. Looking back, I now wish I didn't have the Eye of Justice on while I did it. *lol*

I woke up in time for the final rotation and actually did ok with it, but we got a 10x for our final match. Now, as you know, I like to get snaps of my 10x/100x wins, but this one was coming down to the wire! I was almost hoping we'd lose it so I wouldn't have to worry about missing the photo! But we won the match!

30 SECONDS! Judd was giving us the results! 15 SECONDS! I backed out of the lobby as fast as I could. 5 SECONDS to run from the Inkopolis Square spawn point to the Splatfest podium!!!

I got the picture...with less than a second to spare!

I continued streaming afterward, deciding to kill the two-hour results wait by taking my viewers on a tour of my screenshots (most of them Splatfest-related) over the last two years. There were a lot of feels had, but it turns out that was only the start of the feels.

As I predicted, Chaos swept the Splatfest. It wasn't hard to figure out who had the edge in this. I trust a lot of the memelords, hardcores, and edgelords chose Chaos, and by and large, they tend to be the better players. Just as I was reeling from the loss, the feels train was just pulling into the station...

"It's time for Off The Hook to break... into new genres of music! Flip-hop!  Cuddlecore!..."

Turns out that's the change Pearl wanted after all...for Off The Hook to diversify its sound. Cue shock from Marina. Cue Pearl saying "you know I love you!" Cue the waterworks of feels from Marina. Cue the waterworks of feels from ME! It was just so touching, I couldn't help but react that way.

I hadn't fully cried yet though, and I was wondering when it would hit me. It wouldn't be until Nintendo released the Splatfest tribute video, set to Into the Light...

...at the end of the video, was one of the cutest pictures I've ever seen of Off The Hook: Pearl and Marina having a cute moment, with Pearl wearing Marina's "Order" headphones, while placing her "Chaos" crown on Marina's head, and Marina just looked like the happiest girl in the whole world...

...and I just lost it, right then and there. It finally hit me that this was the end of one of the best gaming event experiences of my life...at least for now. Splatoon 3, and therefore the next Splatfest, is still years away, and I already couldn't wait.

I know we're getting a "Splatfest Mode" coming in v5.0, I know the Shifty Stations will be playable, I know we're getting all the Splatfest ink color combinations, I know we're getting Splatfest Tee Replica, and it's all the trappings of Splatfest but...

...it's not the same, and it won't be the same. There's just something about the event as a whole that hits my happy place. Maybe it's just the party atmosphere. Maybe it's having shared it with people all around the world both on Twitter and on Reddit. Maybe because it was so central to my streaming that I know I'm going to really miss it.

It's just that whole feeling of "what do I do now?" Chaos not only won, but it slammed me right in the face, as pretty soon (after my Prestige Push), I need to really think of what I want to do with my Twitch channel until Splatoon 3 comes out. It's really uncharted territory for me as a streamer, and as a gamer, and I admit I'm a bit apprehensive. I don't want to lose interest in the franchise, and part of me is afraid that without a real goal, I'll drift from it.

I don't want that to happen. I want to stay in the loop. I want to keep having fun with this. I want to stay connected with the competitive scene too (even if I'm only in the scene for funsies). I have some ideas to keep things interesting but even those will only take me just so far.

These last two years have been such a thrill-filled fun ride, and despite knowing from the start that it would eventually end, and exactly when it would end, I'm still not ready for it to end.

Right now I'm just glad that all of you have been here with me on this wild ride, and whether Splatoon 3 ends up being another Switch title, or they wait for the next console, I expect to be right back here with you, anxiously awaiting the next Splatfest!

Until then, it's been fun, it's been real fun! Thanks for playing!

Mayo vs. Ketchup
Well, well, well...what have we here?

We thought Splatfests were behind us after the Chaos vs. Order Final Fest. Turns out it wasn't so final after all.

I can't begin to think of what went through Nintendo's minds about this. Yeah, Covid-19 has us all cooped up in our homes, but it was revealed by OatmealDome that for some time earlier, a supposed "testing" Splatfest with the code "SEL" had been added to the game in the version before the current. This was found out just after Nintendo announced this rematch...and that the rematch was *not* "SEL".

Curiouser and Curiouser...

So it was surmised that with "SEL" being coded "4060" and Final Fest being coded "4058", that this rematch would be "4059", and therefore planned out for quite some time.

The new update of the game went live, and it turned out this rematch was "4061".

I don't think this will be the last one, folks. I really don't.

Back to the matter at hand, Nintendo chose to rematch the two iconic condiments because of the contentiousness surrounding the original version of this fest in 2017. It was the only global fest scored separately by region, and Mayo took the victory in all 3 regions, albeit a different way in the East (taking Votes and Solo) than in the West (taking both battle categories), but after we fans found the raw numbers, and added them up, it turned out that globally, Ketchup took Votes and Team Play.

Start the online flame war that would almost dominate Splatfest off-season talk for the next 2.5 years!

So the opportunity for us on Team Ketchup to finally prove that we earned that global victory presented itself. Though I was surprised that they actually gave us 3 weeks to grind tees for a 2-day Splatfest. I used those 3 weeks well, and got a lot of grinding done both on and off stream.

When the day of the Splatfest finally came around, I started splatting for tomatoey goodness right away with some of the best the Ketchup end of my community had to offer. Since Final Fest, my community gained who is probably the best Hydra Splatling player I have ever seen, and she continued to prove that during the fest, in all 3 Queenouts!

But competition was fierce, and my NA and JP Queenouts timed outside of the bounds of my Top 10 list. Probably because all the top players tend to play fest right away, and a lot of them came back for the Splatfest in the first place. The EU Queenout resulted in my new #3. This was also my first Splatfest with my new gaming/streaming laptop, so for the first time, I was able to put a REAL Queenout clock on the screen!

I had also canceled the Minifest I was planning for May in favor of the official Splatfest. It was nice to not worry about that for a change. As much as I love running Minifest, it can be stressful at times.

But as I watched other streamers, Mayo seemed to have the advantage. One last splat with another streamer friend resulted in many losses and only 2 wins. I was in despair, said "That's it, I'm calling it for Mayo!", and left to scrub tees before time ran out. After the end of Splatfest, I indeed called it...barely...for Mayo.

In the intervening two hours, a lot of those I follow on Twitter were posting their multiplier match win pix. I ended up winning 6 of 8 that I got, myself. I started to notice a LOT of 100x Ketchup wins. Was I wrong?

When the results finally came out, I first noticed Ketchup took popularity the same way it did globally in 2017, more or less. When the Clout tally came out, I was gobsmacked.

We did it!

Not only that, we did it, again, the same way we did it in 2017. We took Popularity and the second battle category (Pro), while Mayo took Normal!

We have been redeemed! It was NOT a fluke! Ketchup is now recognized as the true global winner, without the damn asterisk! *heh*

But this leaves us with some questions. I cried again at the end of this Splatfest, because not only was this possibly the final Splatfest, but there's now that uncertainty. Is this the last Splatfest? Was it just a one-off, as Nintendo said? After all, they've lied to us before! What is the fate of "SEL" and whatever fest is #4059?

After this fest was announced, and after the version of the game updated, we saw that the settings for special Splatfests had been changed for the first time since Final Fest. The rotations for Shifty Stations were changed, the special Order vs. Chaos decorations were removed.

I don't think it's over yet, folks. And I think we may yet have another Splatfest before 2020 is done with.

Only time will tell, and only the devs know for sure.

Chicken vs. Egg
So much for the "one-off Splatfest" *heh*

In July 2020, around the time of 's 3rd Aniversary, Nintendo announced ANOTHER rerun Splatfest!

Not only that, they also announced that there would still be two MORE Splatfests taking place before March 2021! Now, some took this as "proof" that there would be a Splatoon 3 announced in March, but to be frank, it's only because March is the end of Nintendo's fiscal year, and they likely hadn't made any new plans beyond that at this time. As for me, I'm just hoping they continue these quarterly Splatfests. It's a good way to keep the game relevant!

However, unlike the last Chicken vs. Egg Splatfest, which was only played in the West, this time, Japan is joining us in the fight over evolutionary theory! Perhaps this time, via our neighbors in the East, we on Team Egg can finally get our deserved scientifically-accurate victory!

The Splatfest began, and we dug right in! Unfortunately, it did not go over very well for the first Queenout, racking up a 2:46. At this point, my partner Dana blamed herself for it, being someone who doesn't play nearly as often as she used to. I basically told her that was not the case. She insisted.

Turned out I was right. She was replaced in the second run with one of my community's heavy hitters, and we still only managed a 2:41. Not your fault, hon. Team Chicken is just...far too good. I did finally get my sub-2-hour run for the third, racking up a 1:59, but the third run is usually the easiest anyway, as most of the hardcores are off by that point.

Just like the Mayo vs. Ketchup redux, the results were similar to the results of the Splatfest's original incarnation. Science loses again.

"White ink...hur hur" 😔

Trick vs. Treat
Back in 2018, after Splatoween, I wrote the following in my musing:

Could we be splatting out Trick vs. Treat AGAIN next year at this time?

Well, October 2019 came and went without any new announcement, so there went my theory of "The special fests will repeat every year."

However, we knew, thanks to the announcement about the previous Splatfest, that we had two more Splatfests coming, but no one expected that Splatoween would be one of them! We knew what the next one would be, due to the Super Mario Direct in early September, but it wasn't until early October that Nintendo hit us with this.

Also, unlike the 2018 version, THIS Splatoween would actually be held over Halloween weekend! Given that we're all still quarantining for Covid-19, it's not like we had any other plans anyway.

As the Splatfest started, we noticed another thing was missing: The scary game start noise after you boot up the game. It was gone. Even the normal start noise wasn't there. It was an odd bug. All the other special things about Splatoween were there though, including the Square decorations, Off The Hook's outfits, the Railway Chillin' Shifty Station, and the video effects at the start of each match.

Queenouts were rather respectable: 1:57, 1:55, and 2:11. We also won a 100x match, which I was NOT expecting!

And yet again, the results were similar to what they were in the original version, which leads me to believe the law of averages when it comes to Splatfests are consistent, and rerun Splatfests will likely keep following suit for some time to come, provided Nintendo keeps on doing them.

Onward to January!

Super Mushroom vs. Super Star
This Splatfest we had the luxury of knowing the theme for it 4 months in advance during the Super Mario 35th Anniversary Direct in September 2020. Due to the pandemic, I trust this was originally planned to run sometimes in early to mid 2020. Perhaps that's why we got the rerun fests in 2020.

But seriously? Not a rerun? An all-new Splatfest in January 2021? Hell yeah!

Also, one particular mystery was finally solved. THIS Splatfest was the "SEL" fest we had been trying to decode ever since the Mayo vs. Ketchup Redux was announced. Looks like this would be the final one, and quite a run it's been.

After originally being teased (via OatmealDome) with bright ink colors, Nintendo decided in another patch to dull the colors a bit to make it easier on the eyes and...whereas the initial images of the dulled colors weren't that good, I have to say that, actually splatting in the fest, it ended up working after all, ending up just bright enough. I guess the hair shading deceptively threw me on the initial image leaked with Off The Hook *heh*.

As for my performance in this fest...it was about average. No "Top 10" queenouts from this (by this point, even #10 is only 1:58), but I *did* get a 2:11 on the JP Queenout, which isn't too bad, and a total of 5 10x wins. Sadly, we lost, and it wasn't even really close, with some of the most decisive battle percentage wins in Splatoon 2 Splatfest history.

I was hoping afterward that Nintendo would keep the quarterly fests going, and well...Spring 2021 came and went without a Splatfest.

But...by that point, none of us cared much about the end of Splatfests in.

We had something to get FAR more excited about by then! 🤣

See you on the splatterfield!

  SPLATOON 3   

Rock vs. Paper vs. Scissors
The time has finally come, folks! It's been over a year and a half since the last official Splatfest, and to say I was anxiously waiting for this... is an understatement. We can choose our region? Nice! THREE teams? Wow! Tricolor Turf War? Holy crap! This looked like it was going to be hype as heck!

However, my hype was later tempered a bit, as when the Splatfest was first announced at the end of the Nintendo Direct, it was scheduled for a weekend where I had a convention. Specifically, 2D Con in Minneapolis. Initially, I was afraid I wasn't going to be able to stream it, but I instead decided to go halfway: head home for one day to stream one Queenout, then head back to the con. My partner put the fear of no parking space in me though, but I did it anyway.

I decided to do it as early as possible, but with maximum variety, so I chose to start at 10am EDT on the 27th, the beginning of the second half of EU's time period, so I could also stream Tricolor Turf Wars. I chose Team Scissors earlier (for reasons), and they led at the half, but when my stream started, I realized something...

Teams Rock and Paper had a choice of whether or not to participate in Tricolor...

...I did not, and the game threw me right into a Tricolor for my first match! To say I was a bit lost... yeah. I decided to do some base raiding and noticed that, well, they took out the ramp from the pit to the spawn in Sturgeon Shipyard! Well, that plan went down the tubes! (I'd later find out that there WAS still a way to base raid, but not until after the fest).

I was assuming I'd spend 2, maybe 2.5 hours on the fest, then head back to the con. But Scissors, despite leading at halftime, got slammed in Tricolor. My Queenout would take OVER THREE HOURS! The longest Queenout I've had in a while, despite the losing team getting more rank points per match than in (30-40 instead of 20, depending on circumstances). I went back to the con a bit crushed.

While at the con, I played in the other 3 regions, I just didn't stream them, and I got better Queenout times (My NA one was over an hour quicker than my EU one, but I also had some help from someone in my Twitch community).

Other funny things I noticed. After my first 10x win, I assumed that you'd be able to snap the picture at the Splatfest podium like in Splatoon 2. Nope. No photos on the board. So as you may be notice below, I had to screenshot it from my stream afterward *heh*.

Also, for the first time in 5 years, they segregated the results between NA was its own, EU was its own, and JP & HK were combined. But there was really no question, as Rock won the same categories in all regions. The only difference is that Paper was runner up in the Western regions, and Scissors was runner-up in the East. Given that the player base in the East greatly outnumbers the West, and the second-place wins were by about the same percentages, it's likely Scissors got runner-up in the all-region results. But Splatfest history being what it is, only the first place win will get the W.

All in all though, it was nice to be back in Splatfest, and I had a lot of fun. The new interface is really nice in that it actually gives you something to do between matches, whether it be sharpening your skills in the Test Range, or squid partying with your Ghost-rendered team. It gave Splatfest even more of a party atmosphere than it already had, and the test fest was a good taste of what's to come.

I am more hyped than ever for the Splatoon 3 release, and especially for the next Splatfest. I hope they're still monthly. 😊

Gear vs. Grub vs. Fun
One thing I had forgotten to mention in my previous musing was that the day before the test Splatfest, I actually left 2D Con and camped outside the Mall of America GameStop to grab the Special Edition OLED Switch! Sadly I didn't get a chance to transfer my saves over before I played in that fest, but I had it.

Well, fast-forward 2 weeks, and I was back at that same GameStop not only to pick up my copy of, but to get the special Pro Controller too! So, game in hand, ProCon acquired, I went back home to start what would be one of my longest streams ever, a "Splat-Til-I-Drop" stream that ran almost 12 hours!

The next week was a Nintendo Direct, and frankly I wasn't expecting anything splat-related.

Except there was!

They actually announced the first proper Splatfest in the Direct! Granted, I had been expecting a fest announcement that Friday since, you know, 1 month since the test fest, but it still was unexpected in the Direct!

Now the question was... "What would you bring to a deserted island?" The answer was clear to me: Grub! After all, if you know you're going to a desert isle, it stands to reason you know when you will return. Bring enough food for the trip, and you're golden! I guess not everyone saw it that way though, as over half the votes were for Gear!!

They also figured that Tricolor Turf War was broken, so they made it rare for this fest. 2 Queenouts for the second half, and I only ran into the mode 3 times! Too bad too. I love TCTW! I and my team did win 2 of the 3 though as an attacker, so there's that.

At least this time, they decided to go back to combining results for global Splatfests. Too bad we got a big fat goose egg of points. I had a feeling though, since I had a really hard time with my Queenouts this fest. Shiver won again, likely earning the playful ire of her bandmates.

Oh well. I wonder what idea they'll have for spooky season the next month? Except-- 😶

Grass vs. Fire vs. Water
First, you may notice that this Splatfest was in November 2022, and the previous one was in September 2022, 6 weeks prior. Yeah. We were hoping for a big Splatoween celebration like we had in 2018 and 2020, but nope. Some were theorizing that we could have our first Big Run in October instead of a Splafest but... yeah, that wasn't ready in the code yet. October was a big month of waiting for nothing, however, that month did bring about Nintendos Twitter accounts announcing THIS fest.

Regarding it though, I have never played a Pokémon game, save for Pokémon Go, and even that I haven't touched in years. Also, I own Pokken Tournament for the Switch but still have yet to play that either.

Basically, the reason why I never got into it in the first place is because I'm on the older side of Generation X. I turned 50 this year. I was already 25 when Pokémon first became popular in the USA, and 24 when I first heard about it via the epilepsy incident from the anime's Season 1. Basically, I was already an adult, and back in the late 1990s, Pokémon was very strongly a game played by kids. I also was on a lull regarding video game fandom at the time, having been thoroughly hooked to even what the internet had to offer back then... I mostly hung out on IRC or text-based MMORPGs.

So to summarize... I know next to nothing about the strategies involved with choosing a starter Pokémon. I didn't even have any idea which team I was going to pick until the day voting opened and for some reason, the Mystery Science Theater 3000 fan in me dug into my brain and said, "Water! Source of all life!"

My choice was made.

Unlike the last fest though, this time I decided to spend my conch shells as I got them. Also, through power-leveling my Splatfest Tees, I finally got what I wanted most from the Drizzle Season 2022 Catalog: The DAB!

Also, I made a pledge for my stream this fest: NO SALT! No matter what happens, no matter the losing streak... I will not rage or lash out.

Spoiler alert: I succeeded! Once I let go of a primary "win" drive, Splatfest was a lot more fun! Hell, even Dana joined me in this for the first time in years! I even made my first Splatfest Art in years! I think also part of it was that it was just days after the USA midterm elections, and I made so many "Blue Wave" references (since our team was blue) that, to be frank, it started to annoy some people. But Big Man led at the half, so you know what that means!

The Tricolor map was Sturgeon Shipyard, and remember when I said that I found out too late for August that there was a way to base raid that?? Well, I tried it. The result was a 15-2 Tricolor defender record for the fest, including some rather lopsided wins like a win with 63% (we had it up to 70% until I was finally splatted and Grass got an Ultra Signal with 15 seconds left to go). It was insane! When I later posted a thread of my Tricolor wins, many just stared at some of those wins mouth agape!

And also, in this fest, I had one Queenout that was fast enough to be the first Queenout to land in my top 10! And on top of that...

BIG MAN SWEEP!!! 45 points! Yeah, that was becoming a meme on Twitter ever since the test fest, and this fest, it finally came true.

I feel bad for Frye, though...

Spicy vs. Sweet vs. Sour
After 2 months, we finally get another Splatfest.

I have to admit, I was underwhelmed by Big Run. It was basically regular Salmon Run on different maps, with double bonus rewards (2400p of rewards instead of 1200p) and a slightly better chance at scales. The big rewards are only cosmetic with no real use except bragging rights. Basically, IMHO this was not worth losing a Splatfest over.

However, the next month, we got yet another global Splatfest. Seriously, I'm a bit puzzled about the lack of regional Splatfests when the game told me that JP-only fests may not have English-language support. Between August and January, we've had 4 Splatfests, compare to that had 13 Splatfests in the same time period.

This was also the first Splatfest using the revamped Tricolor Turf War rules, to allow more people to experience it and anyone can be defender or attacker. Unfortunately, while I loved to be able to do full Queen runs using only Tricolor, it did pose some problems. First, 4-player lobbies are now completely locked out of Tricolor, which is a BIG social nerf, especially for streamers who love playing with viewers...

Second, and the larger problem I see with with these rules, is that it negates the entire purpose of the second half of the fest. If Tricolor is simply another mode you can play now and not its original intent, does it matter who's up at the half? Ergo, do we even need the halftime report anymore? Should we have to wait for the second half to play Tricolor anymore?

So yeah, Tricolor may not be frequency broken anymore, but now it's socially broken.

As for the theme, I had to choose Team Sweet, because I love my chewy fruit plastic way too much! I ended up doing 2 regular runs, and 2 Tricolor runs, though the Tricolor runs were far harder than the regular runs overall. I couldn't explain it, and it was driving me nuts.

My answer for that came in the form of the results. Sweet took the casual mode, while the other two teams took Pro and Tricolor, and it dawned on me... the more serious players were on the other 2 teams! However, Sweet taking every other category softened that blow, and Frye got her first win!

Now I have a theory about Splatfest frequency: My theory is that each Season will have 2 Splatfests and one Big Run, mainly because the Nintendo Direct for  stated that Big Runs would happen "every few months", not every other month. That and the fact that the 2.1 patch (yes, I'm typing this up hella late) had no sign of a new Big Run stage, and we have in the code a Mincemeat Metalworks Tricolor stage, lends more credence to my theory.

See you in February... I hope...