Wii U

So the response to the amiibo¹⁸ seems to be very good. 18. amiibo: NFC compatible figures that come with a chip that uses the NFC function of the Wii U GamePad controller or New Nintendo 3DS XL to store readable game data.Three types of Splatoon amiibo (Inkling Girl, Inkling Boy, and Inkling Squid) are planned for sale on the same day as the game release.

Inoue-san was the general supervisor for amiibo.

The designer that we asked to model the form to make these amiibo did such a great job. The poses look good from no matter what angle you look at them. Only it was hard to get the ink right with the squid figure, so I did the modeling myself.

All of the employees who have seen the amiibo have said they look very good.

I love plastic models and figurines, and even I thought they were really well made.

I think it also has to do with the fact that the characters from Splatoon were designed to look good in 3D.

Good thing you gave up on the tofu. (laughs)

Yes. (laughs)

Now for my last question. I’d like for each of you to tell us why you recommend Splatoon.

The gameplay is very simple – it’s just inking colors – but it offers limitless ways to fight and there are all kinds of play styles to enjoy, so you can keep playing for a long time. That’s my biggest reason to recommend it.

One turn doesn’t last very long, so it’s a game you’ll want to keep playing again and again.

Right. So let’s play together online. (laughs)

Alright. (laughs) How about you, Inoue-san?

In terms of the design, we really put in everything that the team liked without trying to force any of it too much.

Even the decoration of the stages reflects the staff’s taste.

Right. For example, if there are stickers on the wall, the stickers are put on in a way that you can tell that someone put them there because they wanted to. We’ve really filled the game world with "things that someone loves," so I hope people will pay attention to all the little details.

I hope that they don’t get too caught up in just inking things, and are able to enjoy the little things.

Right.

I would recommend it for the controls. We really polished them to a point that I feel really confident about them, so I would like people to try them out and see for themselves.

You really made detailed adjustments to the gameplay mechanics.

Right. We also put a lot of care into making the single-player Octo Valley mode. The controls are the same, but it has a different feel than the online competition. It makes me think of the b-sides¹⁹ that the old records had. It won’t let you down, so I hope you’ll play it, too. 19. B-side: Analog records were able to have music recorded on both sides. The top side was the a-side, and the underside was the b-side.

Shouldn’t you say that they are both a-sides?

Well, I can’t say too much because I’d like to keep most of it a secret, but I guess in terms of the content, they would both be a-sides. (laughs)

And the ending to the single-player mode is really great.

Right! (laughs)

The contents are a secret, but...I really want people to finish single-player mode and check it out. I think that when we got carried away, like Nogami-san talked about earlier, we put most of it in that ending. The other thing I’d really like to recommend is that people try out all kinds of weapons. If they keep using the same weapon, they’ll never understand the unique features of their enemy’s weapon.

As they say, knowing your enemy is a shortcut to victory.

That’s right. We made the game so the gameplay experience multiplies when you cross weapon and weapon, and weapon and stage to get the widest range of game play possible. We want you to try out all the weapons as much as possible. Then I think you’ll really get an idea of the breadth and volume of gameplay.

And finally, Nogami-san.

This isn’t really a recommendation…it’s more like something that I’m secretly hoping will happen with this game. I do want young folks, like middle school and the upper grades of elementary school students to play it too, but I’m hoping that their mothers will see them playing the game at home, and that it will make them want to play, too. I’m really hoping that will happen.

If you watch someone play this game, it really does make you want to play it.

So I think it would be fun to see the moms secretly playing the game while their kids are out, and getting really good at it. I really think this game has something to appeal to people of all ages.

So you think wives of the researchers from the Squid Research Lab²⁰ will play too? 20. The Squid Research Lab: On the official Splatoon Tumblr account, the Squid Research Lab reports its findings and exclusive information from their studies of the strange squid who can take human form.

Oh, yes. (laughs) Actually, my – I mean the researcher’s – wife is really good at games.

Better than someone who plays games every day?

Yep. I always lose when we’re playing Mario Kart 8²¹. (laughs) 21. Mario Kart 8: An action racing game released for Wii U in May of 2014.

(laughs)

We would hope that all kinds of people will have various opinions on it. Not only people like the researcher’s wife, who is good at games, but also people who just think "Splattering ink looks fun!" or who think the game looks fun even though they don’t have much experience with shooter games.

That’s true.

By the way, there was a global testfire event²² held the other day. How was the response? 22. Splatoon Global Testfire Event: This was held from Saturday, May 9th to Sunday, May 10th, 2014, to celebrate the release of Splatoon. Players were able to try out a four vs four internet battle. The researchers from the Squid Research Lab also participated, and the event was livestreamed on NicoNico, a Japanese video sharing website.

We got a really huge response. It was really fresh to be able to say "Let’s all start playing now!" It felt like a festival.

From the great response to the NicoNico livestream, it wasn’t just your regular demo event.

That’s right. For those who haven’t had a chance to play yet, you get one more chance to try it out during another Global Testfire event²³ coming up.

And even in the actual game, we have something constructed like a festival where everyone plays together at the same time. We call it a "Splatfest" . For example, we’ll ask a question like "For breakfast do you prefer rice or bread?" And then we’ll split the players into the Rice Team and the Bread Team and give them turf to battle for. A battle is four against four, and we take the average score over 24 hours of play to decide the winning and losing team. (Editor’s note: Check out the official US Splatoon website for info on the Splatfest festival stateside.) 23. You have one more chance to test out 4-on-4 Turf War battles before the game releases. Download the Splatoon Testfire demo from Nintendo eShop for Wii U before the event to play. The Global Testfire will take place for one hour on 5/23 (Sat.) 3:00 p.m.-4:00 p.m. PT. For more information, access the official site.

So then it’s like, "We’ll be having rice for breakfast!"

That’s right.

The idea for these fests came from Amano-san, who said, "I want to have a function that would create some kind of festival in-game" during production. And we thought that if we posted announcements like "We’ll be having rice for breakfast!" on social media, it would be something else to get people interested.

We wanted to make a system where we could use keywords that people who didn’t know about the game would be interested in, so that when we released the results, it would give them an opportunity to hear about Splatoon.

So we just decided to put that together with our system of team battles.

After all, this game did start out by spelling things out using black and white tofu! (laughs)

(laughs)

I just wanted to say one last thing…

Yes?

We’ve been using the word squid a lot today, but they are actually called Inklings.

It hasn’t really caught on. (laughs)

No one was calling them anything but "squid." And we’re never calling them anything but "squid," either.

Well, I guess ink-an’t be helped. (laughs)

Ooh, I should have thought of that, I guess ink-an’t be helped. (laughs)

(laughs)