I like Splatoon 2. I think it's a fun concept and something no other game on the market is doing (well, aside from Splatoon 1). I mostly play ranked mode because I find those objectives more interesting than Turf Wars, but the main mode is pretty decent as well and the new Salmon Run mode is a lot of fun. Unfortunately every other aspect of this game drives me up the wall.

People have already talked plenty about the myriad of issues this game has. You arbitrarily can't change loadouts between matches without backing out of matchmaking entirely. Voice chat is tied to an awful phone app and can only be used with people on your friend list. Salmon Run is only available at specific arbitrary times Nintendo creates each week. All real issues, and all things I don't like. The thing I hate the most about Splatoon 2 though, and the thing I haven't seen many people talk about, is the way abilities work. Like the first game you can dress up your squid kid in a variety of outfits, decking them out to look as fresh as possible. Fashion is a huge part of this game's identity, and almost everyone who plays it enjoys playing dress up with their squid kid to give them a unique look that reflects their own tastes. Entirely counter to this though the game ties abilities to clothing, making some pieces of clothing objectively worse than other. Though any clothing can have three sub-abilities that can eventually be changed, the primary ability for each piece of clothing is pre-set and cannot be changed. What's more, certain abilities can only show up as primary abilities on specific equipment, meaning you're forced into wearing certain clothes if you want specific abilities. Fancy the Ninja Squid ability that lets you swim through ink without making splashes the enemy can see? Better buy one of the few specific tops that have it, and good luck finding headgear and shoes that match and also have good primaries. I really like the shirt my squid is rocking right now, but the primary ability is something I could have as a secondary too, so I'm better off ditching it for something I like the look of less but has a unique ability that can't pop up as a secondary. What fun.

Unlike primary abilities, secondary abilities are not tied to equipment and instead will randomly be rolled for your equipment as it levels up. Given that this is random, it's unlikely that you'll get all of the abilities you want on the first try. This is where things turn into a nightmare.

Splatoon 2 offers three methods of changing your abilities. You can spend a shell, which is only obtainable during splatfests, to reroll your slots and immediately replace them with new abilities. You can scrub the abilities from an item for 20,000 coins, which gives you ability shards but forces you to re-level your gear to gain new abilities. And finally you can use ability shards, which allow you to add specific abilities to specific secondary slots.

Well that doesn't sound too bad right? Just scrub or reroll the ones you don't want and with a bit of time you can eventually have all of the abilities you want. Except you have to reroll or scrub all three abilities. Got two abilities you want but one you don't? Too bad, gotta start all over again. Well what about those ability chunk things? Those must make things easier, right?

It takes ten ability chunks to add a single ability. What's more, ability chunks aren't a generic currency that can be used for any ability. Each ability you scrub creates an ability chunk specific to that ability. Also certain gear will arbitrarily require twenty ability chunks instead of ten to add specific abilities, so looking fresh might even cost you extra. Oh yeah, also the abilities your gear can learn is actually determined by the brand of clothing, so you'll most likely have to buy different clothing just to grind out ability chunks for the stuff you actually want to wear. Wish I'd known this before I wasted four shells rerolling the same gear over and over again. So go find headgear, a shirt and shoes that drop the abilities you want, and then go grind to level them up like thirty times. And keep in mind that the number of stars your clothing has determines how much XP it takes for each ability to unlock. Isn't this game theoretically aimed at children?

I cannot fathom why this system is in the game. There aren't micro-transactions in the game to make this grind any faster, so it's not like Nintendo put time sinks in the game to try and generate extra revenue. There are drinks you can get that temporarily increase xp gain as well as making specific abilities more likely on level up, but the tickets from them can only be obtained through the salmon run hoard mode that's only available at certain scheduled times, and the description for them says they only "slightly" increase the chance to receive that ability anyway. It is the most asinine leveling scheme I've ever seen in a multiplayer game, even loot boxes that drop ability shards would be preferable to this convoluted mess. Part of me wants to fall for whatever trick Nintendo is trying to pull on me and grind out the abilities I want, but the more likely outcome is I stop playing Splatoon 2, and that's a damn shame.

It's this way (at least in part) to discourage min-maxing. They don't want you to be able to easily select everything a-la-cart, put together the loadout you want and just stick with it. They want you to experiment, try the different abilities, pick between aesthetics and function, and have a "messier" more varied experience because the system isn't set up to let you have things just the way you want them. It IS designed for children, not in that it expects them to grind a ton but in that it doesn't expect them to approach the game with an efficiency mindset, but instead to use an exploratory mindset.

"This shirt is cool, what does it do?"

"Oh check out this ability!"

"This ability sucks, but the glasses are so neat.."

This is sort of consistent in Nintendo design philosophy. Arms also doesn't let you just pick the arms you unlock for each fighter, you go through this weird thing where you earn currency and then play a minigame...it's supposed to be exploratory. You get a new thing and you check it out and you move on to the next new thing, and check that out.

You might not like that, but it's a valid design decision. It's meant to prevent people from just settling on a few optimal load-outs and sticking with those, while a bunch of other stuff becomes unviable. Splatoon doesn't seem exquisitely well balanced, so this is part of the solution for that.

Nice post. I actually read it to get a better idea of how the abilities system works, so that should say something. I like Splatoon 2 quite a bit, but yeah, it's convoluted as all get out.