Ooooo, I gotta go try the new level as soon as I can!

Have you guys seen this new commercial?

Rainmaker, some vaudeville looking hat and a friggin' gatling gun amongst other things seem to be in store for us!

EDIT: Camp Triggerfish is a complex level! I know I say this every time, but man these level designs are awesome and varied and awesome!

@VofEscaflowne My screen name is John. Yeah, not very original. It was late last night. There may have been alcohol involved.

@cooliocuneo

Ah, I do remember seeing a John. I really hope the August update adds a way to differentiate friends from the list. Add a friend icon next to people's names or something.

Fun facts about Splatoon from JPN players!

Some odd choices for favorite maps and sub-weapons, IMO. Splat Bombs are the most popular...?

It warmed my heart to see 72% of players rating the game a 90 or above, and 93% rating it an 80 or above.

@TriforceBun
Very happy to see that the Japanese players are as happy with the game as I am. But yeah, some weird maps and weapon choices. I love all maps, but it surprises me that Walleye Warehouse came out on top.

Walleye Warehouse is pretty easily my least fave.

Splatoon's big update is coming on August 5th (originally wrote 6th but that was a PR for other regions and this is a worldwide update) Private lobbies, tag match (not sure that that is), new weapons and items being added though I imagine some will be rolled out as usual. Urchin Underpass is also being taken down from August 3rd to the 5th for maintenance. I guess a slight redesign is coming? Interesting to do it that way. Anyway, very excited for this!

EDIT: Oh crap, level cap increase from 20 to 50! More details

@VofEscaflowne
Urchin Underpass taken down? Wonder what that's all about. Anyone notice any issues with that map?

@r_hjort



That's from the Japan Splatoon Twitter. Seems the tree is being removed. The circled area in the middle... maybe bridges that connects? The outer middle areas I'm not sure what that's about. Redesigned in some way I suppose.

@VofEscaflowne
Not my trees!

Tag match must be the option to team up with friends and head online together. Should be great for some Negative World battles.

Looking forward to the bucket weapons.

@anon_mastermind

Yup, that's it, but it's called Squad Battle in English. Here are a bunch of pictures for the update. You can team up in groups of 2, 3 or 4.

Level increase up to 50! I wonder if it will be retroactive? I just this weekend got to level 20, so it won't affect me, but what about all the people that have been level 20 for weeks? Will they have to grind through the levels, or just suddenly jump to a higher level based on their experience points?

@cooliocuneo
I imagine they want to use the higher cap to make us play more, so I don't think it will be retroactive, but that's just me speculating.

@cooliocuneo

I don't really mind either way. I would imagine the new gear will support the higher levels too. Getting to level 50 will sure take a long time assuming the levels take more and more to level up.

@VofEscaflowne

Those were some good games we had earlier! Lots of crazy stuff and messy finishes where the winning team wasn't clear until Judd revealed it.

Also, the Octobrush is so much fun to use. I love jumping and flailing the thing around like a mad man.

@Octorockin

I was on such a bad losing streak. I don't know if it was because of bad teammates though it seems like no matter what I did, someone was waiting there to take me out At least the ranked battles after on Tower Control were better though I still had a few matches with people not knowing what they were doing. I mean why the hell would you go ink at random places when the tower is advancing!?

Music sample from the august update.



First truly weak track in the game, it seems to me. Way too much musical tomfoolery going on in there for me to like it. I like the quirky single player stuff since it seems to work so well with the Octolings and the haphazardly spliced together environments, but this is just silly.

Part of the reason why I think Splatoon's music is so great is that it has all these sweet contrasts between kawaii characters, colourful visuals and music like this:


The new stuff screws that over pretty well.

@r_hjort

This is pretty funny--I think my opinion is almost the complete opposite of yours on this. The death metal Vs Mode track you linked to is actually my LEAST-favorite song on the Splatoon soundtrack, while the new one sounds good to me. It's certainly no more crazy than that whistley, sound-effect-filled single-player song.

@TriforceBun
The metal song isn't my favourite at all (not that you implied that or anything, just clarifying. As a side note, my favourite song is probably the idol type tune The Squid Sisters sing during Splatfest matches), I mainly posted it to illustrate my point a bit. I don't mind crazy at all, like I said, I think the single player stuff works very well, 'cause the quirkiness and the samples fit in with the more mechanical and random nature of the Octolings, but this silly tune feels out of place to me. The metal/ska/skate stuff we've had in the multiplayer so far has both accentuated the urban environments and provided a bit of contrast to the silly characters. Having goofy tunes like the new one is too much, IMO. Had it been in another game I might not have had a problem with it, but I don't like it now.

Then again, I'm the guy who hates Hiroyuki Sawano's battle music from Xenoblade Chronicles X that everyone else seems to love, so I know I might be the only one feeling this way.

EDIT: I will admit I like the solo and change in rhythm at the end of the sample, though. That's nifty.