Is there anyone else who envisions Splatoon as a game to play during the summer time?
I mean, in the end, this is a videogame, you have the free will to use it whenever you want to and at any time of the year, but still; doesn't it feel like the vibe changes when the estival season comes?
Every summer, I give myself the privilege of paying a one or three month subscription to Nintendo Switch Online, since having access to the Internet became not enough for playing online, but let's not get lost on tangent...
When I look over to this game, and if they asked me to describe it with one single word, that would definetely be 'summer'. Specially with the third game. Splatoon is a piece that gathers a load of synesthesic elements which mostly evokes the sensations of freshness and the morning sunshine -infinite on every battle stage- drying your skin after a hangout to the pool. This, from the perspective of a human, since every player of the franchise knows about the 'intolerance' towards water of both inklings and octolings.
Since it's rather obvious that this game is protagonized by the marine biodiversity -just have a look to the official soundtrack-, what better way to talk about this picturesque shooter and it's polichromatic sorroundings than the beauty of the sea and oceanography.
Let's set the magic over an image:
A small group of sea creatures appear portraited on a picture frame, a great family photo for an aquarium memorandum. Among all the imperative and recognisible citizens of the ocean, such as an octopus, jellyfishes, a penguin, different species of fishes swimming in a shoal-like form, alongside the natural ripples of the calmest tide and a quiet and oblivious stingray joining the flow, the main character hovers.
She is a girl, but not an average girl; she belongs to the future, a kind blessed with the remains of humanity blended with the physical traits of her new family and neighbours. Her pristine nature was besiege underwater, but she managed to survive, thanks to an unconcious becoming called 'adaptation' and the mimicry of her nautical friends's kineticism.
She looks upwards, a glance with a shimmer beaming across her eyes; perhaps because of the well-known sun rays that filter through the surface of the sea, nourishing the wildlife with a luminous fountain bestowed by the sun in the middle of the day. She might not be the Little Mermaid -doesn't have the chance to be so, either- but she can also prove to have fun under the sea.
These are the type pf things Splatoon can evoke; the feeling of pretending to have sights to a nearby beach, to an esplanade populated by golden sand dunes and it's soft-colour seashells, scattered all along the shore in such a way they resemble petals of the fairest and marble flower that had been crystallized by salt and sun, or the polymorphous teeth of vanished inhabitants of the sea whose bodies, now drowned underwater, were reduced to these smoothen and precisely designed rocks of the ocean, often used by whimsical crustaceans.
Even when keeping your feet out of the sand, this game reverberates a sort of images, feelings and illusions filled with a longed for anemoia, a circumstance that never took place but you can treasure it as if you did. And this can't be better relatable with a summer vacation, a proper summer vacation.
For instance, let's picture what would be ideal for certain people, if it doesn't hit the majority:
A cruise trip; just as we were longing out aboard the Manta Maria stage, but without any turf wars in between.
You step out of your cabin and the weather fully awakes you with the shiniest gleam, almost like a sparkle, as heated as if it was spitted out from a vulcanoe's mouth. Soon, the warmth melds with a delicate blow of wind; the typical tropical environment charged with a tempered breeze and saltpeter, and a sensation of calmness invites you to stay outside of your chamber's solace.
Later on, the sun starts to set down, the twilight sky shimmers with a diffused mixture of the exprimed colours of a wide diversity of blooming furrows beneath the whispering tremble of the foliage. As we are gazing upon a sunset, logic speaks of growing down in tones until the sky reaches the realm of total darkness, property of a summer night.
The degraded goes from the warmest tint to the coolest; starting with some citrine and sunbathed crysanthemum and descending to blushes of peony, lavender and wisteria. At it's deepest point, the sun disguises itself as a burning ball, with raging flames that makes the garnet of it's surface vibrate in a hell of it's own.
The gray that filled the morning clouds dissipated under a gentle swell that rolled under the anchored hull, almost like a storm of skies persistent in obscuring the sun. And from the union of a summery panoramic and the apodictic pass of time, this crimson egg yolk was born. It feels like a wave, but not as the one that ride through tides, but one a bit more intricate.
You stare upwards, in a state of reverie, with elbows supported on the railing of your apartment's terrace, and as an evanescent breeze starts to came in and gives you a tiny blow of chills, this lantern settled beyond the pelago hides in the other side of the earth. It all happened in a slow-mo blink of an eye; how the sky, made up with it's photogenic warm colours, wishes sweet dreams until the day of tomorrow.
That would probably be the first time you have the feeling of being aboard a promontory, specialized on sailing across iridiscent crops of precious stones, floating in an alluring way overseas.
That is Splatoon for me... for now.
(I used these two images as references).
Who wants part 2??