When the Splatoon franchise was first unveiled at an E3 event, many gamers weren’t sure what to make of the game. They certainly didn’t think that it would be one of the biggest things Nintendo had done in recent generations, nor that it would be something that they’d be playing basically every month, thanks to what the games offered. Three titles later, many would consider this series one of Nintendo’s best titles, and in Japan especially, it’s a series that gets many of their purchases and attention. But the thing that most lovers of this franchise adore is the Splatfest events.
These events bring the community together to fight over a certain topic. The first two games had two topics to choose from and battle it out over. Then, in the most recent game, it was expanded to a triple-threat style. Either way, the community has loved it and anticipates every single Splatfest that comes down the pipeline, no matter the topic.
Over in Japan, and sometimes in other regions, special artwork would get dropped highlighting the topic along with the singing group attached to the game. Given that we’re three games deep, with dozens of these events now in the bank, that’s a ton of artwork to have made.
So, to celebrate that, Nintendo of Japan created a website to show off each piece of artwork made for the games Splatfest events.
One note. You might notice that some of these events/artwork pieces don’t trigger any memories for you. That’s because each main region, meaning the US, UK, and Japan, sometimes had different topics to debate based on the culture that they were in. Such as if they had a food topic that wouldn’t apply to some regions due to it not being served there or not being as popular.
Even with that, however, the artwork is still beautiful to look at, and it’s wonderful to see how this tradition has evolved over the course of three games. Plus, as noted on the site, the third title is still ongoing and thus “to be continued.”
The latest event was a collaboration with The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom and saw a big win for Ganondorf and the members of “Team Power.” The artwork for that collaboration was very striking too.
As for what the next topic will be, no one knows. No one but Nintendo, that is. But no matter its theme, you can bet that fans will be ready to settle it in splat when the time comes.
