Splatoon - TV Tropes

Multiple games

• Blackbelly Skatepark in Splat Zones mode. There are two zones, both of which are difficult to defend due to being so open. While there are other maps that also use two splat zones, it's not nearly as bad there as it is here due to the amount of slopes that you're required to cross to actually reach the zones. A poorly coordinated team is going to have a lot of trouble winning here.
• Blackbelly Skatepark in Rainmaker, for similar reason. Due to the openness of the map, it's fairly easy to get very quick wins since the goal is very close to the Rainmaker's starting point. If most of the members on a team get splatted at the beginning, it's very easy for the other team to get to the goal in seconds, even in Splatoon 2 before an update expanded this map-mode's size.
• Port Mackerel. Most of the level is designed around going through a maze-like structure of shipping crates filled with choke points, all of which are covered with ink-proof tarp, making it the map with the least amount of ink-able turf in Turf War. Because of this, extremely good teams can trap the other team in their base for a good portion of the match. If somebody pulls out an Inkzooka, you are screwed, as these narrow passageways almost guarantee you'll be hit by its blasts. The Ranked Battle versions of this map remove the forklifts that provide ways to get on top of the boxes, forcing players into the choke points.
• Moray Towers. The map's vertical nature means that a lot of time will be spent falling down to reach the areas instead of accomplishing tasks, and getting back up is even more of a hassle. It has also earned the derisive nickname "E-Liter Towers" for a good reason: The map's wide-open nature gives a massive advantage to Chargers, and a skilled one can completely shut down the central area.
• Kelp Dome, particularly in Turf War. All of the routes to the stage center are long and the shorter routes involve bridges made of grates, which are inkproof thus giving a great advantage to Inkbrushes, who can use their continuous stroke to speed over them, while everyone else has to run comparatively slowly over them. The grates also spell doom for players at ground level, who will likely get splatted by enemies that they can barely see and, depending on the weapon, can't even hit, leaving them to be defenselessly splatted. It's less of a hassle in Ranked Battles, which add inkable walls to get over the glass walls in front of the spawn points.
• Walleye Warehouse is a narrow and very cramped map, and both endzones only one alternate path each. If your team gets splatted early on and you can't return the favor in due time, it's possible to be cornered for the majority of the match and end up staring at a turf percentage of <15% when the match ends. This map was made even worse in Splatoon 2 with the Tenta Missiles special; a player can Super Jump to spawn and easily get all four enemies in their targeting reticule, crushing their plans at the least and potentially getting an easy Total Party Splat.
• Arowana Mall. Do two or more of the opposing team have Tenta Missiles? Prepare to endure three or five minutes of constant Macross Missile Massacre. The map is basically a narrow corridor with few branching paths, effectively making it Walleye Warehouse albeit with somewhat less clutter on the field, and as a result it heavily biases in favor of the Tenta Missiles' targeting reticule, which will almost always target 3 or 4 opponents if used from the spawn point.
• Camp Triggerfish in Splat Zones is another two-zone map, and both Splat Zones are separated by a gap too wide to cross with a jump, making it much harder to maintain control of both zones since it's a fair bit of distance to get from one Zone to the other.
• There is little love for Wahoo World — if you want to move through its overly-cramped middle area, you either take the lower area (which is a hallway bordered by uninkable walls, so if an enemy catches you, your escape options are very limited), take the right route (an uninkable floor that's slow and can get you killed quite easily), or the left route (an extending bridge that only allows passage half of the time). The stage on the whole is so awkward to navigate and fight on that it's one of the least liked stages in the entire series.

• Port Mackerel on Splat Zones, both of the zones are close to the spawn points but separated by long stretches of crates, allowing freshly-respawned defenders to zoom over there with incredible pace and retake a stolen zone, and the lack of alternate paths to reach the zones means that it's impossible to sneak behind the zone defenders without going dangerously deep into enemy territory.
• Saltspray Rig in Splat Zones. It only has one zone, but said zone is utterly massive and broken up by several barriers. Because of this, it is difficult to see where enemies are, and it takes a lot of effort to claim the zone. There are also several areas where players can climb up high and snipe or throw bombs at enemies while being hard to reach and/or separated by water. Because of there being only one Splat Zone, the fighting is concentrated to just one little place, leaving half the map unoccupied and the rest a chaotic mess.
• Saltspray Rig in Rainmaker. Most of the path to the enemy bases are on small walkways with poor visibility and accessibility, making it hard to see what's going on and easy to get knocked off the edge into the water. It's also very easy for whatever team is winning to cheese their way to an easy overtime victory by grabbing the Rainmaker to the top area of the level to stall until time runs out. Not only that, due to the fact that all Inklings are right-handed and how the map is set up, the map gives the team that spawns on the left side a small but significant advantage. The starting place of the Rainmaker and the changes to the map not only make it very easy for a skilled team to get the Rainmaker to the other team's base if they can splat most of the other team early, but also make it hard for the losing team to make a comeback since you're required to swim up a wall which leaves you very open. In addition to this, it's also very easy to stall after gaining the lead by heading towards the top area of the map and getting the Rainmaker onto the crane that moves above that area.

Splatoon 2

• Snapper Canal. The rather cluttered layout of this stage manages to make it feel both empty and too closed-in at the same time. Also, as the name entails, a canal of water runs through the middle of the stage. Combined with areas where it is easy to get surrounded, this makes Tower Control in particular a nightmare on this level due to having very little room to dodge enemy attacks (see the Rad Ride Station entry above).
• Starfish Mainstage's midfights can get absolutely brutal due to having very little cover and flank routes positioned directly above it. This makes specials that grant invincibility, like Ink Armor and the Baller, an absolute must for maintaining control in this stage.
• Goby Arena, especially in Turf War. Since every route from spawn leads directly to the central area of the map, a team that's competent enough can completely shut down any pushes from the opposition if they take the center quickly enough.
• The Splat in our Zones, the Shifty Station layout for the Pancakes vs. Waffles Splatfest, was infamous for incorporating Splat Zones into a Turf War map. In particular, there are six zones on the map (three for each side) and they are all very big compared to their appearance in the actual Splat Zones mode, meaning that if an enemy sneaks onto a zone you're on and they overtake it (thus turning the entire zone to their color), you can suddenly find yourself surrounded by a sea of enemy ink, and from there your opponents can easily splat you back to the spawn point.

Splatoon 3

Several of the game's new maps continue to have few flanking options, forcing all players into mid. Some have very good sniping positions that can easily shut a team down. While multiple maps were given updates in March 2023 to try to reduce the effectiveness of longer-ranged weapons, these amount to a handful of out-of-place obstacles that just barely hinder visibility, which are considered a band-aid solution at best; the "hallway" stage design that facilitates ranged dominance is otherwise untouched.

• Mincemeat Metalworks barely has any cover, and the only way directly to the sniper is through a grate floor that you can't swim in while always remaining at their sight lines if a weapon tries to attack them, making sneak attacks impossible and severely favoring the ranged weapons camping there.
• Undertow Spillway has a raised "bunker" that slices the map into two lanes; just one Charger or Splatling standing on it can completely lock down the map. Unlike Mincemeat, there is no way around a sniper's sight lines, since everyone is funneled under the two glass lookout platforms.
• The new Mahi-Mahi Resort has several different layouts depending on the game mode, but all are extremely small and open with little to no cover, making it a ranged weapon's paradise — its Turf War layout in particular has three raised platforms that make for ludicrously good camping spots. Provided they can fight off incoming attacks, a skilled enough Charger, Splatling, or Stringer user can win a match all by themself.
• The original version of Barnacle & Dime, released in Sizzle Season 2023. It looks nice, absolutely, but it has serious design issues emblematic of the problems players have with "Tetromino" maps. There are no flanking routes, at all, meaning that it's a straight shot from spawn to center and a well-coordinated team can run roughshod over the map. Once a team starts pushing past mid and into the enemy spawn, it can become nearly impossible to fight back against them since their opponents' options are so limited, especially if one of them happens to be running Zipcaster. The problems continue into the Tricolor map too, giving defenders a massive advantage and leaving attackers with nowhere to go. The Ultra Signal is on the blocks, requiring you to go on the blocks to get it, leaving you vulnerable to longer range weapons from all sides.
• Tricolor Bluefin Depot, while its standard version remains liked for its unorthodox layout, immediately went down as all the more divisive. Unlike most Tricolor maps, the spawn areas are divided into quarters, with the defenders coming from two opposing quarters and the attackers coming from the other two. Oh, and it's one of the smallest Tricolor maps in the game. Not only does this make it nearly impossible to avoid confrontation, there are only two ways out of each quarter and they both funnel into the same area, so a coordinated defense can lock the offense down completely. The first Sprinkler of Doom is also placed in an area where most of the ink it produces will land in the water, meaning the offensive teams need both Ultra Signals to stand a fighting chance.

Octo Expansion

Most of Splatoon 2's difficulty (outside the aforementioned Salmon Run mode, which gets its own page) comes in the single-player Octo Expansion DLC. Nintendo was more than aware of this, as the campaign has a Mercy Mode skip function if you die enough times and doesn't even require you to play most of the levels to beat it.

• The 8-Ball tests, where the goal is to guide a giant 8-Ball to the goal. The problem is, if it falls off the stage, an Ink Sac on the back of Agent 8 detonates, causing an instant Splat. Add in platforms that are often narrow or lack guard rails, the fact that enemy fire can also affect the ball, and the fact that you have to pay to attempt each level (including continues), and you have a recipe for frustration. Nintendo was well aware, with Octo Expansion having a Mercy Mode in the form of letting you skip levels after enough deaths^note . These are infamous enough that in the third game's Side Order DLC, Pearl expresses utter dread when she sees an Infinity-Ball for the first time - expecting them to work just like the 8-Ball tests - only for Acht to reveal that these new balls cannot fly out of the stage.
• The balloon-popping levels tend to be on a time limit, on rails, or have the balloons fly away very quickly, and you usually only get a single life per try. They're even worse if you wish to beat them with a charger-type weapon, moreso if you're forced to.
• D08/J03: Girl Power Station. Your mission? Protect an orb in the center of the stage from waves of Octolings for 90 seconds. You get to chose between one of three bomb types chosen when selecting the mission, and any weapon you think you'll do the best with before Octo-jumping down to the field. This apparent advantage disappears once you realize that these Octolings have some of the most challenging AI in the game next to Inner Agent 3 and are capable of charging their own specials (you're forced to run around the stage for canned ones, if you're willing to risk the time). Expect to see yourself and/or the orb explode over and over again by way of Inkjet, Sting Ray, Ink Storm, Splashdown, or just a plain old Blaster shot.
• C04: Move It Move It Station. The test requires you to dodge enemy attacks perfectly for 30 seconds, is aggravating for several reasons. The platform you're stuck on is small, you can't use your Octo form to move faster, it's hard to judge the distance of enemy shots due to lack of reference points, you don't get a weapon (another No-Damage Run gives you an Inkjet to make it more manageable), and (possibly most annoyingly) you only get a single life, meaning you have to pay the fee every single time you die, which will probably be pretty often. The only saving grace is that the testing fee is a low 200 CQ points.
• I07/C07: Ride with Me Station. A Frogger-type level where you have to ride on cars has a very frustrating end segment where you have to dodge ink sticks and splat enemies at the same time while shooting a propeller enough to fly over a huge stack of sticks to the goal, all while not running out of ink.
• Another nasty contender for brutal Octoling levels is Rad Ride Station. You have to win a game of Tower Control against a team of Octolings equipped with range blasters, brellas, ink storms, and ink jets, four very dangerous weapons that will likely force you off the tower, wasting precious time. However, time isn't the only reason why getting off the tower is bad; you are playing on Snapper Canal, in which the tower travels over long stretches of water that you can't jump across. The multiplied amount of checkpoints and Octolings are positioned right by the water, which is even more insurmountable, given your weapon options. (The Hydra Splatling needs to be charged up before encounters, the Aerospray will put you at point blank range of the enemies, and the Range Blaster's recoil can potentially knock you off the tower.) The final nail in the coffin is that an Octoling with splash walls will super jump on the tower when it is a few feet away from the goal...
• Phase 6 of the escape sequence is a massive pain in the neck, as you will need to guide an energy core through a room filled with all sorts of enemies, meaning that it's near impossible to prevent it from being damaged. And the energy core has a shockingly small health bar, to boot. While a few checkpoints do help, it doesn't do much to make the irritating enemy placement of this Escort Mission any more tolerable.

Other

• Octo Canyon Level 19: The Experimentorium. Shielded Octotroopers are placed in absolutely hideous locations, platforms no larger than themselves. Plus, these octotroopers are the variant that fires the high-power ink balls that can 3-shot the player while firing in 2 shot bursts, so no Ramboing through the shields. What earns this level this section is the grapplinks. Oh, those freaking grapplinks! You have to hit multiple grapplinks back to back to get over an bottomless pit. While pretty easy if equipped with a rapid fire weapon, you need 'perfect' timing if you are using a slowly firing weapon like the charger or blaster. And since this is the stage that introduces you to the Blaster...
• Some of Squid Beatz 2's Hard Mode charts look like they jumped straight out of Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA and Taiko no Tatsujin:
  • "Spicy Calamari Inkantation" has a ridiculously high note density here and abuses L/R to face button jumps and drumming, and splices combo notes into seemingly random segments.
  • "Splattack (Octo)". It's blazing fast, you need to have fast fingers, fast reaction time and hours of practice. Oh, it also has the highest note count. How many notes, you ask? 666. Intentional or not, it should give you an idea of what kind of hell you’ll put your digits through.

Return of the Mammalians

• "One-Way Ride Through Target Town". It's one of several "hit the targets while on a Ride Rail" levels scattered throughout the game, but the weapon choices are half of what sell it: they either deal blast damage but have a poor fire rate (Rapid Blaster), require time to charge (Heavy Splatling), or both (Tri-Stringer). This is because the point of the level is to test your precision aiming skills while in motion, as if you miss once, you probably won't get a second chance. This is especially the case with the final set of targets, which forces you into a blind jump while shooting at two groups of targets and hoping you can destroy them in time to spawn the Ride Rail below you before you fall in the water and die. Note we said "half" though. What's the other half of the equation that makes this stage infuriating, you ask? As the name of the level implies, unlike other levels of this type, there are no checkpoints except at the very start. A single mistake means you're doing it all over again.
• "The Enemy's Ink is Lava" has you use Curling Bombs to make a path through enemy ink; which if you touch, you die. However you aren't able to refill ink, barring picking up an ink refill, meaning you have one shot to make it to the end. Several shots are very easy to mess up, and you can't even stop to aim your curling bombs as holding them out decreases the distance they will go. And to add one final insult to injury, even so much as tapping enemy ink is an instant fail and the checkpoints are very far apart.

Side Order

• A couple of Splat Zones levels make it extremely irksome to defend the objective:
  • Coverage(Between-Crosshairs).Floor comes with just two enemies and appears in the first region of the Spire of Order. Sounds deceptively easy? Those two are Drizzling Capriccioso and Towering Nobilmente, which means you can very easily lose the zone and you're getting targeted at a distance. Not helping matters is that there are two zones, each one located on either side, and the only way to get to them is by inkrails which have to be activated and eventually expire; the farther zone additionally requires getting on the floating platform in the middle and gliding from the grate to it. And though the lethal shot of the Nobilementes can be dodged, the level can and will spawn multiple amounts of them which will lead to them covering a lot of ground with their own ink, making them an exceptional challenge to contend with.
  • Eternally-Vigilant_Soaker-Blockade.Floor. The two gushers utterly spam Jelletons at you, most notably starting with two Spawning Accordos, and they're located on higher ground that cannot be inked which makes it risky to get up close. The four soaker blocks don't completely block off the enemies, as they leave a hole for mobile Jelletons to crawl through even when fully inked. This is also a Zones floor, meaning you're also going to get Drizzling Capricciosos in your face while the other Jelletons swarm you, which will likely set you back at best and end your run at worst.
  • Cruel_Sisyphean_Eight-Shaped.Floor. If the name wasn't bad enough, the two zones are on a figure-eight-shaped narrow pathway, with trios of Drizzling Capricciosos constantly spawning in to paint them with impunity. The zones are far apart so you'll constantly be running back and forth to splat the Capricciosos and retake each zone, only to leave the other one wide open to be captured again. Enemies spawn en masse from gushers at the bottom (where Mook Makers are hard to reach) and at the top (right in your way on the best path between the zones).
• Many of the Danger! modifiers are extremely situational or ineffectual, but a couple of them stick out, able to turn many stages rough and make an already-rough stage virtually impossible:
  • Stronger Jelletons causes makes all the namesake enemies spawn with their Increasingly Lethal Enemy effect active. This makes the fight against the hordes a struggle to survive as they constantly bum-rush you; this applies doubly so if you're on Splat Zones, meaning you're a sitting duck as you're waiting for the unmoving objective to slowly tick up. Oh, and it's often paired with the "Arpeggio Barrage" modifier — so not only are you bombarded non-stop throughout, one hit will probably break your armor. Good luck.
  • "Lights Out" turns out the lights so you can barely see the ground around you, let alone the enemies outside the glow of their eyes. Hope you've got plenty of lives and Membux! There's also a variant that adds "Ink Coating" too, more effectively keeping you from moving without inking, but it's the "Lights Out" effect that's the main source of trouble.