While speaking with Nintendo Dream magazine this month, the Splatoon developers Yusuke Amano,Tsubasa Sakaguchi and Hisashi Nogami, had a few extra thoughts to share on level caps and inkling customization.
In one part of the interview, Nintendo Dream comments on how many players are already at the max level of 20, and asks if this limit will be raised in the future. Sakaguchi and Nogami seem rather surprised that so many people have already reached the maximum level:
Sakaguchi: Er… That is also under investigation currently… We originally expected level 20 to require a nice amount of time to play.
Nogami: [The leveling up has been] so fast that it makes me worry about players’ daily life…
Another topic that Nintendo Dream brought up is why it’s only possible to customize the eye and skin color of your Inkling, to which they answered:
ND: “The more character customization, the better” is the usual rule in online games. But you can only customize the eye and skin color of your Inkling.
Sakaguchi: Perhaps everyone has forgotten that Inklings are still unknown characters for people. Inklings are newcomers that just came out.
ND: Ah, that’s right (laughs).
Sakaguchi: I think it’s better to tightly narrow down “it’s this” when presenting a new character to everyone.
Nogami: If we suddenly had variation like three hairstyles with braid or bun, people wouldn’t consider them as the same thing [character]. Therefore we limited the customization to the minimum with skin and eye color.
Nogami also closed the interview with a small message for the fans:
Talking about future events, first there’s Splatfest. Please look forward to those.
Nintendo Dream followed that up by asking if Splatfests will be held periodically from now on, to which Nogami replied that “they are unscheduled currently”, although he’d “like to have one Splatfest in every three weeks or so in the beginning”. He also added, “Also things like new weapons and maps are under investigation”.
We also have this week’s Splatfest results from all regions:
Europe – Rock vs. Pop
– Votes – 68% / 36%
– Wins – 53% / 47%
– Final Results – 170 / 130 – Rock Wins
North America – Cats vs. Dogs
– Votes – 38% / 62%
– Wins – 51% / 49%
– Final Results – 140 / 160 – Dogs Wins
Japan (2nd Splatfest) – Red Kitsune vs. Green Tanuki (instant noodles)
– Votes – 67% / 33%
– Wins – 47% / 53%
– Final Results – 161 / 139 – Dogs Wins
On a final note, Splatoon has now become the top-selling game in the Japanese eShop, beating Dragon Quest X in sales numbers!