Splatoon 3 arrived on the Nintendo Switch on September 9th of 2022, and every year since it has been my most played game on the Nintendo Switch. For the past two years, the many hours of Splatoon 3 have come straight from Splatfest weekends.

Splatfests are weekend-long, themed battle festivals in Splatoon where players choose a side and stick to it. The first two Splatoon games had two teams per battle (This vs That). It wasn’t until Splatoon 3 where a third choice was introduced (This vs That vs The Other Thing).

After so many hours spreading paint (250+ hours*), I have rarely posted about Splatoon 3. I probably put about the same amount of time into Splatoon 2 — before gifting it to my nephew.

*I should be saying “WE” instead of “I” or “ME” because when we play Splatoon (2 or 3) in this house, my partner and I pass the controller between rounds — we only have the one Nintendo Switch. Those 250+ hours were a team effort.

Before we get into my “GREATEST SPLATFEST PLAY OF ALL TIME,” let’s first go over my/our brief history with the entire Splatoon series.

A (not so) Brief History of Splatoon & the Splatfest

There have been three Splatoon games thus far, two on the Nintendo Switch and one on the Wii U — I have owned all three games.

I will say that I didn’t put many hours into the first Splatoon, I loved the idea of Splatoon from the onset — a less violent shooter featuring matches where it’s more important to spread paint all over the map rather than take out your opponents. A family-friendly Call of Duty, and not in a corny way.

The main obstacle I had with Splatoon on Wii U was that giant gamepad. It was great to see the map on your gamepad screen, but also a bit distracting. The motion controls with the huge gamepad tablet were also offputting. I was terrible at the first Splatoon.

I had to do some investigative journalism here, but it turns out that Splatfests have been around since the Wii U Splatoon days. I have zero recollection of ever participating in any of them. I played a bit of the original Splatoon, but mostly stuck to playing games on my PlayStation 4 at the time. I owned a Wii U to have games to play with my nephew — also, I got it for free (due to an Amazon error), but that’s a different story.

When Splatoon 2 was announced, I was totally ready for it. While I only had a couple of friends who owned a Wii U (maybe two or three), many more friends adopted the Nintendo Switch. For Splatoon 2 I recruited way more Inklings to join the cause. In the early days we’d spend weeknights doing Salmon Runs for Grizzco (a sort of horde mode). We had a group chat to pick our Splatfest teams.

It wasn’t until the pandemic when I introduced my girlfriend (now fiancé) to Splatoon 2. We played through every pandemic Splatfest battle, which prepared us for the release of Splatoon 3 in 2022.

Splatoon 3 shook things up in a few different ways. Mostly in the way Splatfests were handled. You could now choose between three different teams, and midway through the weekend a new type of battle would show up — the Tricolor Turf War.

Now, all three teams could battle it out in one match. Four defenders from one team vs four attackers, two from each of the other teams, competing to grab the ultra signal. Splatfests had become a bigger deal because there was now this special type of match that only came around for a limited time during these weekends.

The Greatest Tricolor Turf War Play of All Time

Now, the reason I wanted to write about Splatoon 3 — finally, after so many years (and hours played). This past Splatfest weekend (Milk Chocolate vs Dark Chocolate vs White Chocolate: Round 2), I happened to pull off the biggest Tricolor play of my lifetime and I needed to share it with the world.

This time we chose Dark Chocolate — a losing team. We select a losing team every Splatfest weekend and I can usually blame it on my friend, Nero. Prior to each Splatfest I text him, “Which team are we choosing?” This time we went rogue and picked Dark Chocolate, so it’s our fault.

As I mentioned before, the two attacking teams of two players each are fighting for the Ultra Signal. The Ultra Signal will endlessly splat paint nearby until the end of the match. It’s usually tough to grab one Ultra Signal in a match, but I somehow grabbed double Ultra Signals, back-to-back to start the match off.

Let’s review the tape:

I also scored over 1500 points on this particular run. I’m not sure if the other players were a bunch of first-timers, or if I just brought along my A-game.

I hope we get some more Splatfests, and I cannot wait for the announcement of Splatoon 4 for the Nintendo Switch 2. What will they do to change up the game? We’ll find out soon… I hope.

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*Other than the gameplay video, the images above were supplied by Nintendo.