Legal and About To Make It Everyone's Problem

This is an “in real ink” blog, which means I’m pretending to be my splatsona, Scrub, living in Splatsville Greater Metropolitan Area.

 I’m run by @theonlycampix​, and the idea’s made by @iri-dess​ and I was encouraged to make this blog by @eevyerndracaneon​/ @iri-astral​!

If you’re wondering what the hell any of this is, click here.

On one hand, it was really cool getting to see the venue early. And we got 1.5 Billion eggs. Y'know. That's cool. That's really fuckin' cool. Plus, I think most people have chosen a side on the Grizzco Weapons of either 'I'm going to learn how to use this without self-amputation' or 'I've decided self-amputation is not worth the risk'. So despite the amount of work going into all this, there were somehow fewer on-site injuries. Which astounds me.

But hey! Good on us for not getting killed!

...

......

Speaking of which. Uh.

Is anyone going to talk about the frankly disturbing similarities between what's been happening and the Madaian apocalypse??

Like-

"When smoke rises from the seven rings, The pinkfish will emerge from the sea, devouring all the creatures of the land." - Book of Madai 10:10

Like

I don't know if y'all have been counting

but there have been seven locations affected by Big Run. Wahoo World, Inkblot, Undertow, Um'ami, Barnacle & Dime, Eeltail, and now the Bowl.

And I'm SURE y'all noticed the weird red sky the air turns and the dip in (already bad) air quality this entire damn continent feels every time one of these things pops up.

The one before this one, all six of the previous places were raided at once. We were spread fucking THIN, okay? I think that this quota effort was Grizz trying to drive these things extinct to stave off the coddamned salmonid apocalypse.

Am I crazy? Am I being fucking crazy???

I dunno man I'm kinda panicking a little.

Once again, I'm putting my faith in the automatic cut. If it doesn't show up for you guys, god help you. Or press the...what is it? J key? K key? One of those skips to the next post.

Below there be thoughts on the weapons that came out.

The Whale In The Room

There're less weapons each time one of these damn seasons comes out. The first season of each era bans a bunch of the old weapons as they figure out the balance with the new stuff. That's fine, there was still a ton of stuff to go through. The second season of the De-Recall era introduced 13 weapons.

The third introduced twelve. The fourth introduced eleven. Ten. Nine. Eleven. And this new one coming up has eight.

Squidforce is losing steam. If I've said it before, I'll say it again. They're a bunch of boomers and need to go. Get some fresh minds in there. Like me. I'll run the damn league I don't give a damn, you think I don't know my way around weapon and stage logistics? Hell, maybe I'll even allow all of the idols I sponsor to, I don't know, participate in the damn sport.

I'm not going to rant again about accessibility, I did that last time. But it's a damn sin that Big Man has to sit there, on a podcast, and wax poetic about turf and ranked - sorry, anarchy - and the only time he gets to hold the fuckin' weapons is when he's working his second job at war because Grizz doesn't give a shit about regulations (Thank Squod).

Anyway. #DownWithSF.

TL;DRs in the tags.

Deco's .52 Gal (w/ Curling Bomb and Splattercolor Screen)

I'm trying a new formatting thing with the titles. It's going to be a little less consistent with what people actually call the weapons, but I want to highlight the developers of the kits a little more. There's a lot of work that goes into making even the worst kits, and it's not fair to the engineers at each company not to shout out who made them.

I've already given my view on the Splattercolor Screen last time, so I'm not going to go on and on about it. They did rework it, but barely. Still gives you damn achromatopsia, but...I dunno, it's not as bad as before. Dialed it back, I guess. Blegh.

The weapon itself...? I mean it's fine? The .52 didn't really need a tool for getting in like the Curling Bomb, it's got healthy ink spread and decent range. Curling Bomb is usually best on weapons that either have trouble inking or short range.

Course, that's me trying to be impartial. If you want to know my bias, I love curling bombs because it's so much fun to splat people with them. It's almost as embarrassing as dying to a Sprinkler.

That's besides the point though. If I'm going to be forced to think about the synergy with...that thing...I guess it provides pretty good area denial. The .52 is a scary enough weapon that it can take out opponents at a safe distance, and anyone heading through the screen is going to be at even more of a disadvantage than they normally would be going into neutral with it. The curling bombs don't add much, though.

Custom's E-Liter 4K and E-Liter 4K Scope (w/ Squid Beakon and Kraken Royale)

So. I've been one to rag on E-Liters in the past. Like literally last season, I ragged on them. And before grading this weapon, I'd like to retract some of my previous statements.

E-Liters are perfectly respectable weapons, capable of being played in skilled and interesting ways.

It's you saltlicks that just sit in the same damn place for five minutes doing sweet FA but looking down your sights that piss me the fuck off. Do you spend your free time watching paint dry? Do you put your meals in the microwave at low power just so you can watch that shit turn for thirty minutes? The hell are you doing playing this sport when you could pick up the well-respected and more-your-speed human game of FUCKING BACKGAMMON

Anyway. The actual weapon. Once again, freaky special, but I did try it. Don't say I never did anything for you guys. And...I like it. E-Liter at its base is a very solid support weapon. Even just seeing one on the other team is psy-ops, and as long as you can convince the enemy that you're a threat, you don't actually have to follow through on too much to keep them on their toes. Squid Beakons are great to mobilize your team, since you won't be on the front lines unless you're a Battle E-Liter (respect). And the Kraken works wonders to get people off of you. Just try and use it smart, don't chase people off into the wild blue and get caught with your pants down when it expires.

Custom's Explosher (w/ Splash Wall and Triple Splashdown)

Ahhh, Triple Splashdown. The noobkiller. Menace to turf, nigh inconsequential to ranked - sorry, anarchy.

I like this kit. Explosher has always had a lot of trouble keeping people off of it, and its base kit of Point Sensor and Ink Storm didn't really do much to help it. But this one's got a Splash Wall to give a bit of buffer (though you're going to need to stack some Ink Savers if you want to do anything after throwing one), and Triple Splashdown as a panic button.

I don't normally like panic buttons at the best of times, but this is a weapon that really needs one. Getting rushed down sucks as this thing, and having some tools to help with being harrassed by Splooshes and the like really helped it out.

Dolphin's Dread Wringer (w/ Squid Beakon and Wave Breaker)

I don't like Squid Beakons quite as much on this guy. The Wave Breaker works nicely with such a slow but terrifying weapon. I love Wave Breakers on any kind of mid-to-long range slosher that can take advantage of tags over walls. So...most of them. But Squid Beakon?

I mean this thing isn't going to be on the front lines all the time, sure, and it never hurts to have beakons on the team, but...I don't know, I feel like if the team tried a little harder, Dolphin could have found something better for it. Hell, Dolphin makes Sprinklers, right? I would have taken a Sprinkler over Beakons to make for even more consistent specials.

Eh, I dunno. The Wave Breaker's nice.

Foil's Flingza Roller (w/ Suction Bomb and Splattercolor Screen)

I love the finish on this thing. The Flingza Roller to begin with is one of my favourite weapons to look at. Weird, rustic, industrial. The folding mechanism needs constant upkeep, sure, with a roller whose entire gimmick revolves around the flick, that's only natural, but it's so simple yet so great. And the navy blue finish is just, chef's kiss, y'know?

And yeah, another Splattercolor Screen, you knew they were coming.

...

Okay, I'm stalling a little. I freaking love this weapon. I loved the original Flingza, and as much as I wanted to hate this thing because of its special, I don't. I really don't. Suction Bombs just feel so good to make people scatter like minnows. And until Dynamo stops sucking major ass, this is the closest we're going to have to a long range roller. With Suction and Screen, this thing excels at flushing people out and following through. And I HATE that I think that because I still fucking hate the Screen.

Deco's Glooga Dualies (w/ Point Sensor and Trizooka)

First off, absolutely love the finish. Striking. They look like power tools.

But other than that? I dunno, they're...good. They're good. Tagging is always nice, though I kind of wish that they had the dart instead. More weapons need that thing, and I think it's neat. I could probably fit a dart onto Gloogas if I really wanted to, though I'm not sure I'd be able to make it league legal (#DownWithSF).

But I'm digressing. Going into a fantasyland where I get to make my own kits for league.

There's just not much exciting or standout about it, y'know? Tag someone, take 'em out. Tag someone, take 'em out. Gloogas are a pretty terrifying weapon as they are, and this is just a way more aggressive kit. But it's not like....burst bomb aggressive.

...Or line marker - sorry, Angle Shooter aggressive. (Nouveau I swear to god please change the name)

Shelly and Donny's Nautilus '79 (w/ Suction Bomb and Triple Splashdown)

What a gorgeous weapon. The gold-rimmed finish? God. Sheldon knows how to make 'em. Or, I should say, not Sheldon. I happen to know that this one was designed and manufactured by Shelly and Donny, the little guys that run the stores in Inkopolis. They look pretty young (I haven't asked ages) but for their first crack at a weapon kit they did a pretty good job. Pick this weapon up if you can. Even if they're in the pocket of Squidforce, it's always good to support up-and-coming designers.

Beyond the looks, this thing is serviceable. (Sorry, guys, but I'm not going to mince words just because you're new. Feedback is feedback, and if you only get gilded phrases you'll never grow!) Suction Bomb and Triple Splashdown is an alright combo, respectable, though I get the inkling that the two of them had Squidforce breathing down their neck trying to make them include one of the new specials in this thing. I haven't gotten a Splashdown dev kit yet, so I don't know how actually hard it is to work with, so I'm gonna give them the benefit of the doubt and say that they did the best they could under the circumstances.

Dolphin's New Squiffer (w/ Autobomb and Zipcaster)

Fuck you guys they put a fun weapon in the game.

I don't care if it fucking sucks or is the best thing on the planet it's fucking fun okay

We can have a fun weapon every so fucking often as a treat

Custom's Douser Dualies FF (w/ Ink Mine and Killer Wail 5.1)

Alright, on to the brand new weapons they introduced. The meat of it.

That is to say the fucking pair of them come the FUCK ON-

These guys are interesting. Love the firehose inspiration, Custom's really been coming out lately. Three new kits (The E-Liter and Scope count as one) and a brand new weapon in a single season? Jeez, guys, slow down!

As for effectiveness, I like the special on them. They're pretty long range as it is, but they've got a damn slow kill time if they don't roll, and if they roll, they don't have the damn long range anymore. So the Wail really helps them out.

I think if I had to use a word t describe the Dousers it'd be 'underestimated'. That's probably going to wear off the more we see them, and understand how they work, but they just don't look like they should have the range that they do. Those hydraulic pumps do wonders man, what I wouldn't give for a three month internship at Custom. Custom's weapon department. I don't want to be stuck making actual fucking power tools.

Sub's a wash.

Sorella's Recycled Brella 24 Mk I (ft. Ammo Knights) (w/ Angle Shooter and Big Bubbler)

So you might be looking at the name and going "oh damn that's familiar"

And you might look at the aesthetic of it and go "Oh damn that's familiar"

And I kind of gave the game away by putting it in the heading but...yeah! This is a collaborative weapon between Sorella and Ammo Knights! Sheldon's never actually had the opportunity to make a brella before this, because Sorella's got a patent down on the damn things. Same reason I haven't been able to make any either. (Same reason they're all kinda dogshit tbh)

But they actually opened up the golden gates for a bit to let someone else in! And it's my man Sheldon! How did he do??

....Bad. Sheldon did bad.

Or, more accurately, I think Sorella did bad. I can see Sheldon's character in here. He always makes weird and interesting weapons with cool catches to them. This one's definitely the power in the shaft, and the fast-launching canopy. The aesthetics are so fucking good, too, I love what he did with it.

But I can feel Sorella's influence creeping over this thing like black fucking sludge. It's slow, the canopy's a joke, and what is that KIT? Big Bubbler??? On this???? Are you fucking joking?????

I'm so sorry they had to do you like this Sheldon I'm so fucking sorry

And that's Fresh Season 2. Done literally what, two hours before Sizzle Season 2 comes out.

I'm going to try and get that review done in time before the last minute, I promise, just...I dunno. Had a weird bit in the middle of the season where I just kinda. Existed, for a bit.

Side note, anybody get that? Like, two weeks in or something, you just got this striking sense of ennui, like your thoughts all just vanished for a couple of days? I talked to a few guys and they felt the same thing around the same time. Promise this isn't a race thing, but octos got hit especially hard. Hope you're all okay.

Alright so I'm going to put my faith in the fact that this god-forsaken site is going to put most of my shit under a cut so your dash isn't inundated with my stuff, so here we go. I'll put my overall thoughts in the tags in case you can't be assed to read what's probably going to be a hell of a post.

I'm going to ramble for a bit about accessibility here so if you don't give a shit about that look for the next big heading.

If you know me at all, you know that I'm a weapons guy. I'm disabled, I've got dwarfism, which means I'm way shorter than the average inkling at 3' even. I've got shorter limbs and (importantly) smaller hands/shorter fingers than the average squid does.

Now anyone who knows Squidforce knows that at the best of times they can be kinda fuckin' ableist. Remember the fiasco with Kraken Poisoning seven years ago? Or, hell, to foreshadow my thoughts on the weapons now, the Splattercolor Screen?

I mod weapons. I do them in my garage, Mr. Grizz is my hero and role model. But unlike him, who just takes the safety off of literally anything he gets his hands on, I mod my weapons to be usable by squids with different body types (sometimes I also take the safety off for fun). And before the De-Recall era, where the pro leagues moved to Splatsville (represent), what I do was considered illegal for tournament rules.

And people are going to tell me that we have the Extra Leagues, and sure. I've participated in those. And honestly they're really cool, especially because all things considered I'm one of the lucky ones who has a splat's chance in hell to participate in Turf and Anarchy. Some squids and octos have ailments that make that literally impossible, but still want to compete. I'm not knocking the Extra Leagues here. Hell I make weapons for the damn things.

What I am saying is that I know modding weapons. I know how it works, I know how much of a pain in the fuckin' ass it is to get synergies to work right, and I lose my fucking MIND every time some drooling idiot goes "This weapon needs a Burst Bomb"

BITCH EVERY WEAPON NEEDS A BURST BOMB, YOU THINK EVERY WEAPON'S GOING TO TAKE ONE? SOME KITS ARE GARBAGE FOR A REASON

Anyway, accessibility and modification possibility are things that I rank pretty highly in weapons, and while SF's been cleaning up their act since the De-Recall FOR THE MOST PART, there's still a few stinkers in here I'm going to be docking points from.

Okay that shit's out of the way here we go.

Foil Squeezer (w/ Autobomb and Splattercolor Screen)

Right out the gate I alluded to something that I'm going to need to talk about right away. The special of this thing terrifies me. The hell was Squidforce thinking?? Sure, the structure of the thing's impressive. Throw a sippy cup and you've suddenly got a huge strangely shaped wall of liquid.

What's that liquid do? It gives you goddamn achromatopsia. Who thought this was okay??? Who the hell looked at something like that and said it was fine?? There's already been several complaints I've heard about it around my circles, and I wouldn't be surprised if this thing got banned or reworked in the coming months.

Anyway this is supposed to be about the Foil Squeezer not the Screen so.

The Squeezer is already a pretty solid weapon, two firing modes, hell of a mechanism in the thing to have two separate compartments for the different pressurization levels of the ink inside. Pain in the ass to mod. As far as kits go, we don't know how much it sucks to get the Splashdown or Screen onto them yet (haven't got my hands on a devkit yet) but autobombs are pretty reliable. In terms of synergy? You can throw the bitches through the screen to put pressure, so that's good. Pretty costly for an already ink-hungry weap, but I'll say it's decent, if with a scary scary scary special.

Nouveau's Snipewriter 5B (w/ Splash Wall and Ink Storm)

Remember when Snipewriter first came out and we thought it sucked

hahahaha

This thing's synergistic as all hell. A wall to protect it. A Storm for chip damage which Snipewriter thrives off of. And to top it off a nice red finish. I think they used a different type of wood for it too, which I can appreciate it. Softer.

Fun fact: the origin of the 5H and 5B for the Snipewriters are from the ancient rating system the humans used to use on pencils way back when. 5B uses a much softer graphite for the pencils than the 5H does - art more than writing. I'm not a huge history buff compared to some of my friends but I thought that was neat.

Anyway this weapon's horrifying but I still respect it more than the E-Liter.

Enperry Splat Dualies (w/ Curling Bomb and Triple Splashdown)

You're as beautiful as the day I left you.

In all seriousness I've got a soft spot for curling bombs. And like, not as a traversal tool which like yes it's very useful in that. I like killing with it it's fun

For Triple Splashdown...it's public knowledge that its daddy sucked. That it's one of the worst specials in history, rivalled only by the Reef Slider. So how is the Triple version? It's...

good I guess. I mean like, it's hard to shoot the guy down and not die yourself. So like that's cool. With the Enperries they've got okay synergy? I mean it's no Inkjet, but it's fun to roll in and then pop the special if you've got someone pinned up against a wall.

So like...passable! Which is good!

Undercover Sorella Brella (w/ Torpedo and Splattercolor Screen)

Alright, I'm going to address the mormyridae in the room and talk about the basic Undercover Brella kit. It's awful. Of course it's awful. But nobody really talks about why because nobody talks about the actual logistics for kits.

I kind of alluded to this earlier but one of my pet peeves is like when someone goes "bluuuh why don't they just give this burst bomb" "weh weh Inkstrike would be way better" "why don't you give this thing a wall why does it have a mineeeee"

Giving a weapon a kit isn't as simple as 'This weapon would be good with this sub and this special'. A weapon's infrastructure has to support the sub and special. Think of them like puzzle pieces - the more you try and shove the Suction Bomb piece into a Bamboozler, the more you're going to have to mod it to make it fit.

And as we've been over, Squidforce fucking hates modding.

Put more seriously, tournament regs say that for a weapon alt to be legal, the base weapon itself's gotta perform exactly like the vanilla variant. No differences in ink efficiency, accuracy, spread, ink calibre, nothing like that. So the more you mod a weapon to fit a heavy sub like a Suction Bomb, the less likely you'll get it to work exactly like the base weapon.

That being said: the reason the vanilla Undercover's kit sucks is because it's literally just an umbrella. It's not even a heavy duty one it's one you can pick up at the dollar store for 500G. Weighs five pounds at most, and they shoved an ink chamber into the shaft. Ink Mine and Reef Slider are light as hell additions, and frankly out of the ones that we've got tournament standard are the only ones I would bet you could actually be fitted onto the weapon to begin with.

Which makes the Undercover Sorella an engineering miracle. A middling, mediocre engineering miracle.

Custom Blaster (w/ Point Sensor and Triple Splashdown)

Keeping it short and simple, don't have a lot to say about this one. The Point Sensor's a good support weapon for a blaster, but makes it lack a good poking tool to make people move once they're marked, meaning you're more reliant on your team to poke for you by basically saying 'over there!' Not necessarily a bad thing, but makes it hurt for inking power.

Triple Splashdown....I dunno. I don't see anything for it? It's alright as a panic button, I guess, but the Blaster doesn't have the tools to corner someone, which is where the Splashdown excels.

Special ain't great for it, but the sub changes the weapon's role in an interesting way.

Nintendo's S-BLAST '91 (w/ Burst Bomb and Booyah Bomb)

I went off on how amazing the base weapon is on this a while ago, before I forgot to review the Dread Wringer and the Heavy Edit. I'm not reviewing those until/unless they get alt kits. Fuck you.

I went off on how tough Burst Bombs are to get onto kits a while ago, which...I mean if you asked me before this season I would have told you you were INSANE for saying that something as complex as the S-Blast would get a Burst. But here we are. Some-fucking-how Nintendo worked a goddamn miracle.

Is it effective?

...kinda? Kinda.

Booyah's Booyah, not much to say about it. It's decent on basically everything that gets it as far as I'm concerned.

Painbrush Nouveau (w/ Point Sensor and Tenta Missiles)

Painbrush is another weapon I never really got around to reviewing the base of. It's a scary thing. The Dynamo of brushes except it's actually pretty effective because it only takes a week to come out swinging instead of seven happy years of marriage. I can't imagine a time you'd actually be skating with the thing unless you're in a bad spot, and if you're in a bad spot you're dead anyway.

Unlike with the Custom Blaster, I really like the Point Sensor on this thing. Brushes are meant to be annoying little bastards, and constantly marking people with a weapon that has three times as much range as you think it does makes you the biggest little bastard on the map at any given time.

And if it wasn't bastard enough, you have Missiles for extra bastard.

Painbrush Nouveau - a weapon for the bastard in you.

REEF-LUX 450 Deco (w/ Splash Wall and Reef Slider)

*fucking chokes and dies*

Nouveau's Neo Splatana Stamper (w/ Toxic Mist and Crab Tank)

Probably one of the more interesting kits we got. The original Stamper's got the Burst Bomb and Zipcaster. And as everyone knows before the Burst got its infamous capacity nerf, this thing is FEARSOME with the damn things. So when we saw the new kit with Toxic Mist all the Burst Chuds lost their goddamn minds.

What are they going to do, give it Burst Bomb again? Get over yourself.

This version of the weapon's definitely more support based - sensing a theme with a few of the kits this season honestly - but not as much as you might think. Toxic Mist is important soft area denial, but more than that, it makes landing your Vert-Hori combo a LOT easier, because anyone moving through it will be moving slower than your vertical slash, which is saying something because that thing's nearly as bad as the Grizzco Slosher.

This leads the weapon to a much more thoughtful, methodical style compared to its hopped up brother, which I ended up really liking while testing the weapon out. You're not going to be getting quad after quad like Pro Bigboy Chara or something, but with Mist and Crab you're going to be doing your team a service by playing this weapon well.

And that's it. This is the first time I've actually done a real-ass weapon review on tumblr, so...if anyone other than Astral sees this I'll be happy.

Maybe I'll do another one next season? Who knows.

Feel free to shoot me asks or reply in the comments if you've got any questions or dissenting opinions. I love talking shop about weapon shit with anyone who isn't Astral because her opinions fucking suck.

Okay, little late to the party here, sure, but thought I'd give my thoughts on this. I've been to the ROM before, thought that they were closed down to finally fix that giant ramen bowl that went off axis a few months ago after that earthquake. Nope, they were turning it into an arena.

...Let the record show they did also fix the ramen bowl.

Chirpy Chips is back, I know someone who's going to be over the goddamn moon about that. I feel like the Harmony branding was a little heavy in the video? Like...there's other people in the band guys come on, they run a store and suddenly they're goddamn royalty?

SO fucking glad to see Bluefin back in circulation. Never got to play it obviously (only really got to start playing post-special de-recall), but I always thought it was a sick as hell map. Can't wait to see what changes they make to it. I see elevators, that's pretty cool. Only really see that in Salmon Run and (sorry) Saltspray.

Okay now for what I actually goddamn care about and what the two people (probably not even that) that follow me follow me for: weapon shit

No new weapons hey what the fuck's with that

At least none I saw? Usually these guys are chomping at the bit to show us brand new shit, there was the Dread Wringer and the Heavy Edit I forgot to talk about last time that were both sick as hell, maybe I'll make a post about them later.

There's some new kits? I can't be fucked to figure out what's what, friend tells me that the new S-Blast has goddamn Burst Bomb which is HUGE if true

But that's not the big thing here the big thing here is the

Splattercolor Screen

This thing kinda scares me, and not really in the way it'll affect the meta. It seems like another HP special shield. Like a fuckin' souped up Tenta Brella. As if the Tenta Brella shield isn't souped up enough already, but hey that's why it's a special.

No, what terrifies me is what it does to your goddamn EYES-

how the hell does it do that how the hell is this legal how the hell is this legal and my weapon mods aren't

fuck you squidforce fuck you squidforce fuck you squidforce this is going to be Kraken v1 all over again mark my fucking words

Okay so a lot of the stuff we got was new kits for old weapons. They're alright, I guess, I like having a Tenta with a hyper-aggressive special like the zook, but I'm not here to talk about those.

First off, the Painbrush.

I'm no stranger to brushes. Hell, they were basically all I could use for a good while before they loosened some regulations about weapon sizes. Brushes are, by and large, pretty easy to mod if you don't really care about the official shit or getting banned, so I was really surprised that not only did we only ever get two SquidForce Regulated:tm: brushes since 2013 (!?!?) but even Mr. Grizz (my hero in terms of weapon modding, god bless that capitalist pig) never touched the things. They're sticks with bristles on the end guys, they aren't that hard to make variations of.

So what do I think of the new kid on the block? Eh, could be worse. Its bristles, like the Octobrush, are thick as hell. But unlike Octo, they put a swivel on the end of the head, so those gobs of ink that collect in them get flung WAY further. We have a brush with RANGE now. People are calling this the Dynamo Brush and I'm not sure I'd go that far, but it does feel pretty damn good to use. Time'll tell if it'll be revolutionary, though, unlike-

The S-Blast '92.

This thing looks a lot like the N-ZAPs, huh? Well, there's a good reason for it. The humans used to have this thing called a NESS, and they had these things called 'light guns' you could use with them. They're kind of like the games you can play in the Shoal, but like...at home, and infinitely worse quality. The N-ZAPs are designed after these light guns for the NESS, and the S-Blast is another one of those. I'm pretty sure it was called the Super Scope made for the NESS's sequel, the Super NESS (though I just call it the SNESS.)

This thing is god damn revolutionary to me. It demands perfection, for sure, but after a bit of tinkering around with this thing, I found it one shots at range like the Range Blaster, sure, but at the drop of a hat, you can turn it into a functional Luna. There's definitely flaws to the production - there's a LOT of complicated systems that go into this plastic thing to make it a Range Luna. And with so many guts in it there's not really a lot of room for the projectiles to be particularly large. The long range blasts are absolutely tiny. We're talking very possibly less than Rapid tiny. Like I said, this thing demands perfection.

Also its kit is hot garbage.

uhhh do you play tableturf

Hell yeah I do, I've got like two different custom decks for each map and they're all hot flaming garbage

But yeah when the height restrictions for turf and anarchy were more stringent bullshit than they are now, I was too short to participate. So other than modding weapons *for* turf, the card game was the only way I really felt like I could do it

I mean I think the NFC programming in the cards're pretty cool, even if it inflates the cost of them a little. Makes it harder to just pick up and play, too, you need to either find one of those fancy arena things in the lobby (and if those are all taken tough shit) or draw your own grid and do all the mathwork yourself