Got Splatoon 2 on Friday and it’s a really fun game with one huge problem: No split screen. Only one player per console. I didn’t even think to check for that before purchasing since it’s a multiplier-focused game on a multiplayer-focused system. It seemed obvious it would have it; I mean, doesn’t everyone have a fond memory of playing Goldeneye on the N64 in four-player split screen. And Minecraft for the Switch has four-player split screen. But no dice on Splatoon 2. I was really looking forward to getting to do some squad-based shooter combat with my kids, but to do that, I’d have to buy a whole other Switch and a second copy of the game.

My video game needs have changed a bit. Usually, I only cared for playing single player, but now the point of games for the Switch is to play them with the kids (and not have them constantly fight over whose turn it is). Yes, the first game I got was Zelda which was solely single player, but I only played it when the kids were watching (which they were very insistent on). And since that game defied normal video game conventions so much, Buttercup had a number of ideas that worked that I never would have come up with. For instance, in one area there was a switch that needed to be weighted down (very common to Zelda games) and a barrel across the room that you had to ride moving platform to get to. Having played video games for decades, I knew the puzzle was get the barrel and bring it to the switch. But Buttercup suggested we just take some of the many many items we collected in the overworld and drop some on the switch to weight it down. I knew that wouldn’t work because that would ruin the whole point of the puzzle, but I tried it to shut her up. And it worked. Breath of the Wild was very much a game where they set a bunch of rules of physics and let you come up with solutions that the programmers didn’t even think of, and stuck in my old ways I never fully embraced that.

Anyway, now I’m just rambling on — which I can do since it’s my blog and I like talking about video games — but the point was I’m very disappointed in the lack of split screen on Splatoon 2. My dream is to do an online squad with my kids, taking out all our foes together, but that dream has been denied. Still, it’s really sweet to at least watch my 6yo daughter pwn people online.