Scratch one: Splatoon 2 soundtrack added to Nintendo music

This one soundtrack every Monday on the Nintendo Music app is killing me. And last week, it was Brain Age? With respect to the soundtrack, it feels like a wasted week. Thankfully, this week is one that appeared in my list of 10 Game soundtracks that need to be added to Nintendo Music, Splatoon 2.

We already got Splatoon 3, which is fine. It features some songs from fictional band Off The Hook. However, Splatoon 2 features the most songs from Off the Hook since that’s the game that the duo, Marina and Pearl, MC’d. I like the Squid Sisters, I’m not big on Deep Cuts, but I love Off the Hook. And now, based on the artist playlist (because the app credits fictional artists but not the real composers), we’re at 36 minutes of Off the Hook, which is probably as good as we’ll get until Splatoon 4.

Beyond Off the Hook, there are also prominent contributions from Wet Floor and Dedf1sh, as well as some great smaller acts. The series keeps building off what was done by the games before, but in isolation, Splatoon 2 had an incredibly solid soundtrack. I think it’s where the series’ aural universe really started finding itself, so the composers were able to really think about the world and characters they were trying to communicate. It felt less like it was designed as background music and more as though it was created to be a curated selection of the works of fictional artists.

It’s still a bummer that we’re getting a single soundtrack once a week. It’s such a Nintendo thing to do. When the Wii launched with its Virtual Console, we’d get about three games every week (until later in the lifespan when it slowed down), and a lot of people already felt that was pretty slow as they waited to see their favorite classic hit the service (though, in retrospect, that’s a pretty reasonable rate). The NSO retro apps don’t even seem to have a schedule; new games just drop a seemingly random times. It just feels like it will be quite a while before I can conveniently open the app and find whatever I’m in the mood for.

At the same time, I really enjoy the service. I could load up pretty much any of the soundtracks on YouTube, but the sound quality is less consistent and it’s harder to find playlists for what I’m looking for. Plus, I enjoy the organized playlists and, while I haven’t used the feature yet, the ability to extend any song is a useful one when it comes to video game music.

Anyway, the Splatoon 2 soundtrack is now available on Nintendo Music, which you can download for free and use with a Nintendo Switch Online subscription.