IGN recently spoke to Splatoon producer Hisashi Nogami and Nintendo EPD general manager Katsuya Eguchi during Gamescom in Cologne, Germany. During the interview, the two producers were asked to pick sides in a few past Splatfest competition categories, including a couple that were made up by IGN.
The first round pitted cats against dogs, to which Nogami chose dogs while Eguchi picked cats, despite owning a dog himself, saying he liked how cats are more independent and “do their own thing.”
Next, when asked who would win a Splatfest competition between Mario and Luigi, Eguchi chose Mario while Nogami picked Luigi, noting he felt an affinity for the character since they both are younger brothers to an older sibling.
The Splatoon producers were also asked which of the Squid Sisters was their favorite, to which Nogami noted that they “didn’t realize how popular the squid sisters would be.” In fact, Nogami revealed that there were initially no plans to hold a Marie vs. Callie Splatfest until they saw fans’ reactions.
As for whether they prefer Marie or Callie, Nogami and Eguchi had this to say:
Nogami: “I just want to say, in response to this question, they both feel like daughters to me. This is a very difficult question to answer (Nogami squirms in his chair to show us how he feels about this question). It’s like being asked which of your own daughters do you prefer. But, to be honest, in the last Splatfest I played as Team Callie. And I was disappointed by the final results” (Team Marie won the final Splatfest contest in Splatoon).
Eguchi: “This is a really tough question. I really like both of them. But, if I’m going on my first impression based on when I saw the two characters for the first time, I slightly liked Callie a bit more as well. That was my first impression, but now I lean more towards the Marie side. Similar to my answer to the dog and cat question earlier and their personalities, … Callie is the more energetic one and her personality would be the equivalent of what a dog is like, in terms of being more fond and coming up to engage with you. Whereas Marie is more cat-like one that does her own thing and isn’t so bothered about stuff. I initially was fond of Callie and then over time I started to prefer Marie.”
Eguchi: “As time passes, I will probably go back to liking Callie.”
Splatoon is available for the Wii U.