This just reminded of something that's been on my mind. It's rant time!
I am not a fan of Inkling. I'm really not. And I don't mean the character, either. I love love LOVE Splatoon, it might be my favorite Nintendo franchise ever. But that's exactly why I feel so strongly towards Inkling in Smash. I feel they weren't represented in a way that I feel does the series enough justice.
Their playstyle is the core of my issues. Inkling is a rushdown type character, correct? I feel like their playstyle is similar to Mario, except way harder to play with, for reward that can be obtained easier from other characters like, well, Mario. Mario has simple and basic combos that are not only easy to execute, but are really effective. Inkling's moves don't string together nearly as easily, and as a result they feel like a character who requires way more brain power to use for average reward.
I'm also not a fan of the moves themselves. A lot of them feel like wet noodles when they hit, which I guess makes sense considering their skinny limbs and paint based attacks. However, this feels inaccurate to Splatoon, in which every attack feels ridiculously strong (and a lot of them are). Their aerials feel awkward to use, especially since back air of all moves is their best one, which means you constantly have to turn yourself around to land a hit. Forward air just takes to long to come out making it less reliable than back air.
I also don't like a lot of their weapon attacks. Neutral B is a joke of a move and extremely situational, which is made even more pointless because Jab is basically the same thing but way more useful, and Slosher as down smash feels weak and doesn't have very good range (pretty much the opposite of what a Slosher is like in Splatoon). Blaster Up smash and Roller side B are fine, no issues there.
I would also talk about other things I'm not a fan of with Inkling's representation on the whole, but for now I'll leave it at their moveset, as this post is already quite long. On the whole, I'm just disappointed that my most anticipated character ended up as one of the least fun newcomers for me to play as, which is unfortunate as I was hoping Inkling would be my main.