Without ink, does significantly lower damage. Swings the Inkbrush forwards, covering opponents in ink. Throws the opponent into the ground, bouncing them forwards slightly. Throws the opponent upwards, hitting them once, then headbutts them in squid form, hitting a second time. In squid form, grabs the opponent with her tentacles, spins around and throws the opponent backwards. Without ink, the first hit is ineffective and the second does not ink the opponent. Hits twice and ends by covering the opponent in ink. Shoots the Splattershot into the opponent, forcing them forwards. While holding the opponent with her left hand, stomps on their foot, leading into a throw. Swings the Splattershot forwards while returning to the stage. Deals slightly less damage if performed after tripping. Shoots the Splattershot on either side of her while getting to her feet, hitting on both sides but without using ink. Very slow but deals extra damage at the nozzle, smashing opponents directly downwards if so. Kicks upwards twice, spinning one and a half times. Very fast and wide, making it good for defending. Kicks both legs forwards, doing extra damage on the feet.

Windmills her legs on the floor, hitting twice. Swings the Splattershot forwards and down. Without ink, this flurry becomes ineffective. If is mashed, the third hit is replaced by shots from the Splattershot, covering the opponent in ink, with a finishing hit when released. Opponents walking through ink are slowed down.ДЄ chop, followed by a right then left kick.

Ink coated on opponents increases their damage received by up to 50% and takes up to twenty seconds to wear off.

Unlike most playable characters, Inkling can crawl and wall jump.

This leaves her immobile but crouching very low.

By holding alongside or, Inkling hides in a puddle of ink and begins refilling her ink tank, which is displayed next to her damage information.

Overall, Inkling is viewed as a high-ranking character. Her generally middling stats with above-average speed and ink ability allow her to rack up damage incredibly well, even if she has some difficulty getting KOs. Despite this, Inkling has no glaring weaknesses. Additionally, her recovery, although useful, is quite predictable and easy to defend against, while her ink needs to be constantly managed and refilled at key moments or else some of her best attacks drastically lose effectiveness or even become completely ineffective. Her grounded attacks are also less effective than her aerial ones, forcing her to grab opponents to start dealing more damage - something at odds with her ranged special attacks. Despite being effective at dealing damage, she has difficulty getting KOs due to her most effective attacks being her slowest or most situational. However, Inkling has some downsides as well.

Additionally, Inkling's ability to ink opponents is unique and allows her to deal additional damage and slow opponents down in a way that no other character can, at the cost of giving her a slight learning curve. Her recovery is also impressive and she performs well off-stage, being able to use her fast speed and attacks to prevent opponents from recovering. This allows her to chain her moves together well and can rush down an opponent with quick combos before they can react. As a middleweight, she has mostly decent mobility stats with noticeably fast running, air movement, and attack speed. Inkling is a fittingly fast and slippery character to play as and is characterised by being able to cover ground effectively and attack quickly. Inkling defaults to using a Splatoon-design Splattershot but can use several other weapons in her attacks. The default male design is also based on promotional artwork - he is blue and light-skinned with the default 'topknot' haircut, wearing the Fake Contacts, Zink Layered LS, and Purple Hi-Horses. Half of her alternate costumes are also female, while every other costume is male. Inkling's default appearance is that of an orange, light-skinned, female Inkling with the default 'hippie' haircut, wearing the Fake Contacts, White Tee, and Pink Trainers, as a reference to the main Inkling design used in promotional material for Splatoon.

Inkling costume