Chancey289
Fake Geek Girl.
Hey you, yea you, thanks for reading. This is my review of Splatoon, the newest IP from Nintendo that's wonderfully weird and lots of fun.
In Splatoon you play as these little squid people known as Inklings and compete against other players in Ink battles. Now, while most shooters tend to focus on seeing how many kills you can get, Splatoon is more focused on control as you battle against the opposing team to cover the area the most in paint.
Let me break it down for ya.
PRESENTATION
The first thing you'll notice about this game is Splatoon's unique and colorful art style that reminds me a bit of something like Jet Grind Radio. Create your inkling and dive on in. The world is unique and creative populated with these little inklings and other aquatic themed characters. You'll get to explore this world a little bit in the game's plaza area. Here, you'll be able to walk around and see other players with their MiiVerse post, and visit the different kinds of shops that can be used to customize your character even further with items that not only make you look fresh, but actually have perks in battle. From a shoe selling Krill with his legs covered in many different kinds of footwear, to a creepy old octopus man, this game has a style that you can't help but be sucked in to.
It makes you really feel a part of this wacky world. Every time you pop in the game you're also greeted by these endearing news anchors who will tell you the current battle maps being played on. Their perky banter, and funky fresh personalities make even the must mundane stuff like this more fun to watch.
Now I can spend quite a bit of time talking about this wacky world, but I'll move on and tell you about the meat of this game, which is the gameplay.
GAMEPLAY
Splatoon's gameplay is fun, fast, addicting, and exciting and also surprisingly very mechanically deep. A game that rewards players for learning the ins and outs of the varied arsenal at your disposal and developing strategies to keep control of territory effectively.
The main mode you'll be playing on in multiplayer is Turf War. This is the mode I was talking about earlier, as you compete to cover the most area in your color paint against the opposing team.
The controls are responsive and fluid. Each inkling as the ability to turn in to a squid and move 2 times as faster swimming in ink, but only your color ink as the other team's color will slow you down. It's an interesting mechanic that you can learn to experiment with as you spray your paint along walls to swim up and along them, or dive in for quick escapes. Also the way to reload your ink.
Like I said, Splatoon is more about control and less about killing opponents as the the perk of splatting an enemy is just more time to cover paint as they wait to respawn. Respawning though only takes a few seconds and you can jump right back in to the heat of battle with a mechanic that allows you to jump across the map to fellow team mates any time you want by selecting their location on the Gamepad. This adds another layer of strategy when it comes to supplying support to your teamates and making daring escapes.
The arsenal you use in Splatoon ranges from typical paint guns, to long range paint sniper rifles, and even paint rollers that cover large areas. Each weapon has their own pros, cons, and special attacks. Experiment with the different load outs and find what you like best. Now while you can't switch load outs in between battles, I feel this adds another layer of strategy as everyone is on even playing fields with using a particular weapon, but at the cost of sacrificing something else. This kind of gets players to develop a unique playstyle which each type of load out and encourages the learning curve I think.
However, I also think an easier way to switch load outs in between matches could be a good thing because switching them is going back to the menu to equip other things. Kind of feels like an unnecessary waste of time, still the matches only last a few minutes and the fun factor will usually keep you playing for quite a while in sessions. The load times are also not horrendous or anything so that's a plus.
There's also no team speak mechanic which might be a good or a bad thing depending on you personally. I think Splatoon is at its best when you are coordinating with team mates and effectively winning, that's kind of hard when you can't speak to team mates and just hope they get your signals when it comes to strategy. If I find enough friends to play with me, I'd be sure to use Skype with them. Even if it might be an unfair advantage.
Splatoon also has a single player mode with some surprisingly creative boss battles in the vein of a Mario game. This single player uses all of the game's mechanics in creative ways with some well designed levels, but I don't think I'd find myself playing this mode multiple times. That's just me though, it's a nice addition overall though.
SOUND
I gotta talk about this soundtrack. It's so much fun. There's a lot of pumping energetic beats with this attitude I feel was ripped out of the 90s. Just take a listen. *dances*
OVERALL
Well, what can I say, Splatoon is one of the few creative games out there that come once every blue moon that's an absolute joy to play. If there's any major criticism I can give, is that there's not enough content right now considering we're still in the launch window. Nintendo promises to update this game with more modes and stages as time goes on and all FOR FREE
Which sounds good to me. If Nintendo keeps their promise, which I'm sure they will, Splatoon is an outstanding game.
RATING
YOU GOTTA BE SQUIDIN' ME, WORTH BUYING AT FULL PRICE
