Splatoon got my attention as soon as it was announced. A new addition to Nintendo’s carefully curated collection of intellectual properties? And a shooter at that? I was immediately intrigued. Splatoon is the work of some of the younger minds at Nintendo, developers who themselves are fans of competitive shooters available in other consoles. So they set out to make their own competitive arena based game, and once they had the frame work defined the game went through Nintendo’s filters and passed through several stages. From level design to character design, Nintendo tooled around with them all, and even played with the idea of featuring Mario at one point. However through it all Nintendo maintained a strange obsession with squids. What came out of the other side of this process is something completely different to Nintendo’s previous offerings, but that still definetly feels like a Nintendo game. It helps that it’s fantastic to boot.
Splatoon starts by putting you in the shoes of an “Inkling,” a squid-tween hybrid, of your own creation. You go through a simple tutorial to teach you the controls until you get to the center of Inkopolis which serves as the Lobby of the game. Two things are evident about Splatoon right away, first is that the game runs smoothly, though that is not a surprise for Nintendo games. The second related to the art style. It is colorful, of course, as most Nintendo games are. But it also has a Chibi character meets Urban art style that evokes the late 90’s graffiti scene, making it evident that Splatoon was made by a younger team that allowed some of their unique generational influences to inform their design decisions. The soundtrack, of course compliments this entire presentation, though I wish there were more tracks. Still, the soundtrack is pretty good, and the tracks never got on my nerves
The heart and soul of Splatoon lies with its online multiplayer. There are two basic modes, regular battle and ranked. Initially only Regular battle is open, which consists mostly of Turf War. This means the objective is to paint as much as you can of the stage with your own color. The team that covers most of the stage wins. It is fun and somewhat of a crap shoot. Regardless of how good you are, the outcome ultimately depends on how good the rest of the team is. You can also easily win Turf War with minimal conflict. You will get in fights, this is inevitable as the map is small. But you can cover a lot of ground with no conflict if you focus on, well, covering the ground. Rank mode is more intense. The mode there is called Splat Zones. There is a tower and both teams have to try to control it for as long as you can. It is King of the Hill for Splatoon. This mode does not lend itself to the pacifistic, laid back methods that will ensure victory in the Regular battle, you will constantly face off against other players. This is by design. Ranked battles are meant to be a more intense experience than those of the Regular Battles. The outcome of the match has a lot more weight too, while losing in regular mode means you earn a little less money and experience, in ranked you’ll lose points. 100 points will rank you up, but you will lose 10 if you lose a match, gaining 20 if you win, making the stakes of the game higher.
As you level up you will unlock better weapons and clothing items. The currency that you will use to purchase these you will also be obtained by fighting in battles. Most of the best gear is locked behind a level wall. An incentive to keep playing and leveling up. As an added bonus for completing the single player campaign, you also get some improved gear to use in the online multiplayer. Unfortunately, some of the most unique gear is also locked behind an Amiibo wall, along with some extra single player missions. I would say its day one DLC but it’s worse, because it is actually more expensive than most DLC ($13 for every little statue) and if you want it I hope you are lucky because like most amiibos, it might as well be forged by gods in the heat of a dying star out of astatine for how easy they are to find. I used to think day one DLC was the worst, but it turns out day one DLC you can’t even buy is even worse.
The game does not feature any voice chat. I am sure you have heard this from the legions of players moaning about its exclusion. I personally haven’t missed it. It is true that this might turn team selection into a crap shoot, but my experience has been that voice chat does not help in cooperative multiplayer games at all. People pretty much do as they will, unless you find the rare cooperative player. For example, I have had more success with our own Jay in GTA Online with no voice chat than random players using chat. Make of that what you will. As a father it also makes me a lot more comfortable letting my kids play Splatoon online.
The single player mode is a short campaign that is surprisingly enjoyable. In the lobby, by wandering to the side of the stage you will find a suspicious old man that will lure you down a tube where he introduces you to a wonderful world of adventure. Get your head out of the gutter, this is a kid’s game. He immediately tells you that the Octolings, (an ancient foe of the inklings) are back and the have stolen the zapfish, a special fish used to power machinery and ancient weapons. The single player stages are well planned and get creative with the use of the ink based powers of the games. It also has some pretty fun boss fights, which is a refreshing change of pace from most shooters. The campaign runs about six hours or so, but what is there is wonderfully planned and polished to a mirror shine.
As fun as the online multiplayer and the single player campaign are, the local multiplayer has been neglected. There is only one mode where you have to compete to kill as many balloons as possible, and it is only 1 on 1. If there are several people who want to play, you will not be able to do so. To make matters worse, one player will use the pad, while the other one will play on the TV. Did you hate screen watchers growing up? Well, you better get used to fighting cause anyone who is using the pad and claims they don’t screen watch the person who is playing on the TV is lying. Nintendo knows this is an issue, since it allows you switch controllers between matches. The 1 on 1 mode is the slowest and least interesting of all of the modes offered in the game, and sadly it gets old pretty fast. If you have a friend over he will not be able to accompany you in the online multiplayer. You will have to take turns, which is what we ended up resorting to when we tried Splatoon.
When I got the game it seemed sparse. There were only a handful of stages, weapons and modes. However, as more people play the game and rank up, Nintendo has added more stages, more weapons, and more modes all free of charge. They plan to continue doing this through the whole summer so it is possible that by fall Splatoon will be a robust offering in the shooting genre. There is no download for any of this content, or at least there hasn’t been so far, which leads me to believe that this content is on the disk. Nintendo is not charging for any of this content, so I am not sure what their rational is for doling it out in small doses, but it has certainly made sure that I keep playing and I am excited to see what else the game has in store in the future.
Splatoon is a great addition to the shooting genre and to Nintendo’s IPs. In a way it feels like something Nintendo needed. A breath of fresh air that revitalizes the console and the image of the celebrated Japanese company. Splatoon has a fun and charming presentation, performs great, and is a mechanically superb shooter. It does have a few problems that keep it shy of perfection. The local multiplayer, one of the strengths of the Wii U, is severely lacking. While I feel that the lack of voice chat is not a big deal, I recognize that this might a major negative for hardcore multiplayer fans. And the content walled off behind an unobtainable pay wall is simply ridiculous. If you don’t own a Wii U I don’t know if it is a system seller, but it certainly adds a lot to its value proposition. If you already own a Wii U, well go ahead and pick it up!
