Review: Fun, colorful shooter ‘Splatoon’ paints with a purpose
Leave it to Nintendo to find harmony in the words “family-friendly” and “competitive online shooter.” But that unlikely pairing is exactly what you get in Splatoon. You also get a helluva good time.
Perhaps more notable than the fact that Nintendo released a third-person shooter for the Wii U is the fact that this game doesn’t star any familiar faces. Splatoon is the first brand new character-driven franchise the company has created in over 14 years (the last one being the original Pikmin on the Gamecube). No Mario, no Yoshi, no Donkey Kong, nada. Nintendo is asking the rookie to stand on its own two tentacles, sans the cozy surety of an iconic logo, and help breathe life into the struggling Wii U console.
Are they nuts? As it turns out, they’re just being Nintendo. Though its inkwell runs a bit dry, Splatoon is a fun, innovative game that manages to be both everything and nothing you’d expect from the video game pioneer.
Its main mode, Turf Wars, boasts a wonderful premise: cover the world with ink. Two teams of four face off on a map, but rather than go for headshots, the goal is to drench as much ground with your team’s color as possible. While taking out enemies is well and good, it’s secondary to making a mess of the map.
There’s another benefit to spraying your ink everywhere. Splatoon’s new characters — the Inklings — aren’t just xtreme, paint-crazy teens. In human form, your Inkling runs around on two legs. But press a button and the little weirdo turns into a squid, able to refill ammo, hide, and nimbly swim through your team’s ink.
With these basic tools in its tank, a game of Splatoon is a surprisingly strategic affair. Do you charge ahead and start splattering? Lay some paint pathways for your teammates and lurk defensively? A favorite technique is to hide in a vast ink pool and pop out like a trapdoor spider to douse an unsuspecting enemy in gaudy green goo. It’s truly a new kind of shooter.
It also makes great use of the Wii U Gamepad. There’s a learning curve here — the motion sensors on the Gamepad are a little sensitive — but once you get the hang of aiming, swimming, and shooting, it gels. Better still, the Gamepad doubles as a handy top-down map of the inky battlefield. Not sure where to spray? Peek at the map and start painting.
The better you play, the faster you level up and earn coins to spend in Inkopolis. Splatoon’s city functions as its main hub, housing the curious vendors hawking new guns and gear. Outfitting your Inkling in new duds tweaks skills, and the more you use a piece of clothing, the more bonuses you’ll unlock. The guns come in a handful of styles, but as you level up you’ll gain access to modified versions that include interesting combinations of sub-weapons. I found myself addicted to the not-so-nuanced Splat Roller, which is good for up close combat and coating the ground in a thick layer of ink. But snipers, machine gunner, and shotgun types will all find perfectly suitable Splatoon versions.
Mastering Splatoon’s mechanics takes some time, and while that’s best spent online, there’s a short, Super Mario-lite solo campaign here as well. You’re tasked with tracking down the prized electric zapfish, which have been stolen by the nefarious Octarians. That’s really just an excuse to send you through a variety of fun, imaginative platform levels that make use of the ink in interesting ways. You’ll inflate giant sponges by pumping them full of paint, ride inky geysers, and battle imposing bosses. It’s good stuff, but over too quickly to really sink in.
Why kid squids? Why zapfish? Why ink? Why not? Splatoon channels an arcadey, Technicolor playfulness that’s been buried beneath years of brown and gray shooters, tapping into a part of the gamer brain that in many ways died with the Sega Dreamcast. Haphazardly flinging paint like a rifle-toting Jackson Pollock is its own reward. Heck, this might be the first shooter where shooting directly at the ground is a good thing.
And no matter how splendidly or terribly you paint, Splatoon looks awesome. Like most Nintendo games, it runs fast and smooth, and boasts a poppy punkish soundtrack that manages to toe the line between irritating and infectious. Reveling in its vibrant palette, Splatoon is a breath of fresh air in an ocean of dour, overly serious military-themed shooters.
Unfortunately, things get a bit sticky when it comes to the game’s online play. In spite of Splatoon’s team-based nature, there’s no voice chat. On one hand, I get it. Nintendo wants to create a safe space for players of all ages, and getting hollered at by an aggro jerk because you’re not doing exactly the right thing at the right time doesn’t jibe.
But what about when you’re the aggro jerk? I can’t count the number of times I watched helplessly as my terrible team opted to rush off to kill the bad guys and forget to paint much of anything, or fail to help take down a troublesome sniper dominating the map. What’s an aggro jerk to do?
Shut up and take it, that’s what. With no way to communicate beyond passive-aggressively firing ink at the godless sky, Splatoon’s team dynamics often feel more like luck of the draw than any sort of tactical affair. It’s a great game when you get a great team. It’s pretty frustrating when you don’t.
Questionable matchmaking doesn't help. Perhaps there's a dearth of players out there, but all too frequently, I find myself on the wrong end of lopsided teams. Maybe split up the two level 20s and give the rest of us level 11s a chance? I'm no good at new math, but this can't be that hard.
There’s also the issue of content. Splatoon launched with only five maps, and while Nintendo has already released one more, it still feels thin. At level 10 you unlock the ability to play in Ranked Battles, opening up the fun Zone Control game mode, but two modes in an online shooter? Splatoon’s meager maps and modes come up short.
But comparing Splatoon to Call of Duty is kind of ridiculous. Nintendo is painting on its own canvas here, not trying to mimic the experience found in other games, and in that, they’ve succeeded. Splatoon isn’t quite a masterpiece, but it’s a promising start for a colorful new artist.
What’s Hot: Terrific core gameplay; looks and sounds great; doesn’t rely on familiar mascots; solid online play from Nintendo?
What’s Not: No voice chat hurts; grows repetitive; lacking in content; problematic matchmaking
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