Reloading - Inkredibles

Time to get another review out of the way and I think this week I’ll finally get around to reviewing Splatoon unless something else happens to keep me from doing so. If this is online, obviously nothing happened, but feel free to imagine me looking around for some kind of “review attacker” who is trying to keep me from posting this. Let’s get this show on the roller! 

Nintendo is a very strange company at times. Sometimes they’ll throw us about a dozen different games with Mario and expect us to be happy. But every so often, the stars will align and the guys in charge of creative ideas are awoken from their catatonic state to throw out an original idea. The last time this happened I think was when we got Pikmin, though there are plenty of games that haven’t been released outside Japan (Mother 3, Captain Rainbow, etc) that could prove otherwise. But now said stars of aligned once again and someone decided to throw squids onto the idea board, hitting a discarded Call of Duty case before falling immediately back into that catatonic state once again.

It was then the team translated what the strange man said. To them, it meant, “Make an online shooter about squid-people,” and thus Splatoon was born. What they failed to realize is that the man was secretly trying to warn them was that it was a squid that put him into the catatonic state and was hoping they’d fashion a cure. Sadly, not.

Splatoon takes place in the far future when genetic splicing has combined the DNA of a squid, human, frog, velociraptor, and Jeff Goldblum into beings known as Inklings. They are a terrifying master race of creatures that have taken over the Earth, and now battle for territorial rights with toxic chemicals that are designed to only affect those not of their same color (insert topic about race wars). But this is Nintendo, so a lot of the human genocide and race war stuff is pushed out to focus on the more cuddly aspect of these mutant hybrids.

The online mode is the main crux of the game. You go online and use the weapons and gear you can buy (after attaining level four for some arbitrary fucking reason) to participate in “Turf Wars” to see who can paint the most space on a given map. There are also ranked matches, which, currently, only feature a “King of the Hill” game mode. More are supposed to be patched in eventually, but the game was rushed for a summer release making this feel like a very malnourished game in hindsight.

The weapons range from rifle like automatic weapons to charge-up snipers, to guns that function similarly to shotguns. But all of them are about shooting out ink (or paint or whatever). The name of the game is to cover the most ground in your color with killing your enemies being a secondary/optional objective. The idea is clever and the level and game design behind it all makes the mechanics and gameplay the most fun I’ve had in an online game in years. But with the good must come the dumb ideas Nintendo forced into this game.

For starters, you can’t change your weapons between rounds without leaving the lobby. This wouldn’t be a huge issue but since teams are ALWAYS randomly assigned, you never know what your team will have for weapon variety. You may have a roller and get strapped to a team with three other rollers, meaning you have no range on your team and likely only have one kind of special attack among the four of you, which kills the balance of the match quite a bit. Being able to switch when you know what the rest of your team has or to try new weapons on the fly would be ideal.

But randomly being assigned teams means you can’t always be on a team with friends. And without a voice chat, this also means you can’t communicate any tactics to your team. This isn’t so bad if you can just Skype the people you’re playing with. But then the problem becomes you aren’t always on their team, rendering the use of voice chat pointless. Granted, these are in place to prevent online abuse and teams from getting too good (I think) but that kind of causes friction with the purpose of online gaming in the first place, doesn’t it?

I get the feeling this game was rushed out to the shelves before they could finish all their levels, guns, and polish up how their online system is supposed to work. By the time this review comes out (August) much in the way of free updates to give us a full-content experience will have been released. Furthermore, there will be a massive update to the game in August that may fix some of these changes. But I have to review the game as is and leave it at that. It’s either that or this week goes to Terminator’s review, which has been massively delayed for TV shows and Ant-Man.

Do I like Splatoon? Yes. Would I recommend it? Yes. Despite all the issues I have, the concept itself is still very unique and fun. The variety of maps (what few maps there are) do offer enough in the way of different characteristics that you are encouraged to use different tactics for each one. For example, the newer Moray Towers feels like a map designed for rush-tactics. While a map like Bluefin Depot feels like a map that requires a more methodical approach. But some tactics just work better for different weapons or playstyles (which, again, would be better if we could switch gear between rounds without logging out to go to the plaza every fucking time).

Oh, wait, there’s a single player campaign. I suppose I should talk about that. Yes, we’ve reached that quantum singularity where the online focus of the game is not only more interesting to talk about, but that the single player is something you can almost entirely write-off if you really wanted to. But because it’s attached we have to give it a look. Basically the story is about a race of beings known as the Octolings trying to take the Inkling’s power supply for themselves and control the world. So you, as Agent 3, must jump into action to kill the Octolings and free the zapfish in order to bring an end to the war. Hm… yeah, totally not a race-war happening here either.

The levels feel very Mario-esque in that they rely heavily on platforming elements. But they feel inverse from Super Mario Sunshine in that you are making a mess of things rather than attempting to clean them up. And there are various puzzles and mechanics exclusive to the single player that could actually make the multiplayer maps more interesting, but probably won’t happen. Overall, the single player is kind of bland in comparison to the frantic but exhilarating multiplayer campaign. And I think I get why.

The maps for the single player can get unreasonably long, requiring ten minutes or more of time to complete but each round of the online is limited to 3 minutes (in turf war). Thus the environment is constantly changing, enemies are constantly changing, and the game never feels old because you can swap weapons and gear to have different results. In the single player, you are given the basic gun, no other gear options, and go at the pace of snail in a wind tunnel. The differences between the two in terms of pacing and tone are insane and it makes you wonder if the two different teams working on this game communicated in any way with one another beyond the basic gameplay components.

But while single player lacks the intrigue and allure of the online aspects, it doesn’t drag down the overall experience. Why? Because the game is still fun regardless and manages to shake things up in the online scene that you don’t see all that often. If you have a WiiU, you likely already have this unless you stopped playing this after Smash Bros, forgetting that Bayonetta 2 exists and is a much better game in every way. Basically, what I’m saying is go buy a WiiU and then get Bayonetta 2. When you finish, get Splatoon. When you finish, then I guess you have time for Smash Bros and Mario Kart. What were we talking about again?

In conclusion, Splatoon is great and one of the many reasons why I’m preferring the WiiU to everything else at the moment. At least until StarFox Zero and Fatal Frame V come out. Then I’ll have two more reasons. If you like online games and want something unique, I can’t recommend this hard enough. I imagine issues I’ve had will be patched or altered at some point down the road, but until then, consider the above carefully as it may impact your enjoyment of the game.

That’s all for me this week. I’ll be back soon with more reviews. Probably of films since I likely haven’t bought a game aside from Splatoon all fucking year. Be sure to like, share, comment, and subscribe and we’ll see you soon for more Reloading.