Y’know what?
We’re going to play this review at a higher difficulty.
We’re going to do the entire thing without using the S-word.
Y’know the one, and if you don’t, just remember the first scene of Jurassic Park,
when the dinosaur gets loose and starts chewing on the guy and Muldoon’s shouting orders...
Yeah, that one.
We can go without that word because when you get right down to it, that’s not what Splatoon
is about.
At all.
Sure, it centers around an online, 4-on-4 experience where taking out enemies is certainly
to your tactical benefit, but if all you’re doing is being a hunter-killer and neglecting
the actual state of the battlefield, you’re going to lose.
Splatoon is about one thing: ink.
And in true Nintendo fashion, those three letters and that one concept gets polished,
tweaked, altered, and elaborated upon into something truly impressive.
Whether you’re a kid or a squid, both states fall under the umbrella of “Inkling,”
a brilliant choice for a name since it not only wraps up that dichotomy with a bow but
also indicates that the whole package is a completely new idea.
From a genesis of blocks of tofu spewing ink around a square comes a game about speculative
evolution, where the Squids defeated the Octopi for the right to grow legs, take on an anthropomorphic
form, and build cities that look a hell of a lot like Shibuya.
You’ve got the fashion-consciousness of The World Ends With You, the rebellious, tag-the-world
mentality of a Jet Set Radio, and a lobby area that shows you just how Miiverse integration
should be done.
Best way to cool off from a strenuous bout of ink-flinging is by running around and just
throwing Yeahs at particularly interesting bits of art, which is to say anything that
doesn’t have Squidward in it by this point.
But let’s dig into the gameplay, shall we?
Eight squids-and/or-kids enter, four emerge victorious, by putting their ink all over
EVERYTHING.
Ink the floors, because that’s how you win.
Ink the walls, because even if you don’t get credit for them at the end they’re still
a tactical consideration and allow you to use the verticality of these maps to your
advantage.
Ink your opponents, since the time it takes them to respawn means there’s that many
seconds with one fewer gun spewing the opposing color.
The more you ink, the faster you build up your special meter, allowing access to your
massive attacks like turning into a huge, invincible Kraken or unleashing a large, terrain-piercing
acoustic attack called the Killer Wail.
(Have I mentioned this game loves fish puns?
Because it loves fish puns.)
You distribute your ink via a variety of weapons, some designed for close-range like the huge
freakin’ paint rollers you’re probably heard were OP; to mid-range, rapid-fire arms
designed to look like Super Soakers or airbrushes; to long-range, slow-firing chargers for finding
a nice sniper’s perch and covering your allies.
Sure seems to be using plenty of terms from that genre-that-won’t-be-named, huh?
Well, how many of those games let you turn into a squid?
Need to climb up a wall?
Ink it and squid right up there.
Need to get the hell away from some dope with a roller?
Squid back the way you came.
Need to ambush an incoming enemy?
Chill out in squid form, you’re nearly invisible.
Grate in your way?
Squids fit through ‘em.
Oh, and it speeds your reloading, too.
One mechanic, one trigger, innumerable facets.
And that’s just where things begin to diverge.
First off, yes, there’s no voice chat in this game.
Frankly, I don’t miss it one bit, since you have - right on the gamepad - a map updated
in real time that shows the entire battlefield, your color, your enemy’s color, and the
positions of your allies.
If you can’t figure out your next move based on that data, guess what, you’ve got bigger
problems than not being able to yell at your teammates about what they’re doing wrong.
Turf War matches are a scant three minutes long, which has been determined by science
to be the optimal duration: any longer and you’d lose that hectic sense of urgency,
any shorter and you’d be left with too much un-inked territory and little cause to engage
the opponents.
Honestly, how much coordination do you need for those three minutes?
If you’re with a team of weakling inklings, chances are you wouldn’t have won had you
been able to bark commands and, eventually, racist invective at them anyway.
Even in Ranked mode, you’re not going to need to school ur noobz as it’s not even
available until a player reaches level 10, by which point they’ve played through several
hours of Turf Wars and should be able to handle themselves.
Ranked Battles play by a different set of rules, though, as the teams vie for control
of a particular tract of land called the “Splat Zone” and must hold that area for the duration
of a countdown.
It mixes up strategy rather significantly; the Squid Beakons which come with my favorite
Krak-On Roller are fairly useless in Turf Wars, but deploying them near the Splat Zone
allows my allies to jump right back into the fray faster after respawning and regardless
of our current positions.
Needless to say, I know my strategy, and from what I've enjoyed of Ranked thus far my allies
do as well.
This particular mode wasn’t available at launch, which made some people rather upset
because it’s quite good.
It was, however, available four days after launch, as Nintendo seem to be rolling out
features to compensate both for a lack of initially-available content and to keep interest
on their box during an otherwise sparse summer season, and one without even the faintest
hint of that elusive Zelda title for the Wii U.
It’s a mildly controversial decision, but it’s hard to categorize the game even at
the outset as anything less than “fun.”
At least the servers have been mostly stable, too, despite getting utterly hammered by heavy
turnout.
The occasional lag spike can wreck your game and eject you from the match, but those’ve
been few and far between, even on this floating chip shop we call home.
One particular wrinkle that helps with the replay value is the daily refresh and improved
stock of the outfitters in the aptly-named Booyah Base (fish pun!), where a band of shopkeepers
will constantly critique your style and freshness.
As your level improves in online play, new and more powerful gear will appear, with a
variety of stat-boosting parameters like increased movement speed, reduced ink consumption, or
a number of stealth tricks.
Each piece of gear - aside from looking funky and/or dope - also has a number of secondary
slots according to its level which develop sub-abilities through EXP gain in battles.
And I haven’t even mentioned the single-player campaign yet!
Here’s a point where I don’t need the S-word at all, as the solo Splatoon experience
is more akin to a platformer that just happens to have a gun.
While there’s certainly some Octobot forces to be inked with extreme prejudice, most of
the action here is from a brand of running, jumping, climbing, and huge freakin’ bosses
that wouldn’t feel out of place in a Mario Galaxy game, but which feel like a natural
extension of the mobility-centric elements of the entire ink mechanic.
It’s not a terribly long or fruitful quest, with just over a couple dozen stages and some
alternate versions of stock weapons to unlock, but playing through it will make you a more
effective and agile combatant in the multiplayer.
And then you get to redo most of it in amiibo challenges, but we’ll get to those later.
It’s easy to say there were high expectations for this game - after all, it’s Nintendo’s
biggest new IP since Pikmin, and it’s been a long 14 years to say the least - but Splatoon
has managed to become something more than just “Nintendo made a shoo…”
nope, we agreed on this, not gonna say it.
It’s not about the guns, anyway, it’s about the ink, it’s about using the ink
for stealth and controlling key chokepoints on the battlefield, it’s about using the
ink as a tool for getting up walls and giving yourself an escape lane and a chance to reload.
You can’t do that with bullets.
And, this being Nintendo, their unique interpretation on the genre comes complete with a top-flight
soundtrack, interesting, well-modeled characters, and a layer of adorableness that makes the
whole thing immediately accessible and unironically fun.
Even if you can’t tell the guy next to you that the Squiffer is a weapon for ****s and
he’s a **** ******* **** ******ing ***** *** ****** mother ***** **** ***** for picking it.