Splatoon

The first & third person shooter genres, shall we say, have been far overdone. War games (Medal of honour, Call of Duty), battling against monsters (Doom, Resident Evil) fighting secret organizations as secret agents (Goldeneye & perfect dark) it's essentially all been done.

Then Nintendo comes along, and says "What if...we took cute squid girls and cute squid boys, gave them water guns full of coloured ink, and had them splat the ink all over each other's faces?

It sounds dirty...OK wait, that was dirty, let's rephrase that.

"What if....we took cute squid girls and cute squid boys, called them inklings, and make them battle over condensed urban-like battlegrounds, using water guns full of ink, having battles over how much turf they can cover with that ink?

The story of splatoon is rather pointless, as most gamers bought the game to play online battles against other players. You take control of an inkling, and you level up and earn money by participating in turf wars. the object of the game is to cover more turf than the other team, using coloured ink to mark your turf, using ink guns, rollers, and other cartoonish tools of war. Win or lose, you gain experience points and money to spend on new gear and clothing you can use in the field. Level up by battling as much as you can.

The story is about the rogue octarians stealing the zapfish, a power source for the inklings. the player must successfully navigate the courses laid out for them in order to recover these zapfish, while fighting the octarians and their bosses. This mode is somewhat pointless, but if you have an Amiibo, you can unlock more stuff to use in multi-player with one, by playing the levels a bit differently.

Personally, I got hooked on splatoon during the Global test-fire dating May 8th, 2015 at 8pm, and I've been hooked ever since. Nintendo's always willing to go out on a limb to try new things, and splatoon is their newest effort.

GAMEPLAY

When you're playing, you're either going to do 2 things - One, cover as much ground with ink as possible to secure your team's victory, or, you're going to go after the other team's players to prevent them from covering the ground. Either one of these objectives is necessary to win. If you're planning to cover ground, get a roller. If you're planning to fight, get the charger. if you're intent on doing a bit of both, the splattershot or any rapid-fire gun will be balanced enough.

it's easy to play, but not really too hard to master. Once gamers start figuring out new strategies and tricks, it might a little bit more effort to keep up. Watch how others play and learn a few strategies.

CONTROLS

The controls are as fluid as the squids in the game, Unless you're playing with the motion controls. I found the motion controls are a bit frustrating, but you have the option to turn them off. I do and I like it that way.

The touchscreen can get a bit confusing, but once you've figured out everything, you'll navigate it well.

SOUND & MUSIC

The music's not bad, but I wouldn't consider it a true collection of masterpieces. You get a rock-alternative style of music, with a bit of cartoonish sounds interspersed into it for multi-player mode.

The best piece of music in my opinion is the octo valley mission theme in single player mode. The percussion feels like a disco song with a distorted guitar hitting at the same time as the drums. It's awesome and gets you excited to play. Why it didn't appear in multi-player kind of sucks, but hey, at least when online support for this game ends by the 2020's or so, you don't lose that awesome song. Hopefully by then, Nintendo will release a sequel on the next gen console.

The sound effects are OK too, they're nothing special, just some squid noises and splatting sounds.

COMPLAINTS

The internet whined about the game lacking some common features found in other FPS games, the biggest being voice chat.

Personally, for voice chat, some see it's absence as a liability, I see it as a blessing. For once in my life, I can play a shooter game without some 12 year old drama Prince calling me dirty names, and acting like a complete brat.

FINAL VERDICT

Lets be completely honest. While games like Call of duty are aimed at older gamers, and splatoon is aimed at the younger audience, it's the polar opposite of who will be playing what. The line-up outside of EB games on splatoon's release day was all guys my age (Mid-20s) And the number of kids you hear yelling on the mic playing call of duty or halo? too many to count.

9/10

While I'm in Quarantine I play this game and I enjoyed it. I play and play it again. Such a Fun Game!

When it was released i remember it was one of the most fun games and i used to go crazy when i had the Wii U, splatoon a colorful, cool and creative game with new gameplay mechanics (like the brush, roller and bucket weapons, not to mention the classic weapons that shoot colors) iconic characters like Callie and Marine, although online it pretty pisses off especially those who played with the roller (the game's op weapon), however online aside it was a really fun and innovative game, and then the game's spectacular music had nice pop songs to listen to like "Spicy Calamari Inkantion" (the game's most iconic song)