PixlBit

BaD #15

Hello Pixlbit, how are you?

A while back I posted that I've gotten Splatoon, if you remember, I got it around August or September, the time was still fairly fresh. But now it's time I give my opinion on the game based on what I played. 

Splatoon is Nintendo's take on online shooters, it's a third-person shooter. But instead of traditional guns with traditional ammo, you use guns that shoot ink or paint. The guns look like water guns which is very neat. In this game, you are a kid that can transform into a Squid. Yeah, a Squid-Kid I guess. You can transform at will whenever you want, though you don't stay transformed by pressing a button. You have to hold the button. But you're wondering what's the point of the Squid-Kid transformation right? Well remember that ink, you can turn into a Squid and swim in it to travel faster around the stages. Not only that, but you can travel on any surface with your own color ink. You can even ride on walls which is fun. There are limitations on what kind of surface you can ink though, like glass and tarp.

I said this game was a third-person shooter right? It's mostly online focused, and here's how it works, the online mode is 4 vs.4 Team Deathmatch called Turf War. I works like this, you and three other Squid-Kids take on another team of four Squid-Kids, and you and your own team have to ink the most turf. You can kill your opponents but kills don't count towards winning the match, rather painting more territory than the opposing team means you win. But killing an opponent means that team has one less player marking territory. So it may not count towards winning the match, but it plays a strategic role towards victory. 

The game makes use of the Gamepad if you could believe that. You can use an analog to aim or use the Gamepad gyroscope, I personally prefer the gyro. Not only that but the touchscreen is used too. It shows you the map and it is used to show the locations of your teammates. You can tap on your teammate to warp or jump to their location which is very cool. You can even cancel the order to jump to another player. The touchscreen is also used for certain specials which I will speak of in a bit. The matches are very brief, lasting 3 minutes.They go by very quck actually. There is surprisingly alot of strategy involved in a game about shooting paint. Like what you have equiped on your kid. Yes the clothing plays a vital role. Each clothing item has what you might call perks. You have 3 pieces of clothing equipment, headgear, clothing like shirts and jackets, and footwear like shoes and stuff. Each piece of equipment has perks, you have to level them up to unlock a perk. It's random I think, not sure but perks range from faster respawn to moving around faster in ink. Equipment has perk slots, like it may only have 1 slot for a perk, sometimes 2, or even 3.

Weapons are very neat too, like I mentioned, they look like modified water guns and other sort of contraptions, like futuristic weaponry to stuff like paint rollers and buckets. Each weapon is divided into weapon types, like snipers, shotguns, and such. But not every weapon in the same class is the same. Weapons come with secondary weapons like throwing ink bombs to putting up sprinklers that can be used to ink turf for you or can be used offensively. Secondary weapons consume ink too so you have to refill by simply swimming inside ink the same color as yours. Weapons also come with a special that you can activate by painting turn. It can range from showing your teammates enemy locations to turning into a kraken that makes you invulnerable for s short time, and inkstrikes that are missiles you can launch anywhere on the make to ink turf.

You can buy said equipment and weapons at stores in the hub world of Inkopolis. Inkopolis is where you start from when you boot up the game. Here you can head into various areas of the hub, you can head to Booyah Base which has the shops to buy equipment from. You can also head to the Battle Dojo which allows you to play offline with a second player. Or if you'd rather not play online, you can head to Octo Valley and play through a single player campaign. It really is so you can practice and learn how to play the game before you dip your tentacles online. I recommend going there first.

Inkopolis Plaza also has an arcade machine that has this retro styled game called Squid Jump. It also has amiibo function too, which is locked content unfortunately. In the plaza, you can also see other players you've gone against online walking around. You can even see their Miiverse posts and the equipment they carry. You can even order the equipment they have considering you have enough in-game money. The plaza gets very lively during Splatfests.

Splatfests are special events that go on every once in a while that has you vote based on the theme. Like Autobots vs. Decepticons. You get a special shirt based on what you voted that shows your support on that team. After the Splatfest, you get these Sea Snail Shells based on how well you did which can be used to add more perk slots. You can have only 3, but if the equipment you have only has 1 or 2, you can add another.

The Splatfests are hosted by Callie and Marie, known as the Squid Sisters, which are pop stars in the game. You'll be seeing alot of them often as they are the first thing you see when you load the game, minus the very first time you play it. They announce Splatfest teams, new updates, new weapons, and they also announce which stages are in rotation for online.

Let's talk about the online for a bit more, there's two modes, Turf War, and Ranked Match. We already talked about Turf War, so let's go to ranked. Ranked Matches is where you go to prove you're the freshest of the fresh. It works like any ranked match of any other game, you win, your rank goes up, you lose, it goes down. However the modes you're playing within Ranked are different than just inking turf. They range from a King of the Hill like mode, to Rain Maker which is this weapon you have to obtain and place it on the enemy base to win. The rewards here are that your rank goes up as well as your level, which are 2 different things. Level is default for both modes as your ranked level is only for ranked matches. You get more exp points in ranked for winning, but you get less if you lose. Everyone has to do their part in ranked. But as I've said before, you just have to have the right equipment that fits your needs.

The game has had alot of updates that added new content like new weapons and more stages as well as new equipment. I think I read that some of it was stuff that wasn't ready at launch, but any other company would of passed it off as paid dlc. Nintendo didn't, and for that I'm thankful. Outside amiibo, there is no paid content in the game.

One thing I would of liked though is a bit more variety in the online modes. In the Transformers games, there's this mode called Escalation which has you fight waves of enemies that increase in difficulty and numbers in each wave, which is a horde mode. I would of loved that as a 4 player co-op mode where you fight the bad guys of Octo Valley.

Final thoughts: Overall, the game is really fun and the music is surprisingly good, even really catchy and matches the theme/style of the game. It's an inkredibly colorful game, it's very vibrant. You know what it reminds me of? Of the 90's with all those colors, and more specifically, Nickelodeon. Back then the logo was like a splat of orange paint, and they used to have a show called Slime Time Live which they would often use alot of slime.

I don't think I've ever had so much fun with an online shooter, but to be honest I never played that many online shooters. I've played Halo with friends, but never competitively against others.  It's really hard to get angry in a match when you're having a blast. Well for me in my case. The game has no voice-chat which is everyones number 1 gripe, I know why they didn't add it, but they should of added it as an option. Or someone needs to tell Nintendo you can mute other players. You can sort of communicate with your fellow Squids, in a limited way. The game has even gone around that Red vs. Blue team thing from other games, but that will get thrown out the window once the Pokemon Red and Blue Splatfest rolls around.

This is exactly something I would of imagined if Nintendo took a spin on the shooter genre. It really is a fresh take on the online shooter, really hope to see a Splatwoon.

Have you ever played Splatoon? So that's it for now, thanks for reading and...

*Images provided via my Wii U and Splatoon*