- Nintendo Wii U / Rated E10+ / $59.99 / released May 2015
- OFFICIAL SITE: splatoon.nintendo.com
- PURCHASE LINK: Amazon
- FINAL: You WANT this game. 4 out of 5 stars
In “Splatoon,” Nintendo tosses online teams into paintball arenas where the primary goal is not to gun each other down, but instead to cover the floor with as much color as possible. As Nintendo’s take on the crowded genre of online shooter games, “Splatoon” stands out as a blissfully silly mess.
The stars of “Splatoon” are the Inklings, strange children who transform into cartoon squids at will. Coming to us from a world full of marine life puns, Inklings dress in impossibly cool fashions while squaring off in sloppy, paint-spraying turf wars. Not only are squids well within the game’s inky theme, but they provide the game’s traversal gimmick: in squid form, players can dive into their own puddles and quickly move around the map. Swimming in ink also replenishes your ammo supply, even though that does not make much sense. The balance between painting/fighting as a kid and moving/refilling as a squid creates a risk versus reward situation that makes the game feel so much more daring than a typical team-based combat game. Since your paint has a lasting, vital importance to each battle – winners are determined by fluid remaining on the battlefield – every shot you take counts towards the win.
There are plenty of weapons to take into battle, all Super Soaker-esque takes on high-powered weaponry. Machine guns and sniper rifles are represented, but “Splatoon” also honors its theme by including weapons that are actually just gigantic paint rollers. Over and over again, “Splatoon” seeks to prove that it is not just a shooter game with a bloodless, family-friendly theme; it has evolved beyond that into its own unique beast.
However, some lessons that other online shooters have learned seem to have escaped Nintendo’s sniper scope. “Splatoon” provides only five battle maps, for example, and limits online games to two of those (seemingly chosen at random) doled out in four hour blocks.
More worrisome is that some of Nintendo’s own historical game design lessons have been ignored. Through legendary franchises like “Mario Kart” and “Super Smash Bros.,” Nintendo has long focused on creating games that are fun for players who happen to all be in the same room… not to mention being fun for a solo gamer battling computer-controlled opponents. “Splatoon” instead provides “separate but unequal” options for these configurations. A one-on-one mode lets two players sitting on the same couch face off against each other, but it’s nowhere near the lovely blast of the four-on-four online matches. The single-player adventure mode fares a little better, providing several hours of play that combines ink-shooting with “Super Mario Galaxy”-style exploration, but it is still not the marquee attraction. Sure, you can master the controls inside these alternate modes, but it is unfortunate that Nintendo could not find a way to replicate the core game in a manner that fits classic styles of play.
These are knocks against “Splatoon” chiefly because the game is so much fun that you simply will want more ways to play it. Nintendo has promised forthcoming free updates that will add more maps and improve online matchmaking options, so note that if you pick it up now, you’ll have a bigger game by the end of the summer.
Naturally, a review today cannot speak to those future updates, but even in this initial state of release, “Splatoon” is an absolute hoot. The game is simultaneously outrageously hip and a winking parody of teen culture, fit inside a solid shooting match and charmingly draped in the tentacles of an unexpected squid motif.
This review is based on product supplied by the publisher. Image courtesy Nintendo of America. EDIT: By time of publication, “Splatoon” had been updated to include six online battle maps, not five.
