I have been anxious to see Splatoon up close and personal since it was first announced in a Nintendo Direct conference. First off the game was going to release with amiibo. Little Inkling amiibo with funky little hairdos and super soaker type paint sprayers. And if the collectible gods smiled down on me I would also be able to get the special three pack of amiibo that would give me the little green squid. But of course pre-orders sold out online way before I ever made it to a computer to click any kind of link. I could see myself paying outrageous prices on some auction site just to get the full set. I was doomed.
So when launch day rolled around I decided to be a responsible adult and go to the office until the store opened rather than camping out front with a cup of coffee and my 3DS because who was going to wait out for a kids’ game and corresponding amiibo, right? You know how this worked out, right? By the time I got back to the store (no more than 30 minutes after they opened) all of the three packs were gone and they were down to a couple of the boy/girl Inkling single packs. Apparently there had been a line outside of the door when they opened and they sold out of the three pack immediately, so I grabbed what I could and ran. My next stop was a local toy store to pick up my daughter’s birthday present (3 weeks early, thank you very much) and lo and behold they had a full stack of the three packs so I immediately snatched one up and raced for the register (with the amiibo and the present).
What followed was one long ass day as I waited for the kiddo’s bedtime to come so that I could try that puppy out. I always play games before I allow Pea to play them, even kid’s games (ask me how long it took me to “accidentally” finish Pinkie Pie’s Party for the DS) because I don’t want any nasty surprises. Once I had the game room all to myself I popped the game into the Wii U and grabbed the Wii remote and got ready to play. That’s when I got my first nasty little surprise. Single player games have to be played with the Wii U GamePad. No controllers allowed in the single player game and if you are going to play couch co-op you need to have either a Wii U/Wii Pro controller or rig up a controller by taping a wii remote to a classic controller. So at this point it was a really good thing that I had waited until after Pea had gone to bed because we didn’t have any Pro controllers in the house. (Add another 50 bucks to that game purchase.)
So finally to get to the game play. The game begins by letting you do a couple of simple customizations including sex (boy or girl but really they don’t look much different), skin color (there are 7 shades to choose from), and eye color (again 7 colors to choose from) before dropping you at the beginning of a map and giving you some basic instructions and showing you how to pop balloons with paint using the GamePad and it’s motion control to aim and shoot. I found the motion control too loose for my taste, but some reading online showed me that I could turn them off after the tutorial was done through the options menu (which I did as soon as I possibly could). The button controls themselves were pretty simple. Run, aim, shoot, special attack, re-center camera, squid swim, jump, etc. And they controls all seem way too confusing and the best way to learn how they work is to just actually use them out of the confines of the tutorial.
At launch the game had three modes, Battle Dojo (1v1 couch co-op), Online Squad Based, and Single Player RPG. At the end of the tutorial you find yourself dropped into the game’s lobby where you can see some of the other people who are online (and the last people that you played the online squad based mode with). Immediately an animated billboard starts up and two female Inklings (Callie and Marie) in party girl dress using slang straight out of a bad Beverly Hills 90210 knock-off introduce you to the modes, maps, and upgrade shops that are available to you. So just in case you thought that it would be impossible to stereotype some cute little squid humanoids you would apparently be mistaken. So after telling you what your current options are, the squid sisters instruct you to “Stay Fresh!” and drop you back in to the lobby.
The first thing that the game suggests after that is that you enter an online battle so I thought, what the hell? I walked on in to the battle arena and proceeded to get my ass handed to me a few times. I quickly figured out that this “kid’s” game was operating on a traditional squad based model. We needed snipers, tanks, and coverage players (unfortunately no healers here). It would be almost impossible to make any headway in this game without having upgraded weapons and gear that has to be purchased with money earned in the matches. So you really have no choice, but to tough it out. I immediately made a mental note to myself that this was something that I was going to have to do to and for Pea’s character immediately after she created it so that she wouldn’t get frustrated in a situation where winning would be almost completely impossible.
The thing that I have found most frustrating up to this point as been the online matchmaking. Once 8 people enter a lobby (if you have friends online they can choose to enter your lobby and be placed in your matchmaking pool) players are randomly sorted into 2 teams of four players. And that sorting seems to be truly random. Several times in that first night (and in subsequent nights since) I have seen teams sorted in such a way that had 2-3 level 15+ players sorted on to one team while the other was populated with players who were less than level 5. In those cases we got our asses definitely handed to us.
The final mode that I explored in that first hour was the single player RPG mode (Hero mode) where I was charged by Captain Cuttlefish with saving squidnapped Zapfish from the villianous Octarians in order to restore the world’s power supply. I only had time to play through the first level in that hour, but I have to admit that it was the least exciting part of the game. The only benefit to playing this mode seems to be the fact that you gain upgraded weapons and gear for completing quests in Hero Mode.
The first night I started playing this game I had every intention on playing for about an hour or so to get enough time in to play the review and get a feel for it so that Pea and I could play. Unfortunately, I ended up running into someone on my friends list in the online lobby and playing match after match both with and against him. Two hours later I pried my cramped hands from around the GamePad (I did mention that this was the only way to play single player mode?) and finally went to bed. Nintendo has found a way of restricting my gameplay time (and possibly causing a new RSI). In the end, Splatoon has been the kid’s game that is not. Here we have a game that can be a great couch co-op game to play with your kids and an awesome strategic squad based game to play alone.
Nintendo is adding more modes, levels, and weapons to the game on a regular basis. Since the launch of the game that have already added 1 new gun, 2 new levels, and Ranked Battle Mode (which has Castle Defense/King of Hill properties). While the cost might be a little steep if you have to add on the purchase of a new $50 controller to the $60 game, Splatoon is a lot of fun and definitely worth the price of admission.
