Splatoon Review

Splatoon

I really wish I liked Splatoon more than I do. It’s such a great idea, like a third-person shooter Battle Painters. And if any other studio had been behind it, I think it would have turned out great. Alas, Nintendo just doesn’t know how to make a good online game. Wait, I take that back. Mario Kart 8 was superb, so I really don’t understand how they messed this up. Oddly, you have to choose your weapon (i.e. character class) before you join an online game. You can’t see what other players are choosing, which makes it impossible to create a balanced team. Then if you decide you don’t like the weapon you chose, you have to exit the lobby and join a new match. So ridiculous…

Oh, but that’s not the last of it. When you join a friend’s game, you won’t always be put on the same team. My brother and I tried to play together several times and were only on the same team maybe 20% of the time. Team assignment seemed to be completely random. It wouldn’t even try to balance out the levels of each player. I’m kind of late to the Splatoon party, though, and most players are already at Level 30+. That means they have access to better weapons, which is frustrating. It takes too long to level up, earn gold, and buy/unlock new stuff. I’m already running out of patience at Level 7. I hate most of the guns, anyway. Because we’re dealing with paint, most weapons have a very short range. Only the paint roller has been fun to use, but, going back to my previous point, it can be annoying if everyone on your team chooses a roller.

I think the only way to really enjoy this game is if you have enough personal friends to play with. That way, you can set up a private match and circumvent the daily arena restrictions (yes, every day, you only have access to two arenas for some dumbass reason). That would also let you lay down some ground rules and allow for better coordination with teammates. For lone gamers, however, I just can’t recommend this, despite how much I want to support the game’s originality. The single-player mode may be a nice consolation prize, but the meat of the game is the online mode, and it is just way too unfriendly for anyone who has ever played a good online multiplayer game before.

Reviewer

Clark
I love gaming so much, I wrote a book about it.

Published by

Clark

I love gaming so much, I wrote a book about it.