Splatoon Opinion

When I had first saw the gameplay for Splatoon, I was intrigued by the concept. The game seemed to have a fresh new take on the shooter genre that has seemed to be sagging over the pas few years. I already owned a wii u so there were no problems getting the game at launch. I was excited by the idea of the game, but could not have been more let down as the game is littered with annoyances that make it less enjoyable than watching ink dry. After combing though forums about the game, I was shocked to see how many people praise this game as a goty contender even though it falls short of standards set by shooters years ago.

The Design

From the very moment you start up the game you are met with the Squid Sisters. Two annoying characters that will haunt you for the rest of the game as they tell you what maps are available for the day. There is no skipping this and it gets really tiresome, really fast. The Squids Sisters will even drag you out of lobbies to give you their unskippable message of boredom every 4 hours. After you get through that, you are met with the hub, an extremely boring area where it is beneficial to just click on the icon on the gamepad than slow walk through the hub. The only thing that can be interesting about the hub is the miiverse posts that can range from creepy squid loving enthusiasts to funny, inappropriate posts that seemed to squeak past Nintendo filters. After you escape the boring hub you can finally get into the game.

The Single Player

The game promised to offer something many shooters have been ignoring for a long time, the singe player experience. What gamers got was the a bare-bones challenge mode at best since there is very little to suggest a story at all. The lore of the story is very boring which gives players no reason to collect the various scrolls that have been hidden throughout the levels (Stuff like the ink cleans up itself after the matches, who cares about that). The Boss battles are easy and have little personality like many of the characters in Splatoon. The final boss is so boring and comes out of nowhere, making the single player experience ultimately forgettable. What a lot of people say though is the multiplayer is the main focus of the game, but the multiplayer isn't the saving grace for Splatoon.7

Multiplayer

The game has 11 maps now to choose from, but you are limited to 2-3 every 4 hours which makes it likely you will play the same map 3 times in a row. You do get the choice between a ranked mode and a casual mode. In the casual mode you only play turf war, probably the most iconic and basic mode in splatoon, in ranked though, you can one of three modes which is also rotated every 4 hours. This makes it so you will probably not get the gamemode you want to play in ranked, but it really doesn't matter because most games will be over in the span of minutes as most teams will have bad players. Splat zones is probably the best of the three, but ultimately is a low scale version of turf war where it is hard to retake zones since there is no voice chat to coordinate to retake together. The only way to communicate is to morse code booyahs and C'mons. This deficit makes Tower control, the most unimaginative and boring gamemode, an exercise in futility as most games will end very quickly. The newest mode rainmaker is just tower control without the rails. This brings us to one of the worst part of the game, the gameplay.

Gameplay

The gameplay looked so fresh and new, but feels exactly like a game of Call of Duty. Nobody is communicating, everyone is spamming nades, everyone is running around until they die and respawning to repeat it over. The game even has kill streaks where you get air strikes or the op kraken for doing less than CoD, you shoot the ground you get to be invincible. The weapons don't feel very different within their classes and have no customization to them also, walls feel hard to climb in squid form, the crosshair never stays in the middle of the screen making it harder to lineup enemies, and the connections are terrible. The game doesn't appear to have servers and uses a ptp connection like CoD, but in Splatoons case it doesnt have local pairing, matching you with people from around the world. This results in a lot of lag, which is probably the reason for so many double splats and the many disconnects that occur during gameplay. Another frustrating aspect is if someone is disconnected than you get no replacement and they just sit in spawn until the match is over.

Soundtrack and misc

The Soundtrack is the worst part of the game. It is awful. Absolutely awful. The worst modern game soundtrack I have heard. Its just grunts and repetition. Are they even trying. Nintendo has so many awesome themes, mario, zelda, f-zero, but this is insulting. It plays after every game in every lobby and it sucks so bad. I was so surprised to find some people praising it. For other things, the amiibos aren't worth it for splatoon, the stores have to talk to you like the squid sisters and have equally no likable personalities.

Splatfest

Splatfest is dumb. Who wanted to know whats better between hotdogs and marshmallows? The transformer ones were a step in the right direction, but ultimately have no point as you lose everything you get. The spaltfest always goes down to whatever team had more wins. More wins = wins. There are only two criteria so the one that is weighed more always wins.

In closing this game is bad and it would be an insult if it got a goty nod when so many great games have come out and are coming out.

@the_truth; You need some cheese with that whine?

No wine, just truth

Ehhhh, I don't agree with how it's written but I agree with pretty much everything here.

Especially the music, it's some of the worst I've ever heard.

Its crying mate, all you did was complain in every single sentence. Whats your score for the game? Im curious.

Scores are overrated, no number is "the right number". Give a game a 9, some people will complain that its too high, some people will say its too low. There is no winning with a numbered score. I am simply stating whether it is a good, bad, or ok game. In this case it is bad.

@the_truth: Suit yourself then.

lol..dont listen to him...this is a joke review.

he has 9 posts. which means he just joined to bash the game...its pathetic..

luckily 2million people disagree. he is probably a xbox/playstation idiot who has no games to play ha!

Well then, we must all be lucky you aren't paid for these reviews.

Normally, a professional critic would use examples of something readers could agree with him on in order to make his point. "Element A is bad because B," where B is an element universally agreed as bad. "This music is bad because it loops every 5 seconds," where looping is something everyone can agree with is bad, thus the music is bad. However, you said, "the Soundtrack is the worst part of the game. It is awful. Absolutely awful."

Considering so many people love the soundtrack, it's easy to see how a review like yours would not be helpful to someone trying to make a purchase decision. If you can't pinpoint something the reader can agree with, he can't accept the point you were making. In the case of the "grunts" in the music, to be specific, you failed to understand that the vocals are muffled and warped to make it sound like you're listening to underwater recordings.

I guess it's a fair first try at a review. You've got some work ahead of you. Don't give up.

Tell me the game isnt bad compared to any other shooter. I own a wii u and wanted to like the game cause I dropped $60 on it, but I all I got was restricted, bland, and insulting bad content.

The soundtrack sucks because its grunts and repetition...

Tell me that splatoon soundtrack is good. Its Grunting, water effect or not. Grunts for almost 2 min. I expect better from Nintendo, this was phoned in.

dude...how dense can you be. i already told you millions of people think this game is good.

you join a forum just to shit on this game is pathetic.

Your blind defense of a game is pathetic... We can go around calling each other pathetic for hours if you want. (btw popular [if you can call < 2 mil popular] =/= good)

it will reach beyond 2 million easily in its lifetime...

popular doesnt equal good? i remember that back in the ps3 days when they were mad about the wii...haha

anyway... you did nothing but shit on the game..not one good thing was said...and im the one who's wrong? ok...

I said I liked the miiverse posts... its kinda hard to find good things to be honest

This game is not bad. It is a good game.

@KBFloYd: k... Im sorry I disgraced this masterpiece of a game. All youve done is say its good... so that really doesnt leave me with anything

i think the single player is weak... i think they need to work on that for the next game.

as for the multiplayer.... i love it... i think snipers are OP as hell...even more than the kraken and rollers(nini if your reading)

but they are in most FPS games...its only really annoying in arowana mall...everwhere else you can counter them with skill.

Listen, bud, no need to get so defensive. I'm trying to help you out since you're a little green.

All music is repetition. That victory music is only played for about 20 seconds, leaving little room for repetition. The themes and backdrop of Splatoon requires modern rock and j-pop music, such that orchestrated music would be out of place and out of character. A bit of critical thinking is required for reviews. Seriously, don't fret though. You'll get better with time and you have to believe that. Believe it in your heart.

except you know... verses...

I find there is really no skill needed in the game. People who were lvl 50 were still doing bad against lvl 10's. The mechanics are so bad in the game that really the optimal strategy is to jump and shoot since the connections are so bad. Killstreaks are even given without getting a splat so its not hard to get a kraken and roll over some people. There are far too many levels with spots to camp objectives where you can just spam the entire game...

those lvl 50's are just playing the game longer...lvl does not equal skill....even in cod prestige 10 people suck too.

yes the biggest thing people do in the game is jump and shoot...it works a lot of times..so why not do it. i dont do it btw... i never jump shot ever....

i think the skill comes in the outmanuvering in the ink....like painting a wall while running up it and killing someone from the back. or coming face to face with someone who has a weapon with more range and you run in the ink and pop out closer or from the side to kill him.

inking walls and juking people in the ink is where i see skill. of course aiming has some skill too.

your right about people camping some spots and then there is no way to get past it.... you either have to prepareself early in the match by placing spawn beacons on the other side of the map or something.... getting bodied and spawn trapped happens it lots of games. like i said arowana mall it happens to me a lot.

since there is only 4 people in the game if you get splatted it could turn the whole game around for the other team. where other shooters theres 6 or 8 teammates so you have more room to mess around.

@the_truth: See, this is what I was talking about when I said you should support you points with evidence the readers can agree with. You said, "except you know... verses..." when you yourself used Zelda music as an example of good music despite it not having vocals. These are the types of critical techniques that you should work on in writing.

You'll get there eventually, but you need lots and lots of practice. And be a little more accepting of constructive criticism too. You've got to learn from all these mistakes you're making, after all.

Uninspired post. A lot of old complaints, and a lot of subjective crap.

There is more I could talk about, like the inability to change loadouts in lobbies or the random abilities on clothes that make it so you really never get what you want. These complaints are from the current version of the game so....

I didn't like Splatoon, but I don't agree with everything here. Single player always seemed to be an afterthought and I don't remember being promised anything robust. I mean, the first thing Nintendo showed off regarding the game was multiplayer. It's obviously designed to be a multiplayer focused experience.

Which leads me to the CoD reference. Splatoon didn't feel like CoD at all. Yeah, there's grenade spamming and constant death, but I feel that is an oversimplification. The game felt different because the objective wasn't to kill the enemies; it's to paint as much of the world as possible. Most players I encountered were more concerned with that, rather than hunting me down. This does depend on their weapon of choice, from what I observed. If a player had the sniper, they were usually picking off players. In contrast, players with rollers were more invested in painting. It's a shame one can't change their weapon during the game(not sure if that has changed by now).

Your writing has room for improvement. Use more examples to help explain why you didn't like something instead of simply saying it's stupid. Avoid redundancies as much as possible. Notice in your multiplayer paragraph how you state that the worst part of the game is the gameplay, but then make the same claim about the soundtrack. The best way to catch these is to write the review in Word or another editor and read over it a few times. Lastly, don't break your review up into sections. Try to make it flow from one aspect to the next without the need for section headers.

The closest game I can compare it to is CoD really. The gameplay has the run around until dead mentality to it, and really its just cod if the objective was to shoot the floor and had little customization

I couldn't have said it better myself. Still, @the_truth deserves props for his use of images in the margins to break up what could have otherwise looked like a wall of text. Good move.

On an earlier note, Snake5, my belief is that the lack of a loadout screen within lobbies wasn't a mistake.

Taken as separate problems, the 2-3 map rotation and weapon/gear lock seem like newbie accidents made by developers inexperienced in multiplayer. But if you look at them together, it actually looks like a calculated move.

Since you can't swap classes for each particular map, the game incentivises players into choosing classes for a particular set of maps instead. I love my Sploosh-o-matic, but if the map rotation includes Arowana Mall and/or Moray Towers, I'm at a serious disadvantage against enemy chargers. It behooves me to choose either a sniper class or an anti-sniper class like the Heavy Splatling. But whatever I choose has to work in the other maps that isn't Arowana Mall or Moray Towers, so if the other map is Port Mackerel for example, then I need something that can survive snipers but doesn't need to charge, perhaps a stealth setup or another long range weapon. By having those limits, the game lets players master new classes while simultaneously preventing class fatigue and homogenization that you see in other shooters.

I dont think they have made oversights, they just made bad decisions. I find with no loadout screen, people always stick with top tier weapons and never really deviate from their comfort zone.

@the_truth: It depends on the map, youll see me switching weapons for certain maps or modes. It goes by play style, some like sniping on some maps, some like me like zapping and cover spraying, some like more accurate damage packing guns, some like spreaders, its all depends.

You make a lot of good points that I've touched on before. It's true it's game does play like COD with paint (it's an easy shooter, this isn't last of us MP, Socom or counterstrike) but I think you're being too harsh on the gameplay itself as it is more fun to play than COD.

I'm assuming you've only played in random lobbies based on your comments. It's actually way more fun with a full party on Skype (especially the ranked modes) and the game is the most fair with 8 friends who all live in the same country because this games servers are ass; they lag horribly because of a lack of region locking (thanks, nintendo, the one thing we DO want region locked...smh)

About the guns and loadouts; they keep adding "new" ones for "free" and there's like a billion now, but all that content should have been there at launch. And since you can't customize loadouts, basically you're getting the same weapons over and over again in these patches just with a new set of subs and specials.

Players aren't allowed to customize loadouts because they're balanced as a set. Some really good weapons have cheese subweapons or specials, while some cheese weapons have wrecking ball subweapons or specials. If players could customize each item, they'd choose the strongest in each category. By having them as sets, developers can leave in certain ability gaps and focus on specializing each class, eliminating an "all-purpose" class as much as possible.

If there was one thing I disliked about Treyarch's Pick 10 innovations was that classes all began to bleed into one another. Players would pick all the attachments, equipment, and perks to balance out the weaknesses of their class, so all classes started moving to the "center". Short range on shotgun? Put a range extender on it. Need more short range power on your AR? Increase its ROF. Every class became multi-purpose ever since BO2.

TF2 does it best, IMHO. You have classes, that each have sets that have limited customization. There's still something for everyone, but there isn't "everything" for everyone.

Sure there is more you could talk about. You pretty much said no positives. You're obviously being too harsh in the "review". A lot of the complaints you made we're all aware of, since the game has been out for a while. So I don't see the point of a overly negative review long after the game has launched. Furthermore, you're clearly overreacting on some of the negatives, like how "similar it is to CoD" or how much you go on about how you hate the music. This isn't a review, it's a rant.

@elheber: I've never really played COD and I've never played TF2 so I dunno how it works in those games.

The kraken is OP as **** though.

I played CoD since Modern Warfare and I played Team Fortress since TFC back when Half-Life got a GoTY edition (1999-ish?). Here's a simple rundown:

From at least MW1 onward, you got to choose one from each category: a primary weapon and its attachment, a secondary weapon, an explosive and/or tactical equipment, and 1 of each perk from a set of 3 different categories. Moreover, the attachments for each weapon class were very unique to that weapon class. Only SMGs had rate of fire attachments, for example.

Then from Black Ops 2 onward, CoD started having extremely flexible loadout options. In a nutshell, instead of having one of each category, you could now pick anything and pair it with anything else. Whereas before you were forced to play to the strengths of your class and play against its weakness, now you could choose from any attachment and perk to eliminate those weaknesses before you even enter a match. Classes began to blend into one another.

TFC is played with 9 classes each with their individual roles. Scouts run the objective, medics support the offensives, spies sabotage enemy defenses, etc. Pyros are great against spies, which in turn are great against engineers, which are great against scouts, which are great against snipers, and so on, and so forth. No one class is good on their own and thus require both teamwork and to play exclusively to the strengths of your class. Every class was a whole different game. TF2 lets each class have different loadouts, but they remain exclusive to that class, thus ensuring play remains unique for each.

I don't think of Splatoon weapon as CoD-style make-what-you-want loadouts, but rather TF-style class sets meant to be unique to a play style.

I changed it, its not really a review I agree. I didnt want a professional style review. Also I dont think their is anything overly negative about it... It gets all the hate it deserves there are very few positives that I can really attribute to this game if any. Everything that is done is done better elsewhere. (Side note: not overreacting to the soundtrack or the fact that its CoD. Really im putting this out there cause everyone here is talking about splatoon all the time, I really dont get what there is to like. I know that there arent a lot of games for wii u, but are we that desperate?)

Right. So are you supposed to be The Grinch or something? You couldn't stand how some people could possibly have fun with a game you don't like, you must put an end to it immediately!

No, I like games like anyone else here. I can get if people just like it, but damn in the hype for goty nods and awards overdoing it. I really dont think its a good game let alone a goty title. I wanted to like it, but it is a truly bad game in my opinion

Obviously if you don't like it, you're not going to even understand how it could be a GOTY contender. It's my personal GOTY because it's the most fun game I've played this year. It's an extremely refreshing take on the genre, and the squid mechanics are super fun. The fact that it has already racked up more gameplay hours than both Smash and Mario Kart 8 tells me it's easily one of my favourite Wii U games. Yes there are oversights in the game, some of which you've mentioned. Such as not being able to change gear in the lobby. But big deal. The shortcomings of the game aren't enough to overshadow the shear enjoyment I personally get from the core gameplay.

You last sentence. "Truly bad" and your "opinion". What does that even mean? It's objectively bad from your subjective point of view?

The big thing I dislike about your thread is how you're trying to push your opinion as if it were fact. The phrasing of your sentences. You don't like the game. Other people do, and some of which think it's GOTY worthy. In the end, it's just an opinion.

You claim it is a fresh take on the genre, but really it plays exactly like call of duty... Minus loadouts, making the objective shooting the floor and making it a cartoon. The only innovative thing is being able to change into a squid which really is subtracted from the objective...

I love Splatoon.

I have to jump in here. Splatoon is a fresh take on the genre, and to claim it isn't because the core gameplay element is the same, is faulty. I do not validate your point that the core gameplay is identical, but even if it were true, that fact alone would not bar the game from being a twist on the genre.

It's like saying The Lego Movie is no different than The Matrix because they share identical plots. Pacing, tone, setting, characters, art style, and a myriad of other elements all combine into a something that makes The Lego Movie wholly different from The Matrix, and they can't be ignored to just make a point. Call of Duty solidified a mainstream version of shooters that all have similar tone, similar graphic styles, similar progression systems, similar cinematic framing, EVEN SIMILAR COVER ART with a lone soldier walking toward the foreground.

Splatoon breaks free from all of those conventions and it's unfair to ignore everything for the sake of making a point. And I still don't validate your argument that the core gameplay is exactly like Call of Duty, but I'm afraid that if I get into it my posts will turn into walls of text.

/rant

If the game plays exactly the same how is it a fresh take on the genre? The elements that would have made it a fresh take on the genre have become squandered and anything that is different in the game proved to be a faulty design choice

I answered that question in the post you quoted. To put it another way, a genre is more than simply gameplay.

I'm sorry, but controlling turf by painting the ground and squidding around feels completely unique to me. The fact that you could be killing enemies, but forgetting to paint the ground, then the enemy returning having more ground to move through and countering is something I haven't found in another game.

I just know that I can't stop playing it and it's all I can think about. Not many games have done that to me in a while.