Splatoon 2 Review

"It is very much a sequel." Those were the exact words I spoke when I was asked what I thought of the game after playing the demo. Of course, I must specify that I mean this in a good way, as the person I said that to wasn't sure if I meant that as a good thing or bad thing. In this case, I mean it as "More of the same stuff that made the last iteration great but with changes and improvements made."

In case you never heard of the first game, Splatoon is a shooter with a very Nintendo twist; instead of firing bullets from their guns, players fire ink. Players take control of an "Inkling" - no, not a slight knowledge or suspicion about something - a human-like creature that can switch between bipedal and squid forms at will. While in human form, Inklings can fire their primary weapon, throw out their sub weapon, and activate their special ability when available, while turning into a squid allows them to squeeze through things like fences and grates, and swim through their own ink as if it were a deep puddle; this, in itself, allows Inklings to move around faster, swim up walls, hide, and regenerate ink more rapidly.

I'm not going to go into detail about why the first game was great, so suffice to say, it was a very creative game and was one of the Wii U's top selling games. Splatoon 2 is not far off from the original. Like I said, it's very much a sequel. It has the same modes, many of the same weapons and equipment, around half of the same characters, and basically the same plot. However, don't let this make the game sound like a carbon copy. All of the levels in single player are new, and in addition, the player now gets multiple weapons to use throughout the course of the single player mode. Much like the first game, the single player mode consists of a series of levels that the player can tackle in any order per world, through which the player goes from point A to point B fighting enemies and platforming around using their ink and various ink-related objects and obstacles.

Many of the same objects, obstacles and enemies come from the first game, but the game does also introduce new enemies and level elements as well. Everything that gets reused is brought back on the basis of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Well, okay, in a lot of cases it's more like, "If it ain't broke, tweak it a bit." Enemies like the basic Octotrooper, Octobombers, and Octosnipers are exactly as they were in the first game, but some enemies are slightly altered, like how Shielded Octotroopers' shields can be broken with enough persistence, and Octolings - the evil version of Inklings - can now appear with some of the same weapons that the player can use. Likewise, some stages in multiplayer return, but are modified in one way or another. For example, Moray Towers returns from the first game, but now has Inkrails in several locations that make it somewhat easier to slip past some of the map's choke points.

As previously mentioned, Splatoon 2 also introduces the use of several weapons throughout single player, as opposed to being locked into a single gun for the base game and two sets of challenge levels via amiibo like in the first game. This is awesome because it allows players to become familiar with some of the more tricky weapons without having to do so under the pressure of an online match. For the most part, Splatoon 2 will force the player into a specific weapon the first time through a level, with that level being tailored that weapon, but any of the available weapons can be used once the level is beaten once. Thankfully, despite some levels being designed around specific weapons, these levels will be slightly modified when played with a weapon with clearly different abilities. For example, there is a level designed around the long range abilities of the Splat Charger. If the player were to play this level with the Splat Roller - a much shorter ranged weapon - platforms would be present to make reaching certain targets possible. Changing your weapon only impacts difficulty if you're not good with what you pick.

As a bit of an unfortunate result to the inclusion of multiple weapons in single player, the Splatoon amiibo no longer offer challenges as they did in the first game. Instead, they reward equipment for multiplayer and can act as a loadout saver. This somewhat undermines the value of the amiibo, since they no longer give you extra content to work towards and instead just hand you things for basically nothing. For me at least, it was a little bit sad to find that there aren't any challenge levels, since I loved the Kraken challenges from the first game, but at the same time, I'm glad to not see the return of minimal ink challenges.

Speaking of the Kraken, every one of the special abilities from the first game are completely replaced. This can be considered a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your opinion of how balanced they were. There are some abilities that parallel old ones, like how the Ink Armor is similar to the Bubbler, and how Tenta Missiles and Ink Storm are both somewhat similar to the Inkstrike. However, the only directly returning ability is the Bomb Launcher, which is basically Bomb Rush but with a specific type of bomb rather than always being the same bombs that are the weapon's sub.

Most of the main weapons themselves are carried over from the first game. I'm no where near knowledgeable on the subject of Splatoon weapon stats to say how heavily they were changed when they were brought over, but as far as I can tell, the biggest changes lie in the fact that all of the special abilities are new. I believe that many weapons also had their sub weapons changed, but again, it's hard for me to tell since I didn't exactly go about memorizing every weapon set from the first game.

Of course, Splatoon 2 does introduce new weapons of it's own. One such weapon is the Spat Dualies (and variants thereof), a pair of rapid-fire handgun-like shooters that, along with its given sub and special, also give the player the ability to do a quick dash-dodge move by pressing B with firing. This dash move not only allows the player to quickly close or create a gap between them and an opponent while in humanoid form, but it also focuses the firepower of both shooters into one stream until the player moves or runs out of ink, allowing them to quickly take out their target. In the right hands, the Dualies are deadly.

Unfortunately, at the time of this review, the Splat Dualies are the only new weapon type available for use in multiplayer. Single player does have the Brella, a shotgun-like umbrella that can open up to act as a shield or fire the shield itself to quickly advance, but as it stands it's exclusive single player. More weapons will be added over time, in the same vein as the first game, but right now the first game's arsenal feels bigger. Because of this, if you played the first game and move on to this one, a lot of your time and effort in multiplayer will be toward re-unlocking what you already had, and not even every weapon from the previous game. Some weapons, like the Hydra Splatling and - my personal favorite Charger - the Squiffer, did not make a return. It's always possible that they'll get re-added via updates, but that doesn't help the current situation of a lackluster arsenal.

Some of the old weapons were given new abilites, however, and each were given a variant that work around this, such as the Flingza Roller and Goo Tuber. Roller-type weapons now fling ink in a vertical line when flicked in the air, giving them greater reach, and Charger-type weapons can hold their charge for a time while swimming through ink. Although, I wouldn't say that this justifies the lack of new weapons, since you only unlock one new weapon per multiplayer level-up, with the only exception being every five levels you'll unlock two. There are boosters available to increase the amount of experience you get per match, but even these don't make leveling up much more quick and they are limited by how many tickets you have, which can only be obtained in limited supply from single player or as a random reward from the new multiplayer mode, Salmon Run.

The online versus modes are all the same as they were the first game, with only one of them being altered in any way. Like with weapons, this can be good or bad depending on your personal feeling with the modes. The series' signature mode is Turf Wars; two teams of four compete to cover the most amount of ground in ink before the end of the match. To a new player, this mode may sound simple, but real strategy does apply to it; control over the map is important, so securing choke points is a good idea, and although killing isn't the name of the game, doing so helps slow down how quickly your opponents can cover ground (literally).

There are also three ranked modes as well: Splat Zones, Rainmaker, and Tower Control. Splat Zones is essentially King of the Hill, except instead of standing in the zone for a given amount time, you must have a majority of the zone covered in your team's ink color for a given amount of time. Rainmaker is similar to Capture the Flag, except you must take the Rainmaker from the center of the map to your opponent's side of the map. The player that holds the Rainmaker will suffer from a small movement penalty, will be restricted from certain areas of certain maps, and is given a beacon that makes them always visible to enemies, even while swimming. However, the Rainmaker also acts as a powerful weapon, so the player carrying it isn't completely helpless. Originally, the Rainmaker fired a large column of ink when fully charged, but in Splatoon 2, it's basically a rocket launcher, so it rewards accuracy more than simple spamming like the old version did. Lastly, Tower Control is what it sounds like: players fight to control the Tower. It's a bit similar to Rainmaker, but instead of taking a weapon to the enemy's side of the map, the weapon is a floating platform that must be stood upon in order to move it.

In addition to these modes, Splatoon 2 introduces the series' first online cooperative mode, Salmon Run. In this mode, four players team up to defeat boss enemies to gather a specific number of Golden Eggs before the end of the round while fending off an onslaught of not-as-important Salmon mooks. This is easily Splatoon 2's greatest edition; I love this mode, and I've heard nothing but praise for the mode from other critics. The only bit of negativity about the mode itself is that you're forced into one of four weapons on rotation after every round, but I find this helps increase the intensity of the mode by making it possible that you'll have to use a weapon you're not good with. In addition to randomized weapons, players will also be given two uses of a random special, which to my knowledge is limited to one of four options: Splash Down, Sting Ray, Ink Jet, and the Bomb Launcher. Should a player die, they will turn into a lifesaver, and the player will be instantly revived if this lifesaver gets hit by an ally's attack.

This mode is awesome, so you'd figure players would want to play it all the time, right? Right, but they can't. In Nintendo's dumbest decision of the year, Salmon Run can only be played during certain time intervals. This can be anywhere from twenty-four hour intervals, to twelve hour intervals, to not at all. Yes. That's right. There are times where Salmon Run is outright unplayable, sometime hours at a time, some times for an entire day. That's right! A whole day during which you can't play an awesome game mode in the $60 product that you bought! I've heard that this is so that players can't grind out the mode's rewards, but in that case the rewards should be time-based, not the entire mode!

Despite this, I give Splatoon 2 a 5 out of 5. It may feel lacking in content now, but that's how the first game started off too, at just look at how many weapons and maps (and game modes if I recall) it got. I'm going to give the game the benefit of the doubt and assume that it will get plenty of new weapons down the line. Maybe if we complain enough, they'll also remove the scheduling system on Salmon Run?...

Splatoon 2 is a lot like the boss of Sector 3 of its single player mode: it may seem like a lazy rehash at a glance, but it's got plenty of new tricks up its sleeve to avoid being such. Especially if you never played the first game, because then everything is completely new.