Splatoon 2
Splatoon 2 gets so much right that its easy to ignore the occasional baffling ways in which Nintendo has failed to score into an open goal. A sequel to 2015s third-person multiplayer-focused Wii U-exclusive shooter, Splatoon 2 will be a wholly new experience for many: the Switch is already attracting converts who never picked up Nintendos previous machine, while the two biggest reasons to own a Switch to date Mario Kart 8 and Breath of the Wild are both already out on the Wii U.
For those new to the whole Splatoon concept, heres a potted history: you are a Squid Kid. That is, both Kid (most of the time) and Squid (whenever you hold ZL you literally turn into a cephalopod). You are armed with ink-spraying weapons, and your job is to cover as much of a multi-level arena as possible with you teams colour. Thats partially because when youre standing in your own ink, you can move faster, recharge your weapons and camouflage yourself entirely; but its also because at the end of the tight three-minute rounds, the winning team is the one that has managed to cover the most of the arena with their paint.
Its a novel twist on the multiplayer shooter, but one which immediately provides Splatoon 2 with a reason to exist in a crammed market. The game is as much about your physical relationship with the levels in which you fight as it is landing shots on the enemy, and in fact, a significant portion of the weapons, from a gigantic paint roller to a literal bucket, are much more useful for dousing large amounts of the map in ink than they are for taking out opponents.
That key mode, Turf War, is back front-and-centre in Splatoon 2. But the game itself is significantly larger. A sizeable single-player adventure reconfigures the action to focus on platforming over gunplay, with the squid-and-ink combination providing players with a number of fun ways to navigate tight levels culminating in a series of boss fights. You wont be surprised when the first of many falls after exactly three hits, but that sort of reliance on cliche helps develop instant familiarity for what is only ever going to be a side-mode to the main game.
Meatier is Salmon Run, the most significant introduction to Splatoon 2. A four-player co-op mode which sees a team of players battle an unending horde of salmon to gather golden eggs yes, the whole game is themed like this its a welcome change in pace from the competitive modes, and one where your win-rate will hopefully edge slightly higher than 50 per cent.
But about those missed opportunities. When it comes to the internet, Nintendos always been keen to zig when everyone else zags. Even if zagging is popular, desirable, and the only logical option, Nintendo will insist on zigging, just because.
Some of those choices pay off here, in a weird way. For no real reason, as far as I can tell, Splatoon 2 follows the first game in offering up an extremely limited selection of maps at any one time: for a two hour period, two levels will be in play, before theyre swapped out for the next period, and so on. On the downside, that means that you get an obviously limited amount of variety each play session. But the positive aspect of it is in the early days of the game, you manage to avoid the flailing feeling of being repeatedly dumped in unfamiliar arenas and pounded by unforgiving opponents. Instead, after 60 minutes of play, youll have had at least 10 matches on one specific arena, putting you a good way towards competent.
Source: ww.theguardian.com
