Splatoon

Genre: Third-Person Shooter

Players: 1-2 Competitive (Local), 8 Team Competitive (Online)

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Review:

Splatoon is an online multiplayer-focused Third-Person Shooter released on Wii U in 2015, and this review is kinda’ an odd situation. As I write this, Splatoon 3 is just about to be released on the Nintendo Switch, and as such I can’t help but feel like this review needs to answer two questions at the same time. First, how good is this game in its own right – does it still hold up, seven years later? And second, is this game still worth getting on a dead platform when two of its sequels are now flourishing on Nintendo’s current-generation platform?

The graphics at least have aged very well, with the world of Splatoon and its characters being highly-detailed, slightly-cartoony, and extremely colorful, with an absolute ton of personality. And the ink itself looks fantastic, wet and messy. What’s more, the sound effects here are exceptional, with great visceral noises for different kinds of interactions with the ink, and with the inkling character’s garbled voices being extremely distinctive. Later games have only refined what was first presented here, and I feel like you could easily mistake screenshots of this game for its successors.

However, I would argue that there is one element of the presentation where the original Splatoon is actually better than its direct sequel – the soundtrack. Where both games feature an odd sorta’ pop/punk/surf rock style music with garbled inkling voices, I tend to think that the original Splatoon’s soundtrack is much catchier, with great fast-paced songs like Splattack!, Ink or Sink, Kraken Up, and Ink Me Up. Splatoon 2 has some great tunes too, and I’m sure Splatoon 3 will also deliver, but it’s hard to stack up against the fantastic soundtrack the first game has to offer.

Now, when it comes to gameplay, you may be surprised to hear that even with the Wii U heaving its final breaths, and even with the original Splatoon about to be supplanted for a second time, Splatoon’s online play is still going strong. Yes, in 2022, the Wii U game that started the franchise still has quite a few people playing it. Which is good, because online has always been the core focus of Splatoon, and it still shines bright here – fast-paced, inventive, and unique.

There’s just nothing else out there like Splatoon, with its fin gameplay that requires players to think not only about shooting enemies with the game’s water gun-themed arsenal, but also keep in mind the territory they’ve seized using their ink. Well, okay, there’s nothing like Splatoon… except its two sequels.

Of course, you won’t have the benefit of the later games’ online co-op mode, Salmon Run. Nor will you have Splatoon 3’s 2v2v4 Splatfests. However, the core 4v4 gameplay with its rotating maps and variety of game modes is still present here and works much the same as it does in newer games. In essence, the core experience of Splatoon hasn’t changed much since the original game, and it’s just as enjoyable here as it is in later entries.

However, players may be wondering if there’s any reason at all to go back to the series roots if they have a Nintendo Switch and can simply play the later games. The answer is yes, there are definitely some features exclusive to the first game. The single-player campaign is still reasonably fun, even if this feels more like training for the multiplayer than a significant element in its own right. Also, this game actually has local multiplayer where one player takes the Wii U gamepad and the other player plays on the TV screen, a great use of the Wii U’s unique technology that simply can’t be replicated on the Nintendo Switch… although I did notice the framerates becoming unstable when playing this way. Finally, and this may be a small thing, but the original Splatoon allows players to play a simple Arcade-style Platformer game while waiting for the lobby to fill up, something I was disappointed to see get cut from the sequel.

However, there is another issue that I feel holds back the original Splatoon a bit – the controls. As far as I can tell, this game gives players no option to use a controller other than the Wii U gamepad (save for player two in local multiplayer), and it’s a bit awkward for me to play the game this way, especially since I prefer to play using gyroscopic motion controls to aim. It may just be a personal preference thing, but it’s disappointing that this is a preference that the game doesn’t seem to account for in its control options.

In the end, I’m of two minds when it comes to Splatoon. On the one hand, this is a truly great game, one of the best titles to release on the Wii U and only on Wii U, and it is a game that has aged remarkably well. On the other hand, while it has a few unique elements of its own, it’s also missing features that were added in later games, and the limited control options may frustrate some players. Ultimately, I think that if you already have a Wii U, Splatoon is worth getting even if you have one or both sequels, as it still has some unique content to offer. However, don’t expect anything profoundly different than the later games, and if you don’t have a Wii U, you’re probably better off just sticking with one of the later games in the series – what’s here is great, but it’s great in much the same way the later games are great.

tl;dr – Splatoon is the first game in Nintendo’s first game in Nintendo’s online multiplayer-focused kid-squid ink-shooting Third-Person Shooter series. This game is still excellent even to this day, with a fair number of players still fighting it out online. There’s enough unique content here to still make this game worthwhile if you have a Wii U already, but don’t expect anything dramatically different than the later games. If you don’t have a Wii U already, don’t feel the need to go buy one just to play this game – stick with the sequels in that case.

Grade: B+

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