A third person online shooter with a fairly robust single player. The big twist of this series over other shooters is you're an octopath- er, octokid. You are part squid, part human. And you battle in large skateparks/warehouses/etc by leaving them in a wash of colored ink as a human fighter with your ink gun. So instead of real guns this game is all about using paintball guns; buckets, airbrushes, a giant paint roller.. you get the idea. You can turn into the squidform with a push of a button. The squid is useless for attacking, but vital to playing. Only by swimming/resting in your color ink can you reload! Squiddy also moves faster in friendly ink than a human AND squids can hide in ink, plus is capable of fast travel to get into the action quicker and is essential for climbing up walls.

Splatoon 2 has two(or three if you count the offline story singleplayer) modes ready to go from the moment you load it.

Graphics: 8

Where as Breath of the Wild is about the quiet beauty of your surroundings, here its noisy, neon monoliths to commerce and fashion. The neo-apocalyptic world of the squidkids or Inklings as they call themselves, looks a lot like Tokyo or Times Square. High-rises and jumbotron screens. One nice thing I liked about the hub is player created art is used from everything from some of the signage to graffiti. A lot of players on here can really draw. There are more than just squids, there are talking jellyfish people, a food truck-owning prawn that is covered in fry batter, and more. For big occasions, fireworks and laser lights decorate the hub. The battle arenas are mid-sized, with only one seeming really big. The ink is gloriously neon, and stands out easily. There are a ton of different clothes and weapons to use. Story mode kind of throws the world for a loop, as most of the time you are on segmented metal sections floating in a void or over an ocean.

I did like the squid form you take looks extremely similar to Super Mario Bros water enemy, Blooper.


Sound: 9

There is a lot of talking, but its mostly gibberish you'd need the subtitles to understand. The sound of your ink guns shooting rapidly, the splat noises as it peppers and splats the surfaces, its done very well here. I was probably most impressed by the robust music selection, which has a lot of fast-paced music for battles in several styles. Everything from punk to trip-hop.


Addictiveness: 8

The fact the battles last anywhere from 3 to 4 minutes means you can grind a lot out. Even if the game is going terrible, at least its not going to be long battle. That is, until you get to the ranked leagues, which thankfully introduce 4 new game modes, and can go into overtime. I have to say, they are a bit of a mixed bag. Rainmaker, Clam Blitz, Tower Control and Splat Zone are the new types of games, I could not win a game of Rainmaker to save my life, but I won most games of Clam Blitz without really understanding the rules, Clam Blitz is a bizarre football/basketball type of game that honestly, is a bit too complicated for the 4 minutes you get to play in it.

I only played with randoms, but I have to say, even when the matches are short, losing streaks in this can go on a long time. Sometimes it just never seemed to click, and that goes double for Salmon Run too, which not only the RNG bosses, stage layout, and weapons you get can sink you. After losing some, you either find a team to try better, or you just do what I do, quit playing and wait for less hardcore players to be online in ranked/squad matches.


Story: 6

I didn't play the first Splatoon, but this carries right over from that. Its not very complicated. Some idol singers have gone missing, and your first task is finding one of them, then she guides you across many worlds and stages to find her also famous sister. The single player is great at not only introducing each type of weapon, but forcing you to use them in different ways, making some stages very much like a puzzle you have to use. It has bosses and some annoying moments, but overall, nothing too busy. The DLC for Splatoon 2 is another story, told through the viewpoint of one of the other races of this nautical natural order- the Octolings.


Depth: 7

The fact the single player teaches you all sorts of tricks on how to use the weapons creatively is a plus, and that there is so much to choose from in weapon/special combos. I did like once you get to ranked, the weapons that seem unimportant to Turf War, look very promising for some of the new game modes. Rest assured, nearly every weapon is good for most modes. Learning which maps are best suited for what setup will really make you a contender.

I didn't like only the dual-wielded paintguns get a built in dodge, and two(or more) at that. Every other weapon you must rely on your squid form for a fast retreat. Special moves can function like grenades, to enemy locators and radar, but they sap a huge hunk of your ink to use, a bit too much for my liking. It doesn't take much to splat you, and while your fashionable clothes come with a bevy of up-gradable slots and powers, in the end they really don't seem to matter all that much.

Besides the rotating stock of the clothing vendors, I did like you order things by looking at your competitors gear in the game hub (not battle), you can also order rare stuff online with an app. If you don't like how your clothing's random specials ended up you can add/reroll them with an expensive item that I think you can only get from a once-a-month event.


Difficulty: 6

Both in story and online what you have to do is quite simple (except you Clam Blitz, that get 10 clams to even open the goal is dumb). But you will always run into situations where the map may not be suited to your loadout, or your team sucks, or maybe the single player boss requires you to use a sniper rifle... and you're not so hot with that. Eventually you will overcome. Losing in Ranked matches or Salmon Run and you will notice very little xp gained, or it will be taken away, making the tasks fruitless.



Overall: 8.2

I did like Splatoon 2. I think the fact the Inktopolis has a news program just to introduce the hourly stages is pretty neat. I liked there were so many variations of weapons, and the clothing options are varied - even if their actual benefits are marginal. The grind to level and get from 2 online modes (Turf war, and sometimes, Salmon Run) to 6 can give you some blues if you don't like Turf War.

In the end, I just wished, somehow for a bit more variety in the stages, which are serviceable but, I don't know. The game is a lot of fun as you quickly unlock things, then slows down until you don't really need to shop for clothes anymore, and since you can't earn money to buy off the foodtruck for bonuses (it relies on food vouchers, found in story and Salmon Run), I got a little bored looking at Inkopolis. I wanted more from it, besides splatting. But in the end, thats all that's here.