TVG Review: Splatoon

Splatoon Review

Nintendo has been on a roll lately when it comes to bringing new IPs to their systems, from the Wonderful 101 and Bayonetta, to this year's Codename S.T.E.A.M., and Splatoon might just be one of the best new IPs that the Wii U has seen!

Splatoon is a family-friendly, creative third person shooter with platforming that takes an exciting new take on one of the the most crowded and uninspired genres in gaming.

If you're into shooting games, the gameplay in Splatoon will not leave you disappointed, it's one of the games to make some of the best use out of the Wii U Gamepad, with your standard First Person Shooter controllers with a giros-censor to bring more accuracy to your aim, plus a handy map that shows were and if your allies need help. The button layout is intuitive and you'll quickly get the balance between the right stick and the motion controls.

The presentation of this game great, you'll find a lot of detail in every element of the game, the paint looks really liquid, the squids look slippery,  gravity and movement feels real, the hub world feels alive and functional.

Overall, this game has some fantastic graphics for its system, detailed textures and creative designs, and the fact that it runs at 60 frames per second is not bad at all!

The solo campaign is pretty meaty for a multiplayer-based game. It has some fun characters, amazing level designs, and it's gradually challenging, growing with the learning curve, making a very satisfying and personal experience.

The boss fights are also very creative and will take some thinking to beat, functioning like puzzles, to not spoil much details on the solo campaign with too much information, we'll just say that it's very interesting and not repetitive.

The online multiplayer experience in this gameis one of the best the Wii U has to offer, with lobbies, friend-matching, customizable characters, and unlockable modes as you rank up (some of them will be locked for the first week of the game, waiting for enough players to rank high enough).

The lack of online voice chat will definitely make the experience feel incomplete to some, however, it is noteworthy that there's an alert system in the game that functionally replaces the voice chat, even if it's not as fun.

If you were looking at Splatoon to be the next Wii U old school local multiplayer with all players sitting on one couch having fun, this game isn't for you. While Splatoon does have a local multiplayer mode, it's just a 2-player, competitive match were whoever pops more balloons with their paint wins.

While it's quite fun to have a couple matches with a friend, it gets boring really quick and you'll even prefer to take turns on online matches. So, if you want local fun, you might be set with something more like Super Smash Bros., Mario Kart 8, or Mario Party 10.

Overall, Splatoon is a great experience for people who like shooting plays and play solo locally or enjoy addictive online multiplayer, but for people looking for a local multiplayer experience, you are better off checking out other games on the Wii U.

You can also check our video review here:

If you'd like to read some more details concerning weapon and character customization, check our Splatoon Direct round-up.

Have you played Splatoon yet? What did you think of it? Let us know in the comment section bellow.

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About Paco

Growing up in the late 90's, Paco's intoduction to video games was Mario 64, and he hasn't really stopped ever since, he's also a player kin to Wind Waker, having beatin it an unholy amount of times, and completed it at least 5 times, or so ge claims.

@PacoFETV