So one of my favourite MP shooters is Titanfall 2. For a long time I had it and Splatoon 2 jostling for first place and I think these days I err more on the side of Splatoon 2, for a bunch of reasons. (Titanfall 2’s SP campaign is still the best. Not played Splatoon 2’s SP yet but Splatoon 1’s is no slouch.)
Anyway! What makes the Splatoon games so special and unique is the interplay between the squid kids and the ink. I don’t think its design smarts are highlighted or celebrated enough in the MP shooter category to be quite honest. The ink serves several purposes:
- To mark territory in the main Turf Wars mode (described by Andy). Your colour good. Their colour bad.
- To enhance movement. As a squid kid you can turn into a squid and swim very fast through your ink colour. You can even swim up walls opening up all kinds of sweet tactical opportunities.
- To fill your ink tanks up. Every weapon in Splatoon uses ink in your tank. Run out of ink, and you’ll have to submerge yourself in ink to fill it back up. This makes combat a fraught push and pull dance.
- To hide. If you stay still when submerged in ink, you’re not visible so this opens up some very sneaky stealth play. Some abilities even allow you to squid through ink without making any ripples…
There’s also super jumping too which allows you to effectively titanfall squidfall on to your teammates or squid beacons by bringing up the map and tapping their position. This can be risky but at the right time can maintain offensive pushes or defending lines.
These things add up to create this wildly exciting space where movement, territorial control, sneaky and team play converge. On top of all this you’ve got a bunch of ranked modes (essentially control point, king of the hill and capture the flag with a newer mode that I didn’t get to play much), a co-op horde mode and lots of varied weapons and sets that all have their place. There’s a lot of personality to the weaponry here, which is something I prefer over Titanfall 2 as well.
Splatoon 1 and 2 are also unique in that they don’t allow you to select maps and modes. Aside from your standard Turf Wars, they’re all on 2 hour rotations. Some folk hate this but there’s several massive upsides: firstly, everyone plays every map and mode and gets better at them. Secondly, everything gets playtime and exposure and a fair showing. Thirdly, it keeps things fresh. Fourthly, and most importantly, there’s no ghost town modes. I love Titanfall 2 but man, I wish more people played some of the other modes instead of just Attrition, Attrition, Attrition. I don’t know what Splatoon 3 will do in this regard but I hope the developers stick to their splattershots and keep the rotation system going.
The soundtracks are awesome. There are loads of varied levels, all great. Perhaps the single most important thing for me–like, I don’t think I’d be able to play the Splatoons without it–is the gyro/motion aiming. It was first introduced on the Wii U version and it was such a revelation to me that I’ve been disgusted by console shooters not embracing it as the de facto way to aim in the absence of mouse and keyboard, especially given how most new controllers have a gyro. From an accessibility point of view too. It’s a travesty. Gyro aiming is the light.