Due to the responses I had in the Wii U roll call thread (where more of you elected to point out that you did NOT own a Wii U and why), I realize the console isn't exactly popular here. I get it, whatever. I don't want to talk about why you don't have a Wii U in this thread. If you're thinking of posting about why you will never purchase a Wii U, please hit the back button.
I'm here to talk about Splatoon.
You read the game premise. It doesn't sound very fun. In fact it sounds downright childish and boring. Willa's 3.5 years old and has taken an interest in playing video games with me. We've been spending time on Mario Maker. It's gotten to the point to where any time there's a controller in my hand she's watching me play. That officially relegates my Bloodborning/Dark Souling/Metal Gearing to post-bedtime hours. So I've begun to pay more attention to both my existing Wii U catalog and what else is out there. Fortunately I have a friend in a similar circumstance with a child just a little older. He had a copy of Splatoon he didn't mind me borrowing. It's on sale this week at Best Buy/Amazon and I didn't want to buy blindly. I honestly popped it in expecting to hate it.
I didn't. In fact I had a blast with it. Quick games, no voice communication to get in the way, just pure unabashed joy. Matches are quick, only lasting 3 minutes or so. Your main objective is to use your "weapon" to coat as much of the map in your color ink as possible. Your weapons can also be used to eliminate the other player temporarily but this is not the focus. YOu are not judged on your kills, your team wins and loses solely on having a greater percentage of map coverage than the other team. There are different weapon types (and thus, coverage types) and gear that will alter stats and such. So there's a little depth to character builds. However I was more than able to hold my own in the non-ranked games with the default build out. The premise is simple enough to where you can follow your nose as far as "strategy" goes without having to resort to voice chat. No real methods of communication, to me, are a plus because we all know how that goes with competititve shooters. It's just nice to jump in, play a couple games, and jump out. There's a single player portion to the game, but from what I can tell it serves as little more than training for entering the online arena. Three amiibo were released for the game. Boy, Girl, and Squid. Boy and Girl are available standalone, but Squid is only available in the 3-pack which is especially difficult to get ahold of right now. But they serve to not only unlock gear, but unlock 15 challenge levels each, making their value to the game significant. Their current scarcity makes that unfortunate.
The only knock I really have at this point is the matchmaking. Some barebones methods of playing with friends made it into an August patch, but it still seems more difficult than it needs to be to play with friends. I haven't tried to pair up with a friend yet so some of that may be unfounded. Also, while initial matchmaking seems to go quickly, if you hang around in a lobby post-match waiting for the next one, it is a toss up as to whether the empty spaces will populate automatically or if you'll be waiting 2-3 minutes for the lobby to fill. The latest solid sales figures say the game has sold 1.62 million worldwide as of July, and judging by usernames it's obvious I'm being paired with worldwide players, So I don't suspect this is a matter of not having enough people playing the game at any given time.
After playing for a few hours it was a no-brainer. I purchased a copy yesterday, and figure it'll be in steady rotation for months to come.
