Splatoon

[The Shoemaker]

I played a number of games in the 3rd period, was starting to get the hang of it but the full potential won't come out until you can customize your layouts. I enjoyed the fact that it seemed competitive, but not always directly competitive. Unlike other shooters the primary focus wasn't to kill the other team but paint the area. Because of this it didn't feel like your were always being hunted, and even if you weren't in the heat of the battle you were still contributing.
It's going to be real fun once I develop some actual tactics and master switching between squid and human forms.

The good thing was there didn't sppear to be any lag. But, it was a little difficult to find a match because of how busy the server was.

[evildevil97]

I ended up working late during the one period I would've otherwise been free for, but the direct hyped me on the game enough. It wasn't really even on my radar too seriously before...

[SkyPikachu]

@ Americans

Gamestops go a demo on May 16th between 12pm-3pm (Local time)

Link to the stores doing it here.

[SkyPikachu]

New Testfire Demo on the 23rd/24th of May (Just the single session)

link

Times

• 3pm PT Sat/23 May (West Coast North America)
• 6pm ET Sat/23 May (East Coast North America)
• 11pm BST 23 May (UK)
• Midnight CEST Sun/24 May (Europe)
• 8am AEST Sun/24 May (Australian East Coast)
• 10am NZST Sun/24 May (New Zealand)

[The Shoemaker]

Might stop by Best Buy just for the StreetPasses :p

[squishy]

I have it pre-ordered but never got a chance to try the testfire. Probably won't get a shot to try the next testfire either as I'm working.

[The Shoemaker]

First day impressons:

So far the game is pretty fun. Like I mentioned before, switching between Squid and Human feels great, and the idea that you're constantly spreading Ink to further your goal and not just killing is really appealing. I love the style of the game, every NPC is big into fashion and the whole game is about being "fresh". Good looking game as well with all the colors and animation.

The online worked great for me, no lag and for the most part I got into a match quick. I'm not one to use voice chat so I don't mind its exclusion, but they are a couple little icons you can use to kind of signal your team. So far I don't mind playing only 2 maps every 4 hours, it's kind of nice to keep evolving your strategy on one map every time you go back to it. Thankfully the songs are random and don't get repetitive. There's this Squid punk/screamo song that comes on once in a while that's really cute and funny. I found I did the best with the Splat Roller, though that's probably because I haven't tried most of the standard weapons yet.

The local multiplayer is the one thing I'm disappointed in so far. Not because it's bad, but because I expect more for a Nintendo game. Local multi has you playing Battle Dojo where you pin off 1v1 to get the most points by popping balloons and messing with each other. It's definitely fun, maybe not as competitive as the online modes but still fun. Turf War, the main mode of the game, is not available for local multiplayer, which kind of sucks because that's the mode you want to show everyone when you play. I've heard Nintendo say a couple times that they want this game to be the Mario Kart of the shooter genre, but I feel like a lot of Mario kart's appeal comes from the local multiplayer, and Splatoon doesn't really nail that aspect in the same way Mario Kart does. The Battle Dojo doesn't even support 4 players so it's not really a game to play at a party or anything. I also feel like this might reduce childrens enjoyment of the game as well, since online might be a bit too hard for them at times and they won't be able to play those online modes with their friends/sibilings. But the local multiplayer is still fun, played it for a couple hours with my girlfriend today.

I haven't seen too much of the single player mode yet, but I do like how it relies a bit more on platforming here and there, which I feel suit the mechanics of the game very well.

[MerlinDrazziw]

Anyone got more info on the single player part of the game? The online part doesn't sell the game to me, but yet have to experience the offline parts. If it's the same as online but with CPUs, I'm staying clear of this game. But the platforming part of Shoe's post sounds interesting ...

[The Shoemaker]

Anyone got more info on the single player part of the game? The online part doesn't sell the game to me, but yet have to experience the offline parts. If it's the same as online but with CPUs, I'm staying clear of this game. But the platforming part of Shoe's post sounds interesting ...

It's very different from the online component, it plays more like a Mario Galaxy game in structure during the single player. Levels consists of floating structures, each structure having it's own little goal, once that's done you jump over to the next structure. Every level has a few collectables to find, and you finish the level by collecting the "star" (in this case the star is a fish). I haven't played it too much, but I hear it gets pretty interesting, but also that it's probably only 6-10 hours long.

[SkyPikachu]

Still waiting for my copy to arrive.

The single players suppose to be closer to 6 hours from what I heard than 10.

Also there's enough space under the 2 maps when you look at what maps are available for a 3rd map so maybe later we'll see 3 maps?