Review

A Fresh Single Player Canvas

For many years now Splatoon has been Nintendo’s premier multiplayer shooter. A first party family friendly spin on what is typically a genre reserved for a more mature audience. It was a breath of fresh air at the time replacing bullets and gore with highly saturated paint. Gameplay focused on painting an arena rather than targeting your opponents, although targeting the enemy team often gave the advantage. The franchise has expanded through the years with horde modes, single player modes and even a rogue-lite expansion. Splatoon has set to expand further with it’s first player versus enemy spinoff. Will Splatoon Raiders push the series to the next level or leave us pining for its previous competitive roots?

In Splatoon Raiders you take control an inkling know only as The Mechanic. The Mechanic and a band of returning characters begin the adventure with disaster. Crashing into the Spirhalte Islands while trying to traverse adverse weather. After regrouping the gang create a makeshift home called the Hideout. A floating wooden rig off the shore of the Spirhalte Islands. The gang then band together with the goal of raiding the local area for all the valuables they can find. While looting a familiar enemy from the series poses a threat, the Salmonids. After light research the game has some heavy lore implications. However being honest I was never into this series for any deep writing. Narratively Splatoon Raiders didn’t get much more interesting than lets go grab increasingly more valuable relics. Which seem to conflict a little with its environmental pro undercurrent.

Luckily Splatoon Raiders gameplay blows the story completely out of the water. Taking the looter shooter genre and giving it the family friendly Nintendo treatment. The player is tasked with eliminating Salmonids in short levels while finding gear to power up with. Every run/level feels rewarding usually acquiring a new weapon or piece of gear. Splatoon Raiders capitalises on the one more run feeling, on which its succeeds hands down.

Character building in games of this ilk can often be complex. Luckily Splatoon Raiders makes the stat bonuses very clear and understandable. While being simplified compared to its contemporaries it is far from shallow. Splatoon Raiders features a lot of different weapon types that all play very different. Weapons tend to just have a damage stat, the higher the better. Gadgets which are cooldown special moves have a bit more going on. Each gadget can be tinkered with to change various effects and stat output. You can also equip relics that can give you small handy abilities to power you up further. The character building system is simple to understand yet deep enough to be interesting.

While the majority of the gameplay is great fun Splatoon Raiders does have one major downfall. Boss fights are by far the worst part of the game. While standard levels are fast, chaotic and fun. Boss fights are slow, boring bullet sponges; maybe paint sponges. As soon as you have learnt the limited move pool it becomes a battle of attrition. While watching boss health bars dribble away it is the closest I got to disliking the game. Oddly mini bosses aren’t afflicted by this nor is the final boss.

While Splatoon Raiders is a mostly a single player game it does feature multiplayer. While it doesn’t including the series well known competitive modes you can play co-op. Teaming up with two other friends to roll through the levels. Its a great chaotic time playing with other people. However if you need to matchmake in Splatoon Raiders it is less smooth. You can invite strangers to help you progress if you get stuck around once every half an hour. Every 24 hours you get an incentive to help strangers with extra loot. While the system is okay its just bizarre to have a timer on your own progression if your struggling in single player.

Splatoon for better or worse is known for music. With many fan favourite characters being musicians or media personalities, in game. Taking bits of funk and jazz with minor hip-hop influences the music in the series is interesting. I must admit I’m not personally in to it but I can at least appreciate it for what it is, and understand it is completely serviceable. Raiders however changes the music every time you battle the Salmonids, which is frequently. Battle music is mostly out of tune horn and brass war music. It sounds like something from a tone deaf Mad Max movie. I couldn’t stand it and often found myself reaching for the mute button. Which is a shame because the SFX of paint splats and item collection is brilliant and fitting of the game.

Visually Splatoon is a feast for the eyes. The art style hasn’t evolved from previous games, but it doesn’t need to. The cartoony highly saturated characters and world is a joy. The colourful gloopy paint splatting over the bland olive slime of the Salmonids. Stylistically speaking it just looks wonderfully fun. It is the best the series has ever looked using the extra power of the Switch 2. While performing fantastically and never dropping a beat.

Splatoon Raiders is a brilliant take on a genre that can often deter casual and family audiences. Showing the series can do single player and cooperation as well as it did family friendly competitive gameplay. I hope the developers continue to support this game in the way they did Splatoon 3. Frequent content updates could make Splatoon Raiders into juggernaut. Anyway I need to get back to adding a splash of colour to these pesky Salmonids.