The standard Turf War mode, which carries over from the original, is welcoming for beginners and veterans alike with the simple yet entertaining concept of competing to ink the most territory in three minutes. Each mode automatically drops you in one of two maps that change up every two hours, which keeps things feeling fresh and doesn’t let a map wear out its welcome as quickly as in other games, where the community often picks a favorite and plays it to death. Heading into Splatoon 2’s main lobby lets you queue up for an engaging variety of online modes. This focus on weapon research greatly extends replay value, as you can head back into levels you’ve already conquered to discover new challenges based on the weapons’ strengths and limitations. The most significant improvement over Splatoon is that the sequel’s campaign lets you try out each of the weapon types, which is a great way to learn about their potential and how they can be used in multiplayer before jumping online. Spraying ink to activate expanding sponges or moving platforms gives it a light Super Mario Sunshine feel, but it rarely challenges you the way co-op and multiplayer do. There are places to stylishly grind on ink-rails like a squid version of Tony Hawk, and elsewhere you can lure giant, ink-vacuuming Squee-G robots into your enemies’ path. There’s a fair amount of hand-holding and will only take six or so hours to run through and find most collectibles, but missions provide some pretty fun ideas to play around with. Splatoon 2 brings back a very familiar and simple 32-mission single-player campaign that, with some exceptions, follows the style of its predecessor almost to the letter. I actually ended up swapping between motion and non-motion controls with surprising ease (though not being able to use the control stick to look up and down with motion and controls does take getting used to every time). In handheld mode, things look great, and the option to set sensitivity for both modes of play helped immensely when switching between handheld and docked mode. Despite it all, Splatoon 2 never failed to maintain a smooth 60 frames per second in battle even with ink flying in all directions in a fully populated eight-player match. The ink itself shimmers and glints with shiny flecks. Characters like the weapons dealer Sheldon and clothing merchant Jelfonzo look better than ever with more detailed models and textures, and the various forms of street art and graffiti scattered around the maps pop. With a world this colorful and fun, it’s great to see how much better people and places look on the Switch. Offering the chance to craft the perfect gear for your playstyle to give you a better edge in the more competitive Ranked Battles has kept me more invested than I was in the first Splatoon. This is a good way get value out of gear you earned but don’t plan to wear: by scrubbing enough ammo-conserving bonuses from gear I wasn’t using, I was then able to apply that trait to my favorite jersey (for a hefty price). Paying to scrub unwanted extra traits to make room for new ones leaves chunks of those abilities behind to apply to other gear, letting you mix and match from your inventory, or you can try your luck at unlocking different bonuses to replace the old ones that better align with your playstyle. Obtaining new gear is a smoother process than in the first game, too – you can now order any gear you’ve seen on other people in-game using currency earned from battle, though the abilities attached to yours might not be the same due to random generation. These range from practical effects, like increasing ink recovery rates, to highly specialized abilities that can track the enemy who last splatted you or players you’ve recently hit. Going hand in hand with Splatoon 2’s wealth of weapons is a set of gear that provides both style and bonuses in combat, with the added twist of over 20 random secondary abilities that unlock after you’ve battled with them equipped enough times.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |