Been playing the campaign before I dive into a multiplayer binge for a few weeks. And my opinion has swung from "this is meh" to "this isn't too shabby" from the first 2 sectors I've completed, to the latest two sectors I've completed.
Impressions after first 2 sectors:
I'm really underwhelmed because of the lack of difficulty, feels like nothing really keeps me honest in this game. Like I accept that Nintendo makes games that are for kids as their primary demo, that appealed to an older seasoned gamer because of good ol fashioned tried n true quality game mechanics. But, I still find the game being a pushover, stops me from really getting into any sort of flow of enthusiasm about what I'm doing. More just rolling through levels to get this off my backlog because I have an OCD about that shit.
Some of it is also tied to the mechanics themselves. Like functionally Splatoon has a shoot, swim (which is how you reload your gun), a jump, a grenade button. You don't really switch weapon, as you run the one gun through a level, and the games levels work somewhere between a shooter stage and a platformer style obstacle course, but all of it is so linear. Like I appreciate the constant wrinkles, but when there isn't much room for figuring anything out, but just shoot the sponge to get my next point, or shoot the propellers to make the platform come to me. I'm not exactly engaged.
So when you tie that into the action game part of the experience, besides the part where enemies aren't really aggressive or overwhelming in enemy count n really testing your ability to shoot n swim a bunch, the fact they use projectiles (mostly, snipers are a bit different) that are easy to dodge, in a game where I have regen health, when I never run out of ammo, is kind of boring.
And I don't think their solution to Splatoon 1's one gun issue for the campaign, by just having "the roller level", "the sniper level" is that interesting of a concept. You don't have any sort of long term consequences since your gun never can run out of ammo (you have infinite ammo, you just gotta reload), you don't worry about managing health, and you're just doing one weapon for level. Like that set up is great in the multiplayer environment, where that set up works beautiful with other people bringing in their own loadouts. But in Solo play it just feels limiting on the action front, with the obstacle courses being too rigid for their own good. I wish there was more room for experimentation or multiple solutions.
Impressions after sector 3 n 4 have been completed.
So I still stand by my mechanical complaints, and how easy (the only game over screen I've seen is when I killed myself 3 times just to test out to see if the game makes you start the level from the beginning) the game is. But eh, in typical Nintendo fashion they've sort of won me over the further I've gotten in. They've leveraged their novelties n level gimmicks well, and pairing them nicely in ways I wasn't actually expecting. I still dread anytime I have to use the sniper, but all in all I've definitely dug sector 3 n 4 levels to what I played in the first two.
I still think there might be some fine tuning with some of the core mechanics to add a bit more to the mechanics in single player, but by that point you change it from what was in multiplayer. Boss fights have been whatever, but I expect a banger of a final boss stage.
Final 2 Splatoon shirts i order when my paycheck is in....
