E3 2014: Splatoon is multiplayer Mario Sunshine, so GIMME GIMME [Hands-on]

When Nintendo announced Splatoon during their pre-E3 Digital Event on Tuesday, the game looked pretty dope in concept. Four-on-four online arena multiplayer? Yes. Great visuals? Yes. Squids? YES!

I’m happy to report that after getting hands-on time with the game on the E3 show floor, it is indeed pretty dope.

If there’s one issue I have with Splatoon is that it isn’t going to be available until sometime in 2015, likely because of the work being done to get online working tightly, a plethora of multiplayer modes, and character designs tweaked. Because, after getting time with the demo I wanted more of it, and I wanted it right away.

Splatoon is a third person multiplayer shooter, set in arenas where we’re required to capture as much territory as possible. We don’t get points for splattering others with paint (traditional “kills” are replaced with friendly respawns), instead focusing on painting as much of the ground as possible with our team’s colors. The game stars a quirky team of squids that can transform into human-squid hybrids and back. Their design is adorable. As humans, the splatter guns are our main assets, but we drain paint ammo quickly. As squid we can jump in and out of our team’s splattered paint to recharge, as well as travel around the map at higher speed. We can even climb up walls and behind signs.

Walking into the opposing team’s goop slows us down, and doing so as a squid is essentially fatal when someone is tailing us. Paint bombs splatter larger areas, and cover opponent colors much quicker. The Gamepad can act as a second-screen map, and tapping teammates on it will cause our character to leap into the air and land next to them. It’s fast travel for shooters and is brilliant, and I’m amazed it isn’t employed more often in other games.

Both teams start at 0% and must work to cover as much ground (or walls, or signs, or posts) as possible. The paint is weighted when it shoots out, relying on the angle we aim to gauge distance, and feels an awful lot like the similar water mechanic in Super Mario Sunshine or the paint mechanic in Portal 2. Hey, I’m fine with that. I loved those games and have wanted a Sunshine sequel for over a decade. Maybe this is it, in a way.

There are some great ideas in Splatoon, but it’s the simple palette that they’re presented on that makes the game experience so novel. The mechanics are flexible in their simplicity, to the point where the depth of play style is achieved almost organically. Within a minute or so, our team is developing methods to work together that are refreshingly different from other MOBA-type games.

In one section of the map, one of us tosses paint bombs and snipes oncoming opponents. As her paint supply dwindles, I teleport next to her to take over with a fresh supply while she runs off to help elsewhere. If we spot an opponent “squidding” we immediately launch paint bombs on top of them to slow them down while someone else cherry picks them when they jump out. The teleport mechanic even allows us to play the map like a closest-to-the-pin golf match, zipping from player to player to get further into enemy territory. Sometimes we find that it’s quicker and better to paint over our opponent’s colors than to cover new areas.

Splatoon is kind of like Mario Kart for shooters. I have to separate myself from playing it with a typical FPS mindset to be able to succeed, and rely more on speed and teamwork rather than shooting precision. This is different in a refreshing, fun way.

Our demo only featured one play style and a handful of arenas, and there are still a ton of questions. Will there be different classes of characters with unique characteristics? Will there be online leagues or score-keeping? Power-ups? Will there be a single-player mode? Though 2015 may seem like a ways away, what Nintendo did have on display was extremely solid and enjoyable and I don’t feel that they’re that far off from a final product. This could be pretty big. At least as big as giant squids.