ThatsSo
Inkling Cadet
- Joined
- May 11, 2015
- Messages
- 152
- NNID
- ThatsSo
First I’d like to say I posted this elsewhere, so if you’ve seen it before, that was also me. I originally typed this up right after the first testfire, but I've changed some things since then.
It certainly feels like this is a game that will benefit a good player very much. This is just based on my roughly hour and a half of playing, but I was definitely blown away by the depth of the combat. If not a high skill ceiling, it'll at least have a good skill curve. Through this I may be making references to other FPS games, but I don’t mean to be bashing them. No game is perfect, I just feel Splatoon did a lot of things right that other shooters do wrong. I’m not saying this game will be super competitive eSports, but if you’re a great player you won’t find yourself doing just slightly better than people who are only “okay”.
First of all, going against multiple players seemed to be handled very well. By quickly and skillfully moving in and out of squid mode, you could usually not get the fire of two enemies at once. In other shooters, two enemies firing at you at once is pretty much a death sentence, unless you’re near enough to cover. In an odd sense, playing Splatoon is kind of like having cover constantly. The way damage is handled seemed to benefit this too. Health wasn't so low that an enemy hitting you a bit was a guaranteed death, and the regen was fast enough that drawing out a battle could give you the time to heal fully. A combination of these things make a 2 v 1 fight a lot more fair than it would in most shooter games. I feel like a skilled player could win 2 v 1 fights pretty consistently, and I can't say that about most shooter games. I don’t mean to brag, but I went 22 – 1 on one of my matches. That’s an average of over 7 kills per minute, so clearly I was in a lot of 2v1 battles which I made it out of. Also it helps in the sense that you usually wont be in trouble if you won a battle and second opponent appears shortly after. That can be an issue in a lot of games and isn't really a positive thing since it isn't really a fair fight when your health is low.
Second, the ink in general added a new layer to the combat. Turning into squidmode is basically sprinting, going invisible, and becoming a smaller target all at once.
For one thing, the stealth feature. A lot of games have a stealth feature, sure, but Splatoon's seemed really unique in a good way. In most games, the ability to go stealthy is an option, but in Splatoon all characters have it, which adds more to the combat. Also in most games, you aren't all that stealthy (Such as the light around you bending weird). Because of that, most game's stealth doesn't really allow you to stand in plain sight like Splatoon does. And for that matter, the gameplay changes when you enter squid mode. You need to move to a place that will give you a tactical advantage, while keeping in mind your opponent is going to be firing at places they expect you to be. While the stealth seems more power than it is in other games, it comes with a higher risk. When you're hit in stealth mode, you're not just knocked out of it, you're also now on enemy ink, meaning you need to walk slow. And besides the in combat uses, ink allows you to "camp" pretty much anywhere you want. Despite "camp" having a really negative connotation in these kinds of games, I think it makes for some interesting tactics in Splatoon, and doesn't share a lot of the negatives of other games because the combat is usually fairly close range. Something I did in the demo was making trails of my ink that would just dead end, and then wait in the ink somewhere not too far from where it bordered into the other players ink, surprising them as soon as they got into range.
Second and a half, sprinting in ink adds an interesting layer too. If you're being an approached by an enemy, you have the option to try to cut them off. Assaulting an enemy while walking on their ink isn't at all a viable way of fighting, so their options are to either to clear a path or attack from a distance. Clearing a path will delay them, and attacking from a distance could put them at a pretty big disadvantage considering a lot of the weapons seem pretty low accuracy. This becomes even more of a factor when you consider the person on the offensive is more likely to have a low accuracy/low range weapon then someone playing defensively, who likely has a charger.
Finally, movement in general seems like it benefits those who are more skilled. I thought this during the first testfire, before we were talking about techs, but I definitely noticed a difference in people’s movement speeds. Getting to an area first and proper maneuvering during combat can easily sway the battle in your favor.
Shooter games in general tend to all be pretty similar. Not to bash them, but I feel like it's once in a blue moon that we see a shooter with uniqueness in the gameplay like this. The worst offenders suffer from basically being a glorified version of hide and seek, in which seeing your enemy first pretty much guarantees you getting the kill. And in a lot of them, there aren't really as many decisions to be made in combat, the ideal tactic is to aim and shoot. In some shooter games, I can literally just rush enemies the entire match and wind up with the most kills (Often most deaths too, but still). Splatoon felt nothing like that, it felt like the decisions I made were a lot more important than anything else. I feel like this game has a very high skill ceiling, and I say that without even seeing it with the clothing and it’s abilities.
It certainly feels like this is a game that will benefit a good player very much. This is just based on my roughly hour and a half of playing, but I was definitely blown away by the depth of the combat. If not a high skill ceiling, it'll at least have a good skill curve. Through this I may be making references to other FPS games, but I don’t mean to be bashing them. No game is perfect, I just feel Splatoon did a lot of things right that other shooters do wrong. I’m not saying this game will be super competitive eSports, but if you’re a great player you won’t find yourself doing just slightly better than people who are only “okay”.
First of all, going against multiple players seemed to be handled very well. By quickly and skillfully moving in and out of squid mode, you could usually not get the fire of two enemies at once. In other shooters, two enemies firing at you at once is pretty much a death sentence, unless you’re near enough to cover. In an odd sense, playing Splatoon is kind of like having cover constantly. The way damage is handled seemed to benefit this too. Health wasn't so low that an enemy hitting you a bit was a guaranteed death, and the regen was fast enough that drawing out a battle could give you the time to heal fully. A combination of these things make a 2 v 1 fight a lot more fair than it would in most shooter games. I feel like a skilled player could win 2 v 1 fights pretty consistently, and I can't say that about most shooter games. I don’t mean to brag, but I went 22 – 1 on one of my matches. That’s an average of over 7 kills per minute, so clearly I was in a lot of 2v1 battles which I made it out of. Also it helps in the sense that you usually wont be in trouble if you won a battle and second opponent appears shortly after. That can be an issue in a lot of games and isn't really a positive thing since it isn't really a fair fight when your health is low.
Second, the ink in general added a new layer to the combat. Turning into squidmode is basically sprinting, going invisible, and becoming a smaller target all at once.
For one thing, the stealth feature. A lot of games have a stealth feature, sure, but Splatoon's seemed really unique in a good way. In most games, the ability to go stealthy is an option, but in Splatoon all characters have it, which adds more to the combat. Also in most games, you aren't all that stealthy (Such as the light around you bending weird). Because of that, most game's stealth doesn't really allow you to stand in plain sight like Splatoon does. And for that matter, the gameplay changes when you enter squid mode. You need to move to a place that will give you a tactical advantage, while keeping in mind your opponent is going to be firing at places they expect you to be. While the stealth seems more power than it is in other games, it comes with a higher risk. When you're hit in stealth mode, you're not just knocked out of it, you're also now on enemy ink, meaning you need to walk slow. And besides the in combat uses, ink allows you to "camp" pretty much anywhere you want. Despite "camp" having a really negative connotation in these kinds of games, I think it makes for some interesting tactics in Splatoon, and doesn't share a lot of the negatives of other games because the combat is usually fairly close range. Something I did in the demo was making trails of my ink that would just dead end, and then wait in the ink somewhere not too far from where it bordered into the other players ink, surprising them as soon as they got into range.
Second and a half, sprinting in ink adds an interesting layer too. If you're being an approached by an enemy, you have the option to try to cut them off. Assaulting an enemy while walking on their ink isn't at all a viable way of fighting, so their options are to either to clear a path or attack from a distance. Clearing a path will delay them, and attacking from a distance could put them at a pretty big disadvantage considering a lot of the weapons seem pretty low accuracy. This becomes even more of a factor when you consider the person on the offensive is more likely to have a low accuracy/low range weapon then someone playing defensively, who likely has a charger.
Finally, movement in general seems like it benefits those who are more skilled. I thought this during the first testfire, before we were talking about techs, but I definitely noticed a difference in people’s movement speeds. Getting to an area first and proper maneuvering during combat can easily sway the battle in your favor.
Shooter games in general tend to all be pretty similar. Not to bash them, but I feel like it's once in a blue moon that we see a shooter with uniqueness in the gameplay like this. The worst offenders suffer from basically being a glorified version of hide and seek, in which seeing your enemy first pretty much guarantees you getting the kill. And in a lot of them, there aren't really as many decisions to be made in combat, the ideal tactic is to aim and shoot. In some shooter games, I can literally just rush enemies the entire match and wind up with the most kills (Often most deaths too, but still). Splatoon felt nothing like that, it felt like the decisions I made were a lot more important than anything else. I feel like this game has a very high skill ceiling, and I say that without even seeing it with the clothing and it’s abilities.
