Splatoon! Bow to your immortal queen, and indisputed best girl- Marie

[Junko]

Off-TV Play was available?

[Jix Hedgehog]

X

Edited August 15, 2015 by Jix Hedgehog

[Diogenes]

Finally got a chance to splat, after missing the first two hours. I was absolutely terrible, but the game was fun. Nothing feels better than sneaking up behind a guy and flattening him with the paint roller.

Except when your squid-launch just happens to land directly in front of a dude, and you splatter him with the roller on the way down before he even has a chance to react.

[DarkRula]

Yeah? Really? I saw no option for off-TV play. Maybe its somewhere hidden.

Anyway, third hour with the game, and I'm still loving it. Splattershot really is a great weapon to use. On one Saltspray Rig match, I managed to hold the entire northern area by myself for about 30-60 seconds, then all my other teammates come to help me, despite not needing it, allowing the other team to pretty much cover the entire rest of the battlefield then finish us off for afters. It also doesn't help that the only two in-game messages are 'Nice' and 'On Me'. Where's 'Go Away' when you need it?

Still, it was a great third hour. And the demo got me to do something I'd have never considered otherwise [record footage not on a PC game].

[Junko]

I have some cap card footage going up later today btw for the people who will care.

[JezMM]

Okay I was trying to make a funny by acting like I thought the squid jump minigame as the real thing but it fell flat, there's no off-TV play lol.

 

 

 

ANYWAY my thoughts on the actual game were fairly positive.  It's fun noticing a spot on the map that isn't covered that the other team hasn't and shifting the tide at the last minute which seemed to win me MVP on several games, and most of the matches I played generally were wins.

 

I will admit though, I started to get a little tired of playing about half an hour in - considered quitting then realised that'd be squandering the brief opportunity to play in a big way.  I then got really into it again for about 10 minutes before getting fatigued again right near the end, but obviously it'd have been silly to quit then so managed to just get in 2 more matches before the servers went down exactly as I finished my second one, rather nicely.

 

 

This has rekindled my interest in picking up the title at launch though, not fully decided but yeah.

[spinny]

Splatoon's really fun, I don't know if I'm going to pick this game up right away at launch but the testfire was super fun and very enjoyable.

 

X to jump was really bothering me to begin with especially during the tutorial, but I adjusted to it, nothing worth losing sleep over. Overall the controls take a few minutes to get used to but once you do it's all good, even the gyro stuff. I like how they have an easy-to-reach gyroscope reset button for if you do move your position at all.

 

Artstyle and music are also amazing, the artstyle is a great mix of cartoony and details and the music is definitely my kinda thing. Drum beats are really catchy and I love the use of different instruments for different moods (the congas in the waiting list before a match starts are the absolute best thing) along with the vocal shouts like in the "you win" loop.

 

It's good stuff, but not sure if it's worth a purchase yet.

[JezMM]

One thing I will say is that while I like the variety of colours that show up, I almost wish it was always the same ones, or you could choose "your colour" and your team is always that colour even if everything looks different on other people's screens (for them, your team is whatever colour they chose).  Because the colours change every map, there were one or two spots where I was shooting my own teammates trying to kill them because I forgot which team I was on in that precise moment of aiming for a player rather than the floor (and seeing my colour spread out in front of me).

 

I also hope as the game updates they continue to add new music tracks (or this demo only contains a small sample).  It's all super catchy stuff but since music plays all the time, we need more than 3 tracks I think.

[Blitz 'n Burst]

demo theme song

[LATER BUDDY]

Got to play it this last window they had.

 

I enjoyed the fuck out of it. Went through every weapon a few times but really started sticking to the Splattershot Jr. The shield special really helps out when you're getting flanked and the close range kills are easy to fend off a guy with a roller or even gernaders sometimes. Had a blast shooting for a second or two ahead of me and turning into a squid to gain ground and repeat. Didn't seem like many others were playing this way (that I was playing with anyway), despite it being an obvious way to gain momentum, but it made the game a little more faster paced for me which I liked. 

 

Echoing others, it really seems like a good game to have voice chat on and wish it had it at times. If you could coordinate a team of varied weapons, I could see it being pretty complex and awesome to play. For example having the not-warehouse level, there's that entire giant area up north of the map. If you had like a roller or two gain that area and have 2-3 people stay at the entrance to the area picking folks off and shooting the zigzaggy road below from up there, could probably have an easy time dominating. Like wise it'd be fun trying to snipe out said entrance defenders and have a splattershot jr. squid the trails of the sniper shot to sneak in and take over.

 

It just seems like there's so many ways to play a map and that's whats fun about it. Can't wait for the full game and see how more in depth it gets in design and gameplay.

[Thrippa]

I got in for the third hour and did have one glitch, where I splattered an area and nothing happened, checked my ink levels and splattered it again and still nothing happened, then suddenly it was all inked.  Other than that it all seemed to go well, and I've got a bit better grasp on how to manage between knocking out opponents and covering territory.  I do the same advance you do, Wolfy, it also helps keep your ink levels up.  Spray the floor ahead, then swim up it.  I also used the jump-to-teammate this time, hadn't found that the first time around.  Except one time all my teammates were apparently splatted at the same time as I was, one right in front of the start point and two were not on the field, so I just swam toward the nearest wrong color.  It would have been nice to pick a color; I had the same issue with shooting the wrong team once or twice because last match that was the Bad Guy color.  I'm usually 2nd or 3rd in the team, 850ish points if we win.  (Curiously, one loss I also had 850ish points - I saw that 300 points go to the winners but don't know how the others are handed out.)

[Willsy]

I will admit though, I started to get a little tired of playing about half an hour in - considered quitting then realised that'd be squandering the brief opportunity to play in a big way.  I then got really into it again for about 10 minutes before getting fatigued again right near the end, but obviously it'd have been silly to quit then so managed to just get in 2 more matches before the servers went down exactly as I finished my second one, rather nicely.

Are you psychic or something? Because that's exactly how I felt! I mean don't get me wrong, the gameplay is brilliant and I can't wait for the full thing, but like I have said a few times in this thread, the little content there is at launch might very well end up killing people's interest in the game. I'm also even more disappointed now that there are no friend lobbies until August, as I really want to play this with friends at launch, and if the test fire is of any indication, you can't even join friends through the Wii U friend list. a The only friends I can play with until August are ones that I know in real life.

Splatoon has the makings of something truly spectacular. The gameplay is fresh and new, and really breathes new life into the shooting genre. However, poor decisions on Nintendo's part regarding the way online is handled quite badly impacts what could have otherwise been the perfect shooter.

[DarkRula]

@JezMM - That joke really did fall flat with me. I hadn't even touched the minigame thing on the gamepad. Didn't know it was there. Just read a recap, and then immediately got what you was on about.

 

I'll reiterate again on the command structure - it technically doesn't need voice chat. Just more than the two commands. It would be alright if those commands were anything really useful like 'attack' and 'defend', but one of those commands we do have isn't a true command, and the other command is only useful when connected with another command. Just 'on me' on its own isn't anything unless there's a real danger immediately in sight. Yes, voice chat would be easier. But commands are short, sweet, and to the point.

[Daisy-Fan]

my little thought about it so far and gameplay a bit, also my 10cent too. also terrible english, but as some point you should be able to get it, after all.

 

The server test: let me go say the probably only part it did turn a bit confuse was the moment been stuck in the lobby room for 3 or 5minute. but overall the Matchmaking seems to be likely strong.

the Worldwide connection is pretty good actually, well surprised in fact, playing with foreigner players seems a lot more easy if you do own a USB lan for wired connection, can't tell wireless user. I did indeed have one game turned a bit delayed laggy for some second, but overall it wasn't of a big issue.

 

Am pretty actually did enjoyed the hours and to be honest they actually have a good point to only using 3hours only available to let people testing the current server for the up coming next 2 week during the release. it was wisely well done, it do hunger my thought about how it gonna turn out to be a bit on the gameplay wise, it is indeed a very addicting and repetitive game as a fair view of point. but overall this ain't terrible thing in fact!! Whatsoever the price is a bit disappointing but i can understand for the idea of a new content each month or weeks for the fresh new community of this amazing new IP.  Very looking to have amazing time with this game again.

[MegasonicZX]

I guess if there is one silver lining in all this its that you can still join matches that friends are in (unless I heard the direct wrong), I know it isn't really much of a replacement since its still randoms with maybe one or two friends in the mix but its something.

[Sean]

I'm loving this game. Honestly, MK8 and Smash are both great fun but I never considered them to be massive timesinks for me, especially Smash where once I unlocked everything and beat all of the solo challenges, I fell out of interest. But Splatoon might just be that game that gets me hooked for hours per day, I have no doubt that it'll be $60 well spent when it comes out

[LATER BUDDY]

The more I have been thinking about it in the day, the more that I'm getting peeved that they have no plans on bringing voice chat to Splatoon. While no I don't think the game is broken without it, I do think that an extremely large portion of depth of the game will be absent without it. I can understand part of the fun of the game being about pure chaos, but having two teams butt heads with voice and strategy would bring an entirely whole new level to the game and definitely keep people around much longer; possibly even into a competitive scene.

 

Just to be frank I'm really tired of Nintendo's fear of creating an environment that isn't 100% family friendly, since it's just a waste of potential in cases such as this. Just have parental settings that your child can't access chat if you don't wish them to be, and fucking everyone wins, I don't see what's wrong about that. Ignoring the world around you and pretending that owning a Nintendo console warps you into a Disney World-like environment is silly and unrealistic. Children have web access, kids at school that probably know more raunchy things than I do, and just about every media form today that's accessible to a child has more bite than Nintendo would tolerate.

 

Yeah that's a rant, but I'll just be so disappointed if this game doesn't reach it's full potential of being a fantastic quirky and unique shooter game (finally) just because some people were afraid that 10 year old Timmy might hear a "god fucking damn it," especially with easily implemented features that could control this without ditching the idea all together.

[Daisy-Fan]

as this point i believe having skype will just be enough.

[Kaze no Klonoa]

TeamSpeak would also be another good option. Regardless, I feel like Nintendo honestly doesn't know which demographic it should cater to more. Should it cater to the diehard Nintendo fans, or to families and kids? It feels like they're trying to do both with both demographics having completely opposite views, leading to decisions like no voice chat, accounts being tied to hardware, and very limited online features that make the Wii U seem like a toy in comparison to something like the PS4 or Xbox One.

[SuperStingray]

I just realized what an amazing pun "Booyah Base" is.

[Remy]

 

 

The more I have been thinking about it in the day, the more that I'm getting peeved that they have no plans on bringing voice chat to Splatoon. While no I don't think the game is broken without it, I do think that an extremely large portion of depth of the game will be absent without it. I can understand part of the fun of the game being about pure chaos, but having two teams butt heads with voice and strategy would bring an entirely whole new level to the game and definitely keep people around much longer; possibly even into a competitive scene.

[Sean]

Honestly I'll reserve judgment on whether other modes would need voice chat until I play them. Turf war seems 100% operational without it for the exact reasons Remy talked about

[Blue Blood]

Honestly I'll reserve judgment on whether other modes would need voice chat until I play them. Turf war seems 100% operational without it for the exact reasons Remy talked about

[JezMM]

To be honest every time I ALMOST thought I needed voice chat common courtesy pretty much solved the problem instantly.  Two of us are heading the same way from the start of the map?  If they turn off another direction before I do, I keep going, if not, I turn off another direction.  Most of the time I did what other players weren't, for example hardly anyone on my team for most of the Oil Rig matches were aiming to get as high as possible so I usually did that and took out areas/enemies from the vantage point.  But if I could already see someone else doing that I'd head to an unoccupied space or look for spots that BOTH teams seemed to be ignoring.

 

 

But yeah, we'll see how other modes hold up.

[Willsy]

IGN aren't happy about the lack of voice chat...

http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/05/10/dear-nintendo-splatoon-needs-a-voice-chat-option

7.8/10 too much silence incoming...

Seriously though, while I don't typically agree with IGN, I do agree with some of the points that Fran makes. Nintendo are being far too biased towards the younger crowd that they are causing alienation among older players as a result. They could have put a parental control scheme in place, or even a warning when starting the game, but they didn't. I can't see any reasoning for that other than just laziness.

I'm happy that critics are speaking out against it though, hopefully it will tell Nintendo to catch up and stop being the soccer mom of the industry.