Quick Review: Splatoon 2 (Nintendo Switch)

This is a game that doesn't earn its praise, nor does it deserve it. While the base gameplay concept is fine and dandy, that is shooting ink everywhere and all that jazz, the actual PvP experience here is dreadful. You might think this game's whole point is ink spreading, but because of the maps and overall design, you will run into others constantly and the actual shooting mechanics show their true colors (pun?) within this combat. Aiming is horrible and twitchy. Using the analog stick feels so imprecise that any battle feels like a battle of pure luck, Considering you die within half a second anyways, that's what it all is, luck. There are also many weapon imbalances. Some weapons are terrible, while others are extremely overpowered. Weapons like the splatterscopes are far too slow for the whole objective, while weapons like the brushes and sloshers are so broken that it is hilarious, such as how when you attack with these weapons, the person you are attacking can barely see because ink is being splashed all over the place. Any other weapons, mostly they feel the same. Many automatic weapons feel very similar to each other and the only major difference is with sub weapons and specials. Again, some of those suck, others are stupidly overdone.

I wouldn't mind all of this garbage if the overall game didn't feel so irritating in its execution. Losing makes you lose points on your weapons freshness, so this means that no matter how well you do, which I frequently outperform my team on the ink spreading objective, if your team sucks, then you will be punished for it. What if your internet has a hiccup for no reason out of nowhere and you disconnect for a split second, leaving the match? You get punished, losing freshness points further. Hell, what if Nintendo's own servers commit suicide and disconnect you even before a match fully starts??? YOU. GET. PUNISHED. Had that happen once. A match was loading and right when it shows the map itself, I got disconnected out of nowhere and there were zero problems on my network, so it was clearly Nintendo's problem and I lost freshness points. Awesome. Yay.

The only other diversions are the completely pointless single player campaign that offers no real reward for anything and Salmon Run, a hugely overrated horde mode that features a tiny map and bosses as far as the eye can see. It is challenge in the worst possible way, throwing so much at you that there is no way to deal with it.

Above everything else, the game just feels like a chore. Want to level up for more weapons? Eventually, and by that I mean really friggin fast, it takes forever to level up even once. Which makes it all feel like a grind. How about abilities? Want to unlock those? A grind. What about ability chunks to get specific abilities that you actually want on a piece of gear that you like? A grind. What about taking chunks off of gear you don't like to use for others which costs 20,000 gold to do? Griiiiiiiiiiiiiiind. For some reason, nobody mentions this type of stuff because everyone thinks Nintendo is the beacon of perfection. They aren't and this game's glaring issues are a testament to that. Also, there is no voice chat at all or a proper party system, obviously. The only voice chat you can get is with Nintendo's terrible phone app and...screw that noise.

All in all, I want to like this game. Seriously, I do. That makes me even more frustrated. This game has so many good ideas, but not good execution. Considering that this is a sequel, that makes it even more confusing.

Final Score: 4/10