Splatoon

Good luck, Squeenix

Patch notes for Sizzle Season are up.

Notable changes include Big Bubbler and Tacticooler getting buffed, both Splash-o-Matics getting minor nerfs, and the Big Swig Roller getting buffed in Salmon Run.

Also, Yoko and the Gold Bazookas is getting three new songs!

Hope you guys like Earl and Marnie NFTs.

Wow, Big Swig really needs that buff.

I actually think it's cool to have more games try to follow the Splatoon approach of territory control and movement, and Foamstars feels like a marriage between Splatoon and Fortnite in that regard. I just wish that watching the trailer didn't have me go "wait, but that special is just a reskin of X... and that's just Y— THAT'S STRAIGHT UP Z!?!?" Nothing there that makes it feel like its own beast in that reveal trailer, so Square-Enix has a bit of an uphill battle in which their only clear cut "win" is that it's a Sony exclusive, meaning they won't have to compete with the squid and octo kids on their home turf.

On a pure Splatoon note, I hope the new stage isn't as awful as the Ruins.

Edited by RacattackForce on May 29th 2023 at 11:15:15 AM

I think the reason Foamstars got so much colder reception compared to, say, Ninjala is that Ninjala has a similar style and aesthetic to Splatoon, but is clearly its own entity. It has a completely different style of gameplay and was even released on a Nintendo console. It’s not overtly trying to be a more popular game

Foamstars is a third-person shooter set in a colorful, cartoony, urban setting where the weapons fire Abnormal Ammo to alter the terrain in your team’s favor, and special attacks include calling in tornadoes from high above, surrounding yourself with a rolling shield, and firing explosive shots from a bazooka-like weapon, with a very familiar firing cadence at that. It is also a Sony exclusive, and Sony has a history of releasing products that are suspiciously similar to Nintendo ones. Remember the PS Move? Just a Wii Remote with a ping pong ball at the end

Also Sony had just unveiled an Alternate Company Equivalent of the Wii U, which famously bombed outside a few titles (you should know one), so people weren’t feeling charitable

edit: also also Square Enix has a bit of a history recently of ruining their multiplayer titles, especially casual-focused ones, with aggressive monetization, season passes, and microtransactions. just thought that was worth noting

Edited by Midna on May 29th 2023 at 12:27:17 PM

They're ripping off Xenoblade Chronicles too now?

Side Order awards have been datamined from the newest update.

Am I going to have to dodge Side Order spoilers for god-knows how long from now until it releases? Or is this just irrelevant stuff?

If it's similar to the rewards for the main campaign, I'd imagine at least one will serve as a major hint (if not outright spoiler) for the final boss, ala the Teddy Band.

As much as I can't wait for Side Order, I am emphatically not clicking that link. I didn't spoil myself on ROTM though maybe i should have and I'm not spoiling myself now

Edit: THE LATEST UPDATE ADDS NEW NEWS DIALOGUE FOR DEEP CUT THIS IS NOT A DRILL

Edited by Midna on May 30th 2023 at 1:54:17 PM

The link doesn't actually reveal what the rewards are. It's just OatmealDome warning people that the info is now out there, but that they personally aren't going to share it.

Unless I'm stupid and I just missed it before, it looks like they added a recon mode that allows you to mess around in stages on your own time.

Edit: I'm dumb, I somehow missed it this whole time, goddamn.

Edited by SatoshiBakura on May 31st 2023 at 11:06:31 AM

Yeah, recon's been in the game since launch

S-Blast was crafted by demons. The kit is the chains holding it back from completely killing us all.

EDIT: Midna wasn't kidding about the new Deep Cut dialogue. I think they have unique lines for every stage now, which is awesome.

Edited by RacattackForce on Jun 1st 2023 at 8:01:50 AM

I think i read somewhere that there's 3 or 5 conversations per stage

This just further proves the lack of Inkopolis News is an unnecessary omission

I think it makes the lack of Inkopolis News more understandable actually. Back when the Plaza DLC first dropped, there was no reason we shouldn’t have had Callie and Marie host the news there, since Deep Cut's Splatcasts had so few lines of dialogue. Now that 4.0.0 has beefed them up, though…

Edited by Midna on Jun 1st 2023 at 10:30:54 AM

Sure, now it would take significantly more work (if you want it to be 100% equal in dialogue to Deep Cut at least), but my point is if they could add this much dialogue, they could have added dialogue for the Squid Sisters, no problem. Which would really help with how jarringly out of place Deep Cut doing the news in Inkopolis Plaza feels. Sure, it'd still be just a reskin, but at least it wouldn't feel like a lazy reskin.

The only reason I think they haven't done it is because they'd have to come up with a solution for tricolor splatfest dialogue, but that's a pretty weak reason in my book. It'd be easy enough to have someone else join in on the news during splatfests to represent the third side, like Cuttlefish, Judd, or Captain 3. Or if even that's just too much, just have the Squid Sisters rebroadcast Deep Cut announcing the splatfest, and then choose their own side afterward.

Edited by FGHIK on Jun 2nd 2023 at 2:44:03 PM

My initial thoughts on Jammin' Salmon Junction are that, in keeping with the highway theme, it is really claustrophobic. It's like the anti-Sockeye — while that stage is very wide and open and has very few chokepoints even at high tide, this one is all hallways all the time and has possibly the smallest high tide area of any Salmon Run stage in 2 or 3. It's also much longer vertically than horizontally, which I could see posing a significant problem during Giant Tornado waves

The cannons are really close to the shore on Cohock Charge too. This can be both good (takes less time for the missiles to hit problematic bosses) and bad (easier for the cohocks to overwhelm you, and it's easy for Slammin' Lids to jape you by getting in between you and a boss, and then you can't kill them because the pilot is too high up, so you have to get out of the cannon and do it yourself)

As for Barnacle & Dime, while a formal assessment of how it feels to play on can wait a few months (if you catch my drift)... it's a zigzag stage, whaddya want me to say?

Edited by Midna on Jun 2nd 2023 at 8:22:01 AM

Um, apparently the first Challenges were today??? Did anyone partake?

That I did, yeah. Once you get the Shell-Out Token (one per challenge, not one per window the challenge is available) there's no real incentive to keep going, aside from the fact that at the end of every window your Challenge Power is ranked and there's badges for top 50%, 20%, and 5%. But that's the only reward.

The brevity of the mode's availability is... yeahhhhhhhhh kinda sucks. They don't publicize it too much either, and seems like Anarchy Splatcast only mentions it if it's currently active. Which is all sorts of weird.

Yeah it wasn't anything super special, especially since this time around it was just a standard turf war. It would be interesting if it were longer and when they start introducing more interesting types of challenges.

Still haven't played Barnacle & Dime but I am hearing some Very Nasty Things about it

Just... what happened. Why is every new map like this now. Throwing in old good maps alongside the new blah ones does not make the new ones better!

edit: I'm finding more and more evidence that Splatoon 3 is a B-Team Sequel. Two of the three directors of 1 and 2 did not return for 3, and a large portion of the development team is different between 2 and 3. That would explain... many things actually

Edited by Midna on Jun 4th 2023 at 10:15:41 AM

They put all the map budget into the new Salmon Run maps lol

It really does feel like they went all in on Salmon Run this time, but the cost of that was regular PVP map design being dull tetriminoes and balance being all over the place. Good thing Grizzco is open 24/7 now