It's been a few months in now, and I'd say the lack of content is mostly resolved.
The three finest things in life are to splat your enemies, drive them from their turf, and hear their lamentations as their rank falls!
I suspect the initial lack of content (back when this review was written) was so that Nintendo could build up hype for the game and get people talking about it more and drive more sales later on.
It seems to be working. The game has sold 1.6 million copies worldwide as of the end of July.
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Well I guess 1.6 million is good for a Wii U game at least. I think it was either about trying to educate the playerbase before adding more advanced complications or sustaining a playerbase to keep the multiplayer exciting (a problem lots of smaller multiplayer games have) or they just hadn't finished the game content quickly enough.
The first round of "updates" were clearly unlocking content that was already in the game. Hackers confirmed this by leaking weapon and level info. However, the total number of levels they found when hacking? Ten. An eleventh is scheduled for release today, so they appear to be adding new content even now.
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Personally, I see the lack of content at launch as more of a letting people get to grips with the game, before releasing new areas. Heck, one area was in Single Player before it was added to the multiplayer rotation, meaning SP players got a slight advantage on that map if they made it to that level.
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Exciting arcadey fun, but little in the way of content
Story: Nonexistent, though the breadcrumbs of backstory are extremely interesting and make collecting the Sea Scrolls in single-player worthwhile. N/A.
Design: Shooting feels responsive and accurate with motion controls and have a number of failsafes (thank you Y calibration button) to make it easy to use and even preferable to stick aiming, though they are optional. All the weapons are amazingly fun to use due to great sound effects and feedback. Weapon types are also varied enough to never get boring. Maps are designed extremely well with narrow paths, open areas and more, making every map fun to play. The addition of the map on the gamepad is also nice, and features that eliminate downtime like Superjumping make the game go by at a wicked pace. Unfortunately, the game has little in the way of content at launch: 5 maps, one mode to player in and 25 or so weapons. All of these will be rectified in later updates, but the jarring lack of content could put some people off. Classic Nintendo stuff, though marred by sparse content. 7/10.
Gameplay: Fun, deceptively complicated and strategic and endlessly replayable. Shooting ink feels good, launching special weapons feels good, sneaking up on an enemy while in Squid form feels good, etc. The game just feels good, and that's all that matters. The Singleplayer campaign is loads of fun and is definitely worth beating for the creative boss encounters and building on the ink abilities in ways that the multiplayer doesn't. Multiplayer is obviously the meat of the game, and it's very fun. Both Turf War and Splat Zone are fun, and i'm looking forward to new gamemodes added in updates. 9/10.
Presentation: Beautiful, colourful and detailed. Ink looks great, all the different clothes are stylish, the game pops and shoots out colour from every orifice. Subtle effects like the trail that speeding through ink in squid form leaves behind or the way ink looks on textures and surfaces looks excellent. it also runs at 60 FPS.
Final Score: 8/10
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