Ranking the top 101 Nintendo games: No. 67, Splatoon 2

Nintendo made an online shooter that isn't like other online shooters, and that's what makes it work.

I’m ranking the top 101 Nintendo developed/published games of all-time, and you can read about the thought process behind game eligibility and list construction here. You can keep up with the rankings so far through this link.

It takes an awful lot for me to want to stick with an online multiplayer shooter. It’s not just because those games tend to be populated by 15-year-old kids who don’t yet have their licenses and only interact with their friends outside of school by playing Call of Duty or whatever, giving them a major advantage over me, a person who has to write things like this to make money in between raising two kids. It’s also because I’ve already put in a lot of time on those kinds of games myself. I, too, was 15 without a license once, and while the internet wasn’t quite as robust, LAN gaming was a thing. We made it work, you know? I’ve got the Counter-Strike stories to prove it.

So, what tends to attract me to online multiplayer shooters (and online multiplayer games in general) is for them to be different. Really different. There needs to be some kind of hook that makes them stick out, to be worth investing time in so it’s not just “Halo, but prettier/bigger than before” and what have you. This is what drew me to the Battlefield series back in the day, as the capture-the-flag setup allowed you to act independently, sneaking behind enemy lines, without necessarily needing to spend all of your time firing an assault rifle. Being significantly different than what come before is what made me spend time with the multiplayer in Gears of War (the ground zero of horde modes), in Transformers: War for Cybertron (you were a robot that could like, turn into a tank mid-jump in order to fire a massive blast at an opposing robot, then land and melee another Transformer before they could open fire on you), or Red Faction: Guerrilla (do you know how satisfying it was to use a hammer to destroy the supports of the building housing that asshole who would just camp to snipe everyone, causing it to topple and crush said sniper underneath?), or in non-violent titles like Rocket League, where you are a car that plays soccer in a massive arena.

There’s comfort in familiarity, sure, so I understand why Call of Duty sells and sells and sells every single time they release a new one, but if I’m going to spend time in the multiplayer of a single-player game, then it needs a strong, preferably new hook like the games I mentioned above did. And if a game where the entire point is multiplayer, like Rocket League or Overwatch, is going to draw my attention, then it needs to be much more than just point gun, pull trigger to entice me.

Splatoon is an online multiplayer shooter that I was intrigued by and then fell in love with, because its secret is that it isn’t a shooter at all, at least not in the traditional sense. Your characters use guns, yes, and you can use those guns to defeat players on the opposing team, but that’s neither the point of the game nor the intended primary purpose of those guns. All of those weapons, whether they’re guns or melee, are actually more like tools, and those tools are used to paint. Splatoon is paintball, if the goal of paintball was actually to paint more of the arena than you played in than your opponents. (And if paintball was played by squid people in an era in Earth’s history after humanity as we know it has died out and been replaced as the dominant species.) You can, of course, also paint your opponents in order to slow down their own progress, but that’s just a part of the game instead of the game itself.

Splatoon originally released on the Wii U, but as you’ve seen me mention here before and will surely see again, a few dozen people bought that console, and it was considered a disaster from that point of view. So, while Splatoon 2 has been referred to as more like Splatoon 1.5, there’s nothing to be ashamed of there. It achieved the necessary goal, which was giving people who did play Splatoon something new to play, while introducing the concept of Splatoon to a much larger audience: in the middle of 2020, Splatoon 2 had sold nearly 11 million copies. The Wii U system, home of the original Splatoon, sold 13 million units.

Sales are not why Splatoon 2 is here on this list, though: that’s just some color. The sales do help to a degree, though, making the game’s entry more than just a historical footnote, since Splatoon 2 is still extremely active and therefore still extremely enjoyable: three years later, there are always other players to join your game, regardless of the mode you’ve chosen, and, based on the levels of their characters, they’re all over the spectrum in terms of how new to the game they are. It’s still a vibrant, growing scene, which means you can still enjoy it now, and also means that it’s probably safe to keep buying and playing until Splatoon 3 is announced for whatever console Nintendo comes next.

No, Splatoon 2 is on this list because it rules. It’s a lot of fun if you’re exceptional at the game. It’s a lot of fun if you’re just learning or aren’t particularly skilled at avoiding getting splatted by your opponents. And it’s all because the design allows you to play in wildly different ways: you’ll eventually find your preferred method of splatooning, and then either some floors or some people are going to get painted.

You’ll utilize paint guns that range from automatics to semi-automatics to sniper rifles to handguns. Or maybe you’ll equip an umbrella that flings paint every time it’s opened while also acting as a defensive measure against the paint of others. Or you could use a paint roller to quickly cover the ground in paint, or even run right over an opponent in your path. You can jump right into playing the game’s various modes to learn about what these tools are good and not good at, or you can test out the various weapons on a firing/painting range on your own.

There are not only a number of different types of painting tools and weapons at your disposal, but you can also unlock new versions of the tools you’re accustomed to by gaining additional levels and experience. These tools aren’t inherently “better” than the ones you were already using, so don’t worry that you’re automatically doomed if you’re facing someone who has played the game for much longer. The primary difference in these newer versions is that they have different secondary modes (maybe you throw a paint sprinkler instead of a paint grenade) and that the passive benefits you’ve equipped can be different, too. It’s a way to combine elements from the way the weapons and tools are initially introduced, until you find the perfect balance for your own play style.

Me? I’m a machine gun and paint grenade kind of guy, since it gives me the flexibility to paint the ground in a spread pattern while also being ready to handle any opponents who I manage to surprise or have to defend against. Normally, in a shooter, I’d be aghast at the lack of accuracy a machine gun brings, but in a game where you’re trying to paint as much of the what’s in front of you as possible, the lack of accuracy is actually a positive.

The base mode of Splatoon 2 is its Turf War, which is a four vs. four battle to claim territory in an arena via painting it. Matchmaking occurs in one of three setups: regular matches, ranked matches, and league matches. Obviously, the intensity of each type is different, and you can’t even get into the league matches until you’ve reached a certain threshold of non-league play experience. There are always two maps available in a given hour, and those turn over then. This accomplishes two things: it lets you get very familiar with the maps you’re playing on in a given session, and keeps you from just doing the same things over and over again in the same places if you’re going to be playing for a long time in one sitting.

You begin Turf War by shooting/rolling/flinging paint at the area around your spawn point, and then progress further into the arena you’re playing in. You’ll inevitably meet up with the players on the other team, who will then either shoot at you or the area around you, in the hopes of slowing you down either way. That’s because you’ll either be splatted and have to re-spawn, or you’ll need to spend your time painting on top of the paint they put on top of your paint. The short of it is that this goes on for three minutes, and then the winning team is the one with the larger percentage of the arena covered in their team’s color.

There is more to it than that, though. In order to successfully paint the majority of the arena, your team needs perform the roles their selection of weapon or tool implies they’re prepared for. If you’ve got a sniper rifle, you’re not going to paint very much very fast, so your time is better spent picking off opponents. If you’ve got a roller, it’s the opposite situation: sure, you can roll over and smack opposing players with your roller, but you picked that thing so you could do a whole lot of painting, fast. Plenty of weapons fall in a middle range where you can adjust to whatever is needed, so it’s rare that your team isn’t balanced, structurally, in a way that’ll get them destroyed, but even if it does happen, the matches are three minutes long, and you’re unlikely to realize how doomed you are until you’re more than halfway finished, anyway. Then it’s on to the next three-minute battle, which is a chance for an entirely different outcome.

And the rules of your primary weapon aren’t hard-and-fast ones, either. Maybe your sniper rifle comes with a secondary weapon that helps you paint faster, to compensate for the rifle’s painting. Or your special power — the gauge of which fills up the more you paint — is capable of painting in a way your weapon doesn’t allow, or causing damage in a way your tool does not. You have a lot of wiggle room to find the assortment of tools and powers that best fits the way you want to play.

It’s vital to make sure more of your paint is on the ground for reasons other than just the final tally, too. Your opponent’s paint causes you damage, and you walk through it more slowly, which is a significant deal in matches that are just three minutes long and where leaving yourself open to attack means you’ll probably be splatted. You can’t “reload” your paint supply in your opponent’s paint, either: you change into your squid form and swim through paint in order to reload or move faster than on foot, and you can’t do either if the only paint around is that of the opposing team.

The game also makes it so that even if you are constantly getting splatted by someone who has your number, you’re still capable of being helpful to your team. Incursions into your space will happen, and often. Getting splatted and sent back to the spawn point is simply a shortcut that allows you to clean up those incursions on your way back to the middle of the level, where the struggle is most often at its strongest. And since you were painting over ground your team missed the first time and paint your opponents left, you’ve likely earned enough points to use your special while you ran back to the fray, and might even be able to turn the tide in favor of your own team because of it.

You’ll notice, too, when the game shows you the layout of the map after a battle, that the difference between the winning team and the losing team often comes down to who has more of their opponent’s paint left in the path to the spawn point. There is no shame in “dying” in Splatoon, because what you do after that unfortunate situation might just earn your team the win.

Splatoon 2 has its own horde mode, Salmon Run, which sees you and three others facing three waves of Salmonid enemies in order to collect their eggs. The Salmonid come in many forms — little annoying fish that nip at your heels, ones the same size as you, huge salmon that erupt from the floor to eat you and shower the area in paint — and also have boss forms, which you need to defeat in order to collect the eggs required to make it to the next wave. These waves can, on occasion, be very difficult, in a way other parts of Splatoon 2 are not, but what’s a horde mode without some challenge?

Part of the difficulty comes from the setup: Salmon Runs last for a couple of days with a specific slate of weapons, tools, and powers, and you don’t get to choose which ones you’re going to use. It forces you to gain a level of comfort with other ways to play, which can be fine unless you’re really bad with a particular weapon or tool, and now all of your teammates are waiting for you to revive them and also your hub is being overrun by Salmonid. This can be frustrating on occasion, sure, but generally, the system works well, and you might even find you prefer a weapon or tool or skill you haven’t spent much time with otherwise, too.

And lastly, Splatoon 2 also has a single-player mode that tells more of the story of the world you’re in, the one populated by squid that are at odds with octopus and stealing the eggs of salmon. Like with Salmon Run, this is a great way to familiarize yourself with the game’s mechanics and skills, tools, etc. that you might not find yourself naturally gravitating to in competitive play. The levels are basically action challenges, and while it’s not a robust story mode, it is satisfying to play. You certainly don’t have to spend any time here in order to enjoy Turf War, though, so if you’re just here to paint strangers and their floors, then go with (Squid) God.

Maybe you like your shooters to be a little more predictable and familiar. That’s fine! There is no shortage of releases that cater specifically to you and millions of others like you. For those looking for something different, though, a shooter that isn’t really a shooter — or at least, that’s not the central thrust of it all — then Splatoon 2 is exactly what you want. There is plenty of deserved criticism you can lob at Nintendo for their focus (or lack thereof) in the online multiplayer space, but Splatoon? It just works, on every level, and that’s all you can ask for.

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