Hero Mode serves as a (mostly) enjoyable romp within which you can acclimatise yourself to the controls. To do so will require you to best over two dozen missions and five bosses, so you’ll need to slide your way over to the first “Mission Kettle” – the device which acts as the entry point for all missions. As noted, the aim of the game is to rescue all of the missing Zapfish, defeat the evil Octarian forces, and find out what happened to Callie. You’ll then find yourself in the first of five hub worlds, a place dubbed Tentakeel Outpost, and the first three missions in front of you. It’s here – below the surface – that your adventure begins. As luck would have it, it seems that you are everything that is needed to save the day, so after a brief exchange with the other half of the Squid Sisters (Marie – you get the joke, right?) you are soon thrust into the depths of Octo Canyon.
All is not well however, as once again the Great Zapfish that powers the city has been fish-napped – and to complicate things further, one of the superstar Squid Sisters (Callie) is also missing. In the world of Splatoon you play as Inklings – humanoid beings with the ability to transfigure into a squid – and this title sees your adventure begin on the day that you move into Inktropolis. This mode is where you’ll hone your skills, learn to use the variety of weapons at your disposal, and generally have a great (if occasionally frustrating) time.
The answer to both of those queries is a resounding yes, thankfully.Īt it’s core, Splatoon 2 is very much focused on the multiplayer element of the game – and I’ll get to that shortly, but as there are three distinct parts to the game I’d like to start off with the single player campaign Hero Mode.
The question then comes down to whether there’s enough here to justify being a numbered sequel, followed closely by whether it has that same spark that made the first game such a hit. The first Splatoon was a stellar hit when it launched on the Wii U (especially in Japan), so it’s no surprise to see a sequel, and even less surprising to see it on their newest system. That would have been an absurd statement to have written a few years back, but every so often Nintendo like to dabble with new things (read: innovate) and come up with something extraordinary in the process. Splatoon 2 is a colourful team-based multiplayer-focused third-person shooter from Nintendo. I’ll have some calamari instead of cod, please.