Splatoon 2 Hands On

Splatoon was a game that I never thought Nintendo would make, it was not the content that was strange, it was the genre, who would have guessed Nintendo would make a shooter that was great online. There were rumours that it was going to get ported to Switch, but they shocked everyone with announcing the sequel and that its coming this Winter and thanks to Nintendo Australia I was lucky enough to give it a go.

Splatoon 2 feels just like the first game, while I have not played the original in sometime, I was able to pick up a Switch and get into the game without any issues. The demo that was on offer took place in a new map and offered up the new weapon the Splat Duelies, which are very powerful. If you like Splatoon, then you will likely enjoy what was offered here, as the game seems to be more of an extension of the original, rather than anything completely new, but that’s ok.

Of course, Splatoon relied heavily on motion controls, you could play without them, but it was not a great experience, at least compared to other shooters, so I can report that the game now manages to merge both. As the Switch contains motion controls, you can use the movement of the system to aim, but at the same time, you can use the right stick and gain a larger turning circle. Which comes down to use the right stick to take aim, but use the motion to fine tune your shot.

The controls themselves took a little bit to adjust to, purely because you don’t get a map on a screen anymore, you now need to press the X button to bring it up. While you can press a direction on the dpad, which are assigned to a different member of the team and once selected, you can trigger a super jump, to bring you right into the action. However, if you don’t choose a direction, you can move the Switch around, which will point a reticule on the map and allow you to jump to that location.

Splatoon 2 seems like more of the same, but as this was a small slice of what is hopefully a much larger game, but so far it seems to be adding to the formula, which is a good thing.