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The Best Part Of Nintendo's 'Splatoon' Is Single-Player Adventure Mode

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Nintendo hosted a preview party for Splatoon in a swanky Manhattan loft. Journalists, bloggers, and YouTubers showed up with kids in tow.

It was clear what Nintendo wanted to emphasize. The big show, spread out against the long front wall, was Splatoon’s online multiplayer mode. You’ve probably read many reviews about it already. Premiered at E3 last year, Splatoon’s eight player online mode is a paint-splatter turf war. “Inklings” battle to cover the playing field in their team’s color. When you shoot an opponent, there’s a paint explosion and then the inkling re-spawns back at his or her home base. There’s no killing. Nintendo wants it to be family friendly.

Last year at E3, everyone loved Splatoon. But nowadays journalists are complaining about the lack of voice chat. It is a reasonable criticism. No voice chat minimizes the impact of playing anything online in multiplayer mode. Without it, you don’t necessarily feel the same sense of wonder that comes from knowing you’re engaged with someone very very far away. Players thrive on the additional feedback that comes from conversation. The absence of banter detracts from the overall potential experience.

Still, I don’t blame Nintendo for not including voice chat in Splatoon’s multiplayer mode. In fact, from a parent's perspective, I’m glad they didn’t. I have looked over my 10 year old’s shoulder to read the chat stream on Minecraft; I have heard the kind of chatter that’s modeled by superstar players on YouTube. It can be problematic because it teaches kids more than just gamer-speak. It is not just about the lingo. Kids also internalize the ways of relating that they see performed by role models. How YouTubers interact in the game-world, and how peers interact in online voice chat, gets incorporated into children’s life-world interactions.

I’m not saying that is necessarily a terrible thing. I let my kids (7 and 10 years old) watch online videos and (text) chat on Minecraft servers. But we spend a lot of time talking about what’s appropriate and what’s not. I see it as a great teaching opportunity. The vast majority of gamer chat happens to be totally fine for kids. Sure, there are many profanities, sprinkled liberally—and there’s the same kind of playful jabs and insults you’d find on any playground—but overall, the intention behind it is mostly constructive, jovial, and collaborative.

When it comes to Splatoon, the problem with voice-chat-gamer-speak is that it would be unpredictable. And parents who are not actively involved and engaged with their kids’ play can’t possibly help kids think about the experience of participating in a sometimes hostile and inappropriate context. I’m guessing Nintendo has considered this, and they probably decided, from a business perspective, that the risk is not worth it. After all, they want parents to know that the brand is safe. They don’t want kids telling their parents they learned the f-bomb from Splatoon. Nintendo would prefer parents know they don’t need worry about objectionable language, or violence, or sexual representation. They want to preserve Mario’s status as the Mickey Mouse of the game industry. A trusted, family safe brand is a very valuable thing and Nintendo is well poised to join a very exclusive list of juggernauts like the Sesame Workshop, Disney, and LEGO.

At the Splatoon preview party, Nintendo continued their ongoing practice of creating a sort of edgy hip 21st Century version of “family safe.” They know how to create experiences. Refreshments included gourmet grilled cheese, fancy cupcakes, hipster crudité, and watermelon lemonade. In the back corner, everything was covered in plastic (even the participants), and kids were shooting “non-toxic, water-based” paints out of modified super soakers. Kids and adults tried real-life Splatoon-style painting. There were balloon paint-bombs and giant rollers. It made me excited to see what Nintendo Land will really look like when it opens in Universal Parks and Resorts.

Next to the grilled cheese station, they had just two consoles set up to try Splatoon’s 1-on-1 mode. And then, in the middle of the room, a small installation on which guests could try the one player 3D platforming mode. And that’s where I spent most of my time. While my kids were off with all the other young people, absorbed in multiplayer action, I decided to stay where things were quiet. Just me and the Inkling amiibo. It turns out that I picked the best place of all. And now that my kids have spent a week with a preview copy of Splatoon at home, I’m sure they’d agree.

Splatoon’s single player 3D platform mode seems like the best part of the game. And I don’t get why nobody is talking about it.

The Splatoon game-plan was clear from the start. Nintendo wanted to incorporate the game mechanics of shooters and make it family friendly. So they used a paint gun and made it all about colors. They made it a turf war. But one-player mode is different. The objective is not to mark your turf. Instead, it is a fast-paced action third-person shooter where Inklings slide, in squid form, through Inkopolis, to defeat an evil octopus army.

I played my way through one level at the preview party and it was full of neat obstacles that sometimes involved fairly tricky maneuvers: distracting tentacle creeps in just the right way and hiding in squid form to sneak behind enemy lines. The boss was classic Nintendo, big and powerful, but also slow and dumb. Defeating the boss involved out-maneuvering and quick movements. And it turned out to be way more challenging than I had anticipated. Applying Splatoon controls and applying them to this immersive wacky adventure gave me a similar thrill to the first time I played Halo. I was just blown away by the cool factor.

While at a big preview party, even with a few hours, one really only has a chance to get first impressions of game this big. My kids loved online multiplayer.  And even without voice chat, I expect everyone else will too. I loved one-player because it offers more of a challenge—it’s not just about splattering paint wherever you can. I just don’t understand why nobody else is talking about it.

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