[0:02] I want to talk about Splatoon Raiders a
[0:03] little more. This was featured in the
[0:05] Treehouse, which we hadn't had a chance
[0:06] to watch last week. It got about 25
[0:09] minutes of gameplay hosted by former NBC
[0:11] host Jose Otero, which was cool to see.
[0:13] But this is getting its own direct on
[0:15] June 30th, and on the Treehouse they
[0:17] basically showed off the tutorial, which
[0:19] is they taught us how to play Splatoon.
[0:21] So if you're new, you can go learn, but
[0:23] I've been playing Splatoon for 10 years.
[0:25] And then they showed off kind of the
[0:26] first level where you're going through
[0:28] this area fighting off waves of
[0:30] Salmonids to get three treasures that
[0:32] are denoted by these beams of light in
[0:34] the sky. And then once you get the the
[0:36] last one, which has like a spiral beam,
[0:39] so you know it's kind of the big
[0:40] mission, then the the level is over. You
[0:42] go back to base and you use all the
[0:43] resources you found to upgrade your gear
[0:46] and go out again. And I know we're
[0:47] getting a direct on June 30th, so
[0:49] there's still time, but I got to say as
[0:51] someone who has like 400 hours across
[0:53] the Splatoon series, I'm still not all
[0:55] the way sold on this one. I still I'm
[0:57] looking at this and I'm like it looks
[0:58] fun, but it just looks like a kind of a
[1:00] single-player expansion to me, not kind
[1:03] of oh, this is a big standalone
[1:05] single-player thing on on Switch, too.
[1:08] >> Yeah, I well-said. I'm I think I'm in
[1:10] the same boat.
[1:12] I I'll I'll definitely play this when it
[1:15] comes out because I like the idea of
[1:17] like getting a standalone single-player
[1:20] Splatoon game, but it doesn't it's it's
[1:23] just not there just yet for me. And I've
[1:26] said this before on the show. I think
[1:27] part of it for me is the art direction.
[1:29] It's just kind of drab and it's not I I
[1:32] feel like they took one of the most
[1:35] unique-looking franchises in Nintendo
[1:38] history. Like that was revelatory when
[1:41] it first came out, right? This was it
[1:42] was very clearly like hey, this is not
[1:45] your grandpa's Nintendo or whatever,
[1:46] right? Like this this was a bunch of
[1:47] this is a young scrappier team of
[1:49] developers. And I've said this in the
[1:50] past on the show, but so much of
[1:53] Nintendo games were about cleaning
[1:55] things up, right? It was about
[1:56] collecting everything and find like
[1:58] Super Mario Sunshine is like, "Hey, get
[2:00] that graffiti out of here." And then
[2:02] here they were like, "Let's make a huge
[2:03] mess. Let's make an absolute disaster
[2:05] everywhere. That's the aesthetic, right?
[2:07] It is not It is not rigid and conformed.
[2:10] It is chaos and there's still a bit of
[2:13] that here, but I feel like the
[2:14] level-wise everything just feels a
[2:16] little desaturated.
[2:17] >> Yeah.
[2:18] >> And I want I want some more Yeah, I just
[2:20] want a little more sort of vibrant pop
[2:23] from this game. And it's not happening,
[2:25] obviously, right? So, I can just have to
[2:26] deal with it. Um or suck it up as they
[2:29] do in these games.
[2:31] Uh but I I just don't I I I wish it was
[2:34] a little bit had a little more sort of
[2:35] oomph to it.
[2:36] >> Yeah. Yeah, and and maybe they're still
[2:38] hiding lots of stuff from us. They do
[2:40] have our own its own show dedicated to
[2:41] it that's coming up. And I'm still
[2:43] waiting to see in the first trailer for
[2:45] this game or something. They had a
[2:47] little icon in the top left that said
[2:49] like dungeon list or something like
[2:50] that. I'm like, "Dungeons?" There's
[2:52] going to be little probably underground
[2:53] shrine-like areas in this game. We
[2:54] haven't seen that at all. So, I'm still
[2:56] holding out hope there's going to be
[2:57] something that's going to really hook me
[2:59] in on this one.
[3:00] >> Did you guys play De Blob?
[3:02] >> Yeah. Yeah.
[3:03] >> Yeah.
[3:04] >> Okay, so that this reminds me of that
[3:06] before all the color comes in. And like
[3:08] that was the whole thing with that game
[3:09] was like you went in and you're this
[3:10] blob and you you painted uh textures and
[3:13] and buildings and environments and stuff
[3:15] like that and turn them from black and
[3:16] white into like full color. And here it
[3:19] feels like Yeah, like look, there's a
[3:21] there's a lot of there's a lot of
[3:23] similarities here. Here it feels like um
[3:25] the the the part where the color kicks
[3:27] in just doesn't really happen. And so,
[3:30] yeah, I I
[3:32] I don't know. I I'm I'm optimistic, but
[3:35] I I wish it was a little more so far.
[3:37] >> Yeah, based just off of what we've seen,
[3:39] it looks very like 2008 PS3 Xbox 360
[3:44] shooter. Like every when everything was
[3:46] just brown and gray. Which is so it's so
[3:48] weird for this series specifically.
[3:50] >> Yeah, for this series, yeah.
[3:51] >> Yeah, most stylish like video game
[3:53] series Nintendo has ever made. One of
[3:55] the most stylish video game series
[3:56] probably ever. Where everything just
[3:58] works so well together from the sound
[4:00] design to the to the colors to the
[4:02] design of like just the fonts of their
[4:04] made up language. It all looks so great
[4:06] and then it's like here you go.
[4:07] >> Somebody remade
[4:09] a mountain in Unreal Engine 4 and now
[4:11] it's uh
[4:13] >> You like even you go to like you know
[4:14] the one of the Nintendo stores and
[4:16] there's like the merchandise section for
[4:18] Splatoon. It is so drastically different
[4:20] than everything else in there, right?
[4:21] Like there was just this corner with
[4:23] this these psychedelic neon alien
[4:25] languages and big color splats and
[4:28] everything like that and they're they're
[4:29] selling these like keychains and these
[4:31] like funky huge, you know, bootleg Air
[4:34] Jordans and it's yeah, it's they've got
[4:37] their whole own thing and then now I'm
[4:40] I'm just I feel like they they lost a
[4:41] beat there, but I don't
[4:42] >> Look, I haven't played it yet and I
[4:43] don't want to I don't want to just hone
[4:45] in on the negative for it cuz I have a
[4:47] feeling that it's gameplay-wise it's
[4:49] going to be really fun.
[4:50] >> I think that they consistently struggle
[4:51] to show Splatoon off in a good light. I
[4:53] felt that with Splatoon 3 also like
[4:55] leading up to that game's launch a few
[4:56] years ago. It took them a long time to
[4:59] convince us of why we needed another
[5:00] Splatoon sequel on Switch instead of
[5:03] Splatoon 2 just getting more updates.
[5:05] That game turned out fantastic and
[5:06] totally justified that it exists and did
[5:09] some of the coolest things Nintendo's
[5:10] ever done like the the final Splatfest
[5:12] where it was basically like a Splatoon
[5:13] rave that that you attended and did this
[5:15] final huge battle with. That was great.
[5:17] And then the the side order DLC
[5:19] did take out all the color. It was this
[5:21] monochrome black and white world, but it
[5:23] was so starkly different than Splatoon
[5:25] that it really worked and it had its own
[5:27] kind of dystopian vibe and the music was
[5:29] really electronica and cool. And so that
[5:31] had its own identity as well. But then
[5:33] this, yeah, we just don't see it yet.
[5:35] We'll talk in 2 weeks after we watch the
[5:37] direct and hopefully we're all a little
[5:39] more on board.
[5:41] Anything else from the direct you guys
[5:42] want to shout out or should we move on?
[5:44] >> Thanks for watching this clip from
[5:46] Nintendo Voice Chat. Be sure to catch
[5:47] the full episode over at
[5:48] youtube.com/igngames.
[5:51] New episodes of NBC drop every Friday on
[5:53] igngames, ign.com, and your favorite
[5:56] podcast platforms. With the Nintendo
[5:58] Switch 2 finally here, there is so much
[6:00] to dive into. We appreciate you tuning
[6:02] in, and don't forget NBC is the only
[6:04] place you can get the thing.