By Brendan Graeber
If most single-player campaigns in online
shooters are designed to get your feet wet before throwing you into the
pool with other players, Splatoon 2’s Octo Expansion is designed to
throw you into the intimidating deep end. Many of its cleverly designed
levels are not afraid to ask for a certain level of skill as they test
you in more than just combat scenarios; some demand precise platforming
or evasion against overwhelming odds, while others tease your brain to
manipulate the environment and guide vulnerable objects to a goal. The
sheer variety and difficulty of challenges, encased in a somber and
grimy take on Splatoon’s world, leads to a single-player experience that
rarely pulls its punches.
Octo Expansion puts you in
the role of an Octoling (who’s much friendlier than those in the other
campaigns), codenamed Agent 8, and teams you up with the grizzled
Captain Cuttlefish to find an ally and escape an underwater dungeon.
There’s a lot of funny and clever writing here, with highlights such as
when several characters get in touch with their hip-hop side to help the
exposition along, and a particularly hilarious talking telephone tries
to enable “contemporary speech mode” to better relate to today’s
Octoling youth. The macguffins you find by completing levels are
literally called “thangs,” for example.
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It’s easy to spot the DNA of Breath of the Wild’s shrines in these challenges.
Alongside the collection of thangs, there are around 80 challenges to
undertake, which is where Octo Expansion positively shines. Ranging from
hard-fought battles against gangs of much less friendly Octolings, to
crafty puzzle rooms where missteps lead to instant failures, there’s
such a wide range of possibilities of what can be done with Splatoon’s
ink-based mechanics. It’s easy to spot the DNA of
The Legend of Zelda:
Breath of the Wild’s shrines in many of these challenges: one level
might ask you to carefully splat a giant 8-ball to nudge it toward a
goal post, while another will have you sniping multiple 8-balls to drive
them through switches in a demented billiards table with limited ink
ammo in your pack. One of my favorite challenges pitted me against
flying enemies on a small platform made of breakable crates: if I
focused too much on aiming up and not on watching my footing, my enemies
would lead me right into a pit. Because I was constantly viewing
familiar mechanics through different lenses, levels never got boring or
predictable. The finale itself is also brilliantly structured, with a
very different but fun take on a final boss.
All of
these tests of skill in Octo Expansion are encased within the gloomy
plane of the Deepsea Metro, which serves as a gateway between them. I
loved seeing all of its bizarre, deep sea-inspired passengers that look
like they’re commuting home from the set of a Guillermo Del Toro movie.
The Metro is a clever way to create a branching level-selection system,
as each of the stops is a trial room that sometimes opens up a new rail
line to explore. It’s a relief that you don’t necessarily have to beat
your head against a wall if a level is too hard, and can instead find a
different line to progress in another direction. And for those dreading
some of these unforgiving challenges: there is an option to bypass a
level if you’ve been stuck on it for several tries.
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While checkpoints are usually plentiful, mission parameters are often extremely strict.
Many of the levels offer built-in difficulty tiers based on which
weapon you choose: each level requires a bit of currency to attempt, but
the payouts are bigger the more difficult the associated weapon is.
You’ll also get a set number of lives per challenge, and while
checkpoints are usually plentiful, mission parameters are often
extremely strict. One missed target or one step out of line and your
backpack explodes with lethal ink. But while they are certainly
difficult, over the course of 5 hours of play I never got to a point
where I was worried about losing all my currency – but if it wasn’t for
the ability to purchase random XP and money boosts for multiplayer after
beating Octo Expansion, I’d wonder if the currency was ever really
needed to begin with.
The Verdict
Octo Expansion throws plenty of both fun and serious challenges at
you, between its expansive amount of levels and a multi-tiered finale
that doesn’t disappoint. These trials provide worthy so many challenges
for those who wish to hone their mechanical skills for upcoming
multiplayer matches, that I wish this had been Splatoon 2’s base
campaign all along.
