One of my favorite things about the original Splatoon was that while you were waiting for an online match to start, you could play a little 8-bit arcade style game.  I even wrote an article about them here.  I missed having them in the sequels, but I can understand why they took them out.  I think most people would rather play in a practice arena doing what they’ll actually do in the match while they wait, and I think some of the extra arcade games were locked behind amiibo figures anyway.  But I still liked them because I’m weird I guess.  So I was pleasantly surprised that the arcade games made a return in Splatoon Raiders!  I don’t even remember anyone talking about them in previews or reviews, so it was a surprise to me!  So I’m going to talk about them here!

So Splatoon Raiders is a single player spinoff of Splatoon.  It plays a lot like the single player missions from the main games, just a bit more fleshed out and with RPG elements.  You can level up and upgrade your equipment for instance.  It’s not Game of the Year material or anything like that, but that’s OK, not every fun game has to be. It gets a bit repetitive at times, but I’m still enjoying it anyway.  You play as a squid kid mechanic going treasure hunting with the three pop idol stars from the third game.

As you play, you’ll upgrade your base and one of the things on your base is an arcade game cabinet that you can add arcade games to.  I love how the menu where you choose the games looks like the menus to play games on the old Apple ][+ computer my family had in the early 80s!  The graphics in these games are very much 8-bit and even have blurry low res visuals!  I think the only thing you get by playing these games is a new outfit if you get high scores.  Unfortunately that’s really hard to do!  I was disappointed that there were only four games you could unlock.  I swore the original Splatoon had more arcade games, but looking back, it only had four as well!  At any rate, let’s take a look at each one of these games! 

Mining

In the main game, one of your teammates will pilot this big robot mech thing that helps you drill for treasure.  In this game you play as that bot as you drill down a vertical shaft for treasure.  The deeper you dig, the higher your score.  As you dig, a timer ticks down and it’s Game Over when time’s up.  You can push a button to speed up, but it makes it harder to avoid the sides of the walls and rocks in your way.  If you pick up a jewel, it’ll add a second to your timer.  And you just try and dig down as far as you can!

Hopping

In this one you control the Bot as it bounces a Squid.  You want the Squid to collect jewels for points, but you must avoid enemies.  The Bot can jump on ground enemies to defeat them, and the Squid can hit enemies from above, but not below.  If you get hit too many times or drop the Squid a certain amount, it’s Game Over.  It’s like they implemented platforming elements to an Arkanoid game.

Juggling

The Bot stands on one side of the screen and the Squid on the other and you move both of them left and right as they bounce enemies from one side of the net to the other.  Miss too many times and it’s Game Over.  It kind of reminds me of a more analog version of the Game & Watch game Ball.  Two players can enjoy this game with one controller as long as you don’t mind getting close to them!

Landing

And finally, this one reminds me of Lunar Lander, except a lot harder!  You press the L and R buttons to fire jets on the Bot to turn left and right, and you must make it from one side of the screen to the other and meet the Squid.  There are ten stages total, which may not seem like a lot but I only made it to stage three, so it’s really hard!

And those are all the games!  I don’t really have much else to say other than I’m glad they brought the arcade style games back!  Later!  --Cary