While there’s no question that Nintendo has released some incredible games on the Switch and the Switch 2, I’ve found that their typical releases are tougher for me to stick with. Even without having loads of indie games to play and review every week, their more epic scope and need to be in tune with what’s happening, where, and when make them great to play continuously, but a often a challenge to return and pick up where you left off from later. It’s for that reason my tendency has been to avoid some of their releases, knowing I probably wouldn’t get everything I wanted out of them. Seeing the trailers for Splatoon Raiders I got a very different impression, and it’s one I was happy to see play out spending many hours with the game.

While I didn’t get the last Splatoon outing, since I spent quite a lot of time playing Splatoon 2, I’ve always had a deep appreciation for the brilliance of its overall design. The use of paint as both ammunition for your weapons, as well as your means of quick traversal, is outright genius, and the best thing about Raiders is that it takes that concept and runs with it in a new context as a looter shooter. Given that I’m a huge fan of the Borderlands franchise as well as the likes of Diablo, I was eager to see what Nintendo could put together combining these two great things together, and overall Raiders looks, feels, and plays wonderfully. 

In order to keep the only differentiation between players from just being weapon level, the addition of the three different tiers of tanks, and all of the wild gadgets that come with them, were a wise move. In order to really get a sense of what setup suits you best you’ll need to spend some time with them though, but since each gadget can then be further customized that will take some time. If there’s a flaw in the game, I’d say that the gear-specific modifiers work against people freely experimenting, which is a shame. To try out something new you’ll need to grind with it enabled, likely weakening your overall build, just in the hope that over the course of many missions you’ll get what you need by chance, to help get it into a good enough state. Some elements being more common in some way could have allowed people to kick the tires and find the build they want much more easily, but with the system in place as is, I think people are likely to simply get locked in by what they have going since it’s already better maximized rather than feeling like they need to start over again.

The one plus of the grindy nature of the game though is that you have a nice variety of choices in front of you for doing so. There are plenty of missions you’ll be able to complete in a tight 5 minutes or so, dealing with an onslaught of enemies and then cashing in. There are then multi-tiered varieties of that concept that are a bit longer, and end with a mini boss to up the challenge. If you’re in the mood to explore, find secrets, and stretch your legs there are opportunities for that as well. Of course, there are also boss stages, which as you can imagine are their own challenge. Returning to key areas is also more fun with the option to up the ante with spicy variations, toughening the monsters you’ll face and making the rewards more tantalizing as well. But wait, you won’t need to do all of this alone, you can also join up with friends, periodically call for random help, or even queue up to join other players looking for some assistance. Regardless of how you like to play, Splatoon Raiders offers up plenty of shooting chaos that’s quite addictive once you get up to speed. Better yet, if you’re a gamer like me who sometimes is just looking to kill 15 minutes, it’s a terrific option that delivers something many bigger Nintendo releases simply aren’t so ideal for.