Showing posts with label Splatoon 2. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Splatoon 2. Show all posts

Splatoon 2 Is The Dreamcast Game I Never Knew I Wanted

I am loath to make comparisons between the commercial flop Sega Dreamcast and the commercial darling Nintendo Switch but the latest first-party offering from Nintendo on its home/portable console hybrid might as well be the home of DJ Professor K. I’m comparing, of course, the paint-splattering Splatoon 2 with the flashy Jet Grind Radio on the Dreamcast.

I could give you a surface level analysis and discuss how both games involve a metric-ton of paint sloshing but at the ‘Yard we like to go a little bit deeper. Splatoon 2 is a vibrant online shooter with compressed matches that resemble the rhythm and pointedness of Dreamcast’s library of competitive games and not just the amazing Jet Grind Radio. Ooga Booga. Outtrigger. Power Stone. Hydro Thunder. The Dreamcast is home to a healthy supply of arcade-style games that require minimal investment and an honest desire for amusement. Journalists in the ‘90s categorized the Dreamcast as the last 'hobby' console, i.e., a fun little box that - not obsessive types that like to achievement hunt and spend hundreds of hours gawking at Geralt’s platinum hair - could enjoy. The Dreamcast represented the end of an era. Its games were a testament to the hobbyist philosophy.
But let’s get back to Jet Grind Radio for a moment. In Jet Grind Radio you play as a variety of rollerblading hoodlums (as I’m sure President Trump would call them, I like to call them artists) who skate around the streets of Tokyo-to looking for areas to spraypaint their tags. In order to achieve this, you must battle a crescendo of Tokyo-to police forces up to and including a damn tank. Apparently vandalism is punishable by tank in the streets of Tokyo-to. The spraying and skating is accompanied by a funky soundtrack from DJ Professor K. Poppy hip-hop and female Japanese chanting fills your ears while you race around the cell-shaded environment.