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Wyrdness on 27 March 2017
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JWeinCom said:


Splatoon's goal is simple in the same sense that Guilty Gear's goal is simple.  That doesn't necessarily mean that it's accessible to the casual audience.  It requires the use of two joysticks, gyro sensors, I believe three of the shoulder buttons, and three of the face buttons at a bare minimum (more effective play will require seven really).  You have to be adept at switching between kid and squid, have a good sense of the balance between weapons, how to work with teammates, manage ink levels, etc etc etc.  

If you're not reasonably adept at these things, your experience is going to be getting splatted every few seconds, and likely losing most matches, especially if the matchmaking is as poor as the first one.  Unlike a game like Smash or Mario Kart though, where casual gamers can focus on local multiplayer with friends around their level, Splatoon 2 is heavily focused on online multiplayer.  Not only does this mean that you have less control over your opponents skill level, but it also means that to really get much out of the game, you're going to have to spring for the online subscription after the first few months.

Splatoon is not really a simple game, and it's not intuitive in the same sense as Mario Kart or even Smash.  It also doesn't look particularly simple.  It's definitely more accessible than most shooters, but it's not all that accessible compared to other genres.




Comparitively, Super Mario 3D games tend to involve a Joystick, and 2-4 buttons.  Some additional buttons may be needed for camera control, but that's not essential.  Controls are vastly more simplistic than Splatoon.

Puzzle solving has been deemphasized since Sunshine, and even those puzzles weren't all that complex.  The goals are more complex than Splatoon, but that's balance by the fact that you can generally take the game at your own pace without the hecticness of four other active humans trying to kill you, and there is generally no time limit, or a very lenient one.  There is little pressure to rush, no risk of having someone sneak up behind you or getting sniped from a completely unseen enemy and so on.  If the game follows the Sunshine/Galaxy format, you are given a good deal of freedom to skip over certain challenges (in Super Mario 64 you can skip 50 out of 120 and still beat the game), and there will likely be some way that the game will allow you to mitigate challenging levels (for example the Cosmic Spirit in Mario Galaxy 2).  

In terms of complexity and skill required, there's really no contest.  Assuming people actually want to succeed in the game, Splatoon requires vastly more skill.  I'm about 99% sure that if we showed a non-gamer or casual gamer both games and asked which one they thought is a game they could play well, Mario would win ten out of ten times.

As for 2D vs 3D Mario, it's questionable if 2D ones outsell 3D ones.  They definitely did on the Wii and DS, but on the 3DS, 3D Land outsold NSMB2, and on the Wii U, the difference between NSMBU and 3D World was about a million, and without bundling it's hard to say which would have sold more.  It's likely that the more casual fanbase benefitted the 2D games on the Wii and the DS, but it's also possible that this was an abberation.  At this point, there hadn't been a 2D Mario game in 15 years or so, but they've been common since then.  

More importantly though, it is inherently easier to navigate a character in a 2D space than a 3D space.  2D Mario is much simpler to control than 3D, but Splatoon is much more difficult to control than either.  Not really a valid comparison.

The's a whole load of null and void things in your post here for a start Splatoon has modes for competitive and non competitive play it's more inviting to play than both Smash and MK in that sense, the game scales your skill to match you with similar players so no they won't have to worry about skill level it's like the concept of match making is new to you it's been around for years and even the first game has it. Splatoon is also far more more intuitive despite your claim allowing control options that suit the player, it's a simple game that has a lot of depth.

I don't know how you think controls in Splatoon are more difficult either because for years 3D Mario was scaling back and removing actions Mario could do to make the game more simple which contradicts your point. Little pressure to rush doesn't mean a game is accessible to casuals Metroid Prime has little pressure to rush through most of it doesn't mean it helps a casual player under what you're trying say Mario Kart is stressful to them because the are 11 other players battling them as you're trying to claim competitive play is not casual friendly when that's false as casuals play games like COD, FIFA and so on all the time.

Your argument about skill is also something of a strawman here because casuals don't care about that they're playing for fun much like they do Smash and MK you're here arguing like they have to play at the highest level to enjoy that again is false. It's also not questionable if 2D MArio sells more in the age of 3D Mario the NSMB series blew away the 3D game easily, NSMB on DS and Wii sold over 20m each because casuals can get into them far easier even with 3DL the sales heavily back my point.

Splatoon is simple to get into, load the game up pick your weapon and start facing off against people I guarantee you casuals will understand more about how to play Splatoon 2 after several games then what they do about navigating an open world Odyssey in the same amount of time. It's understandable because 3D Mario is more for avid players I'll bet money a 2D Mario game will appear on the Switch for casual players.