The smartest decision here is recognizing that Splatoon’s movement and shooting can support much more than competitive multiplayer. The review describes Raiders as an action RPG built around familiar weapons, ink-based movement, escalating combat encounters, loot, and extensive gadget customization. More importantly, it explains how those pieces interact rather than simply praising the novelty of the genre shift. After more than 40 hours of play, including an approximately 18-hour campaign and substantial endgame time, the reviewer makes a convincing case that the familiar Splatoon foundation works remarkably well when progression and experimentation become the focus.
Gadgets emerge as the clearest reason Raiders feels distinct. Dividing them among speed, power, and tactical tanks gives players different approaches to mobility, damage, and battlefield control, while equipping two gadgets creates opportunities for combinations such as pairing the jump bomb with the flywire for an airborne playstyle. The discussion of bomb balloons is especially useful because it demonstrates how upgrades can fundamentally redirect a gadget rather than merely increase its numbers. One build can emphasize explosions while another exploits damaging tethers and longevity. The review communicates this system with enough specificity to make the customization sound genuinely flexible, although the missing wishlist for tracking required crafting materials is an understandable frustration in a game so dependent on upgrades.
That customization matters because the campaign apparently gives players reasons to engage with it. On the hardest Survivalist difficulty, the reviewer describes narrow margins for error and encounters capable of overwhelming poorly prepared builds, while Standard retains the same enemy arrangements with less incoming damage. Failure sends the player back to reconsider equipment or pursue other missions, giving progression a practical purpose. The review is particularly persuasive when discussing pacing: different activities provide specific resources, new stages remain available instead of forcing repeated grinding, and enemy difficulty continues rising alongside the player's power. Claims of “nearly perfect” pacing are enthusiastic, but the explanation behind that enthusiasm is unusually concrete.
Variety also appears to come more from encounter structure than scenery. Linear stages mix traversal with combat waves, timed dungeons emphasize damage output, open areas turn combat into an extraction-style loot hunt, and Salmonid Dens encourage selecting tools appropriate to particular enemies. Sampler Dungeons sound like the most thoughtful addition, restricting loadouts while demonstrating highly upgraded gadgets so players can learn possibilities they may have overlooked. Spicier variants then increase enemy pressure for players seeking harder challenges. Against that mechanical variety, the visual criticism is significant: repeated environments and a muted palette apparently make the stages less visually distinctive than expected from Splatoon, even if large enemy counts running at a reported locked 60 FPS demonstrate a more practical use of Switch 2 hardware.
Enemy design further supports the campaign’s emphasis on problem solving. Familiar Salmon Run opponents are recombined into situations where prioritization and positioning become essential, while bosses introduce specific battlefield complications that force players to adapt. The review does not merely say combat becomes chaotic; examples such as protective bubbles and damaging shockwaves illustrate why different enemy combinations change tactical decisions. This complements the customization system well: powerful builds matter because the game keeps presenting problems that supposedly demand more than raw firepower, at least throughout the campaign.
Online co-op receives similarly detailed treatment, with individual loot, shared mission completion, per-player enemy scaling, level-appropriate rewards, and independent difficulty settings addressing many common progression problems. The ability to request assistance from strangers also gives solo players an alternative when stuck. Yet the review's most interesting observation is that adding players can undermine some of the carefully constructed challenge. Four characters unloading powerful abilities can bypass puzzles and tactical demands that are more engaging alone. The follow-up discussion strengthens this point by comparing the transformation to multiplayer Mario: co-op is not presented as badly designed, but as a more chaotic experience that sacrifices some deliberate level design for shared spectacle.
The endgame seems substantial without being oversold as endless. The reviewer initially found that powerful builds became too easy to assemble, only for later challenges to restore pressure and send him back to customization. His expectation of another couple dozen hours rather than permanent engagement gives the praise some useful restraint. The extended post-review conversation also establishes that his enthusiasm comes from considerable experience with Splatoon, including extensive play across the mainline games and prior single-player expansions. That perspective helps explain why declaring this the series’ strongest campaign carries weight, though the presentation would have benefited from spending a little more time identifying shortcomings beyond visual repetition, crafting-menu inconvenience, and co-op balance. The overwhelmingly positive assessment is well supported, but rarely seriously challenged.
Pros
- Explains the gadget system with concrete examples that demonstrate meaningful build variety rather than relying on vague praise of customization.
- Makes a strong case for the campaign’s difficulty and progression working together without requiring excessive grinding.
- Covers a wide range of mission structures and clearly explains how their different rewards support the RPG loop.
- Thoughtfully examines why co-op can be enjoyable while still weakening the puzzle-like qualities of solo play.
- Provides substantial firsthand context from more than 40 hours of play, including campaign, endgame, difficulty testing, and multiplayer.
- Identifies practical Switch 2 performance benefits despite criticizing the environments and overall visual presentation.
Cons
- The overwhelmingly enthusiastic verdict leaves relatively little scrutiny of potential weaknesses beyond environments, material tracking, and multiplayer trivialization.
- Claims such as “nearly perfect” pacing and exceptional balance are strongly argued from personal experience but remain subjective judgments.
- The inability to show later encounters and abilities limits how fully some of the strongest claims about late-game complexity can be demonstrated.
- The extended discussion after the main review adds useful context but also revisits several single-player-versus-co-op points already established.
This is a persuasive review because its enthusiasm is usually backed by specific systems, encounters, and progression examples rather than reputation alone. Gadgets, demanding combat, varied missions, restrained grinding, and thoughtful progression make the action-RPG transformation sound unusually natural, while the criticism of repetitive environments and co-op's effect on level design keeps the assessment from becoming entirely celebratory. More examination of long-term repetition and other weaknesses would strengthen the verdict, but the depth of firsthand experience and clarity of the mechanical analysis make this an effective case for Raiders as a particularly successful Splatoon experiment.
