Foamstars Looks Like A Splatoon Clone, But It's More Interesting Than That

gamespot.com:

Morphing maps and hero characters give Foamstars more of a distinct identity than you might expect.

By Chris Morris on

When Foamstars was revealed during May's Playstation Showcase, the internet's judgment was swift and brutal--it's just a Splatoon rip-off. Case closed. But after playing four rounds of suds-fuelled multiplayer action at Gamescom 2023, the reality is a little bit more complicated.

Foamstars is a four-versus-four party shooter game pitched by Square Enix as «filling a gap» in the online multiplayer shooter market. In a sense, it is, if you are absolutely determined to ignore the gigantic ink-covered squid in the room. The basic gameplay sees two teams of four players fight across a map, spraying colored foam that sticks to surfaces and damages opposing players, with developers promising a suite of adversarial game modes.

Every player can surf across foam--fast if it's your team's color, and much slower if it's the opposing team's. If a player is coated with enough foam, they are immobilized in a giant foam ball. Surfing into an enemy in this state knocks them out, scoring a point for your team, and surfing into a foamed teammate breaks them free to fight again.

Players choose from a roster of characters with varied weapons and special moves, offering various playstyles from precise ranged combat to in-your-face anarchy. All four rounds we played featured a mode called Smash The Star, in which teams battle to knock out seven opposing players, after which that team's star player becomes marked. Knocking out the other team's star player wins the game.

With the game's fundamentals out of the way, it's absolutely impossible to believe that Foamstars isn't a very targeted, legally distinct variation on Splatoon, and