Imagine for a moment that the creators of ‘El Chavo Kart’ got angry because we compared their game to ‘Mario Kart’. Or that the developers of ‘PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale’ wondered what their game has to do with ‘Super Smash Bros’. Well, that’s what happened with Square Enix, who didn’t take well the comparisons between their new game, ‘Foamstars’, and the one it directly copies, ‘Splatoon’. They say they don’t know why the comparison, but frankly, we’ve all noticed it.
Splatoon bad
Change ink for foam, and you have ‘Foamstars’, an online competitive shooter with which Square Enix will try to win over a new audience by introducing AI that nobody asked for. Specifically, those who haven’t already played the Nintendo game, because the concept is the same: the objective is to fill the space with foam and colors using our special gun for that purpose. Let’s see.
Now it’s Kosuke Okatani, the game’s producer, who has come out to defend it saying that he is tired of the comparisons: “We have also seen on social media that people who have actually tried it have seen that it is a completely different game”, he says, using as an excuse that the foam you throw remains, instead of being erased like the ink in ‘Splatoon’. We accept it.
The game will be released on February 6th and faces a much greater danger than being compared to ‘Splatoon’: not having enough people to play. That’s why, for the first month, it will be available for free in an attempt to compete with so many, so many free-to-play games. And then, if you want to keep playing, you’ll have to pay. The developers are confident that they will attract enough people to become a new essential like ‘Fall Guys’ or ‘Fortnite’. I’m not so sure.
The future of ‘Foamstars’ hangs by a thread for multiple reasons and it’s going to be one of the most interesting things to watch in the gaming world at the beginning of this year. Will Square succeed or will we forget about it like a footnote in the Wikipedia of ‘Splatoon’?
