I love how this builds on the Splatoon formula, adding an extra element of verticality through foam that stacks and builds up walls and ramps throughout the map which players surf upon and can launch off to smoothly transition into their attacks. There's this wonderful flow to it all that has me gushing about Foamstars to my friends already. The amount of things to do is somewhat lacking which is particularly unfortunate given that the series this pulls from has the same problem, but I have some hope this will outgrow the issue since Nintendo is particularly awful at supporting multiplayer-focused games and it really wouldn't take all that much to pass em up there.

The missions are basically glorified character tutorials with constant dialogue on top, but they're such goofy fun and each of the character designs are so good that I was happy to play through all of them before hopping back into multiplayer. All of the cute girls make my gay little heart sing. A particular highlight is Penny Gwyn fucking killing corporate executives to save her family of penguins in Antarctica from climate change.

Rating and general thoughts are subject to change as while I did get plenty of multiplayer in, this is just a completion log for finishing the single player missions. That was just day 1, after all.

review in progress, but I vibe with this kinda? Foamstars is a really bizarre game in a lot of ways, and that's most of what makes it so weird is what I like about it? First up, there's this entire map editor for your training area that can only be accessed through interacting with one kinda random element of the lobby. Then there's the incredibly barebones, weirdly slice-of-lifey singleplayer that they spun into a PvE mode with exactly two stages and difficulties with small rogue-lite elements, which is really random but also kinda fun, actually. Also, one collectible is just fake ads the game auto-plays in the lobby consisting of like two still images (that play for up to two minutes). And then there's just the entire aesthetic of the game, which to me looks incredibly trashy in all its over-produced glamor. It's bare-bones and probably quite cheaply made, feeling a little amateurish at times. There's not a lot of content here, but what is there just feels bizarre, like you stumbled upon a closed beta for a five-year old game that's mysteriously still up and running. Which means I'm actually quite suprised that the gameplay is this fun? I like the idea of three-dimensional foam as a twist on the Splatoon-formula, maybe after the "fucking around and finding out"-phase the player base will actually find strategic uses for stacking foam. I dunno, it's just a bizarre game with quite a fun gameplay loop that is definitely going to get shut down within this year, so I'll savour it for as long as I can!