When FoamStars was announced a few months ago, most reacted in one of two ways: either they paid no attention to it whatsoever or they wrote it off as a Splatoon ripoff. Honestly, both are natural reactions if one thinks about it. First, Square Enix isn’t exactly known for publishing online mulitplayer shooter games, so anything it puts out in that realm is going to be met with some scrutiny.
Second, Splatoon has been the only game in town for a long time when it comes to shooters involving anything other than bullets. Any game entering its space is going to invite comparisons, especially when the stuff getting shot is similar to paint. All that said though, FoamStars is not only very much its own thing, but also much more fun than one would expect (especially forthose who’ve played Splatoon).
Let’s start with the biggest similarity between the FoamStars and Splatoon: the foam. Indeed, the game does revolve around two teams running around shooting different-colored foam at each other. Covering the ground with your foam helps your team and at the same time hinders the opposing team. That’s where the similarities begin and end, though. Players cannot eliminate each other simply by landing enough hits – that just primes the opponent for elimination. Once the opponent is suds’d up, you have to slide into them and send them flying in order to finish the job, and their teammates can still save them even then.
Covering the ground in foam isn’t the goal in a FoamStars match either; it’s simply a means to an end. The foam is actually more like player-generated terrain than anything else. Moving around on your team’s foam is fast and easy, while doing so on the opposing team’s foam is slow and difficult. The foam isn’t just a 2D layer on the map either, it piles up.
Players can actually work to build up large hills, troughs and other simple formations to give themselves vantage points or even influence enemy movements. These structures aren’t so easily torn down either. Outside of using certain special moves, it takes around as much time to eliminate a foam hill as it does to build one, so there’s actually real incentive to form them and just as much to try and get rid of them and prevent the opposing team from getting too much advantage.
Speaking of special moves, each character has their own distinct set of two special moves and an ultimate to go along with their particular weapon and movement speed. Unlike in Splatoon, where players merely pick a weapon to arm their inkling/octoling with, FoamStars players need to decide which actual character to use while taking care to see if there are any gaps in their team’s makeup. It’s a system similar to those seen in hero shooters like Overwatch 2, but thankfully one’s choice of character doesn’t appear to carry the same kind of weight. Based on what was on display in the TGS 2023 demo, FoamStars is meant to be a fun, casual experience first and foremost.
As for the characters themselves, each felt distinct and offered a noticeably different gameplay experience. For example, the Baristador is armed with a large cannon that constantly sprays foam like a firehose. He moves slowly, his reload is slow, and his special abilities take time to recharge. He makes up for it by hitting hard, being able to build up terrain quickly and even being able to shut down a whole zone with his ultimate. He also retains access to the dash ability (shared by all characters), so he can still quickly get to a vital point when necessary.
Soa on the other hand, is an acrobatic all-rounder. She’s armed with a kind of bubble gun that shoots slow-moving bubbles at a medium rate. They’re not hard to avoid, but can easily catch distracted opponents off-guard and hit them hard. Her specials allow her to dodge/jump out of harm’s way while also launching a flurry of bubbles at her attacker, and her ultimate puts her in a giant bubble that ignores terrain and can quickly suds-up opponents for teammates to eliminate. These are just two characters too, the opening roster will have eight.
The TGS 2023 demo only featured one game mode called “Smash the Star.” This will apparently be one of the basic game modes the game will launch with sometime next year. The objective is simple: score seven eliminations against the opposing team to bring out their “star” player and then eliminate them. The Star Player gets buffs to just about all of their stats, however, making them both more difficult to eliminate and more capable of scoring eliminations against your team (possibly bringing out your own Star Player and opening you up for defeat).
We played three matches during out demo session and they all followed a similar pattern: light and airy start as we got our area foam-up and a hill built, more serious as both teams tried to get eliminations, and finally downright intense once a Star Player appeared and both teams scrambled to either defend or eliminate them.
Despite skepticism walking into the demo, FoamStars wound up being a great time. Those who want to give it a try should make sure to check outthe FoamStars “Open Beta Party,“which will be running from 9/29 to 10/1. Particularly, those who don’t really enjoy Splatoon, but want a less serious, silly kind of shooter ought to give it a try; it could be exactly what they’re looking for.
