Live service games, if they cut through the multitude of releases, can make more money than almost any other type of game. The problem, of course, is this crowding. Developers need to find their niche among the countless multiplayer titles on the market that are constantly competing for players’ attention. If a game isn’t called Fortnite, Roblox, Destiny 2, or The Division 2, it could be called Diablo IV or League of Legends, and for every title that succeeds, there are countless more competitors that don’t. What these live service titles aren’t called is Splatoon, and this is where Square Enix seems to have found “its” niche.
Foamstars is essentially a live service version of Nintendo’s “traditional” multiplayer shooter for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5, where the Splatoon series has of course never had a foothold. It may be as good an offer as any, but the question is whether PlayStation gamers are really so hungry for “Splatoon-like” games that they’ll accept any quality.
Contrary to its obvious (and wonderful) source of inspiration, Foamstars isn’t about color, but rather… guess… foam. The opening commentary makes this clear while also explaining that no one dies in Foamstars. None of the opponents are killed during the game. “Shivers” occur, not deaths. Cool, right? Unfortunately, the childlike, colorful, disguised, market-analyzed tone from the start struggles to captivate younger audiences, and the kind of self-distancing and irony that Epic does so well in Fortnite, for example, has its place here. Notable absence.
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Anyway, after my three companions and I each select one of the eight characters, the game begins. Destroy the star! We dropped down a huge ramp, surfed down it, and ended up on a side of three levels in total. A kind of disco, a kind of casino or a mixture of disco and casino. Using the characters’ various foam weapons – foam shotgun, foam rockets, foam rifles, etc. – and their two different special abilities, we try to kill (sorry, “chill”) the opponents. When the opposing team’s players have been “cooled down” a total of eight times, one of them is randomly named a Foam Star and becomes slightly stronger. When that player finally cools down, the game ends for good.
However, it’s not a good idea to simply point the foam cannons at your opponent. If you’ve ever slipped in the bathtub, you know that soap and bath foam are tricky, and again, your own foam has the ability to speed up your team’s movements, but also reverse the movements of your opponents, slowing them down. Therefore, it is important to always try to cover the ground and constantly press the L2 button in the heat of battle to navigate forward and navigate from foam patch to foam patch as best you can.
As far as pacing goes, this is absolutely essential for survival, or perhaps a little too necessary. Because the differences between the surfaces are so great that you either move absolutely slowly on neutral terrain/enemy foam or whirl your character around as if it were greased before being thrown down a water slide. Neither interface is satisfactory, and one of Square Enix and Toylogic’s first compensatory actions should be to reduce the differences between them. Additionally, the collision physics with the game’s vertical platforms are absolutely terrible. It seems to be entirely up to chance whether I grab hold of a ledge or not, and overall my movements are never particularly fluid. It’s a far cry from how it feels in Fortnite or especially Apex Legends.
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Unfortunately, the fights themselves also tend to lack fluidity, and structurally they were more or less identical in most of my hundred fights. It begins with a slow, minute-long start, followed by a minute-long middle section of surfing action, and at the end, absolute hellish chaos breaks out, with the entire screen flashing with foam, special abilities, and various weapons that are virtually impossible to control. Where Blizzard has always excelled, from Warcraft and Starcraft to Overwatch, is the ability to design details that make characters and abilities recognizable in even the most crowded situations. With Foamstars, however, I often feel like I have bath foam in my eyes after just a few minutes of playing. It’s worse than the kill streak hell of Call of Duty’s worst multiplayer moments.
But sometimes there are games where it works. The team manages to communicate and coordinate without words; An “Ultimate” fires a powerful beam of energy that envelops the entire center of the level in foam, and we sail in a line towards the enemy team, firing in rhythmic formation. Everything ebbs and flows, and these vibrant, aggressive overtime builds make me like Foamstars more than it perhaps deserves. Because what PvP title isn’t fun when you win? The match defeats are much more interesting for context and reveal one of Foamstars’ main problems.
Since I think the target audience is heavily focused on casual gaming, there is no ranked mode, just ranked events that come and go. So the opponent is very different, and what’s more, it’s basically impossible to get any feedback on what I can improve after another chaotically desperate defeat. There are no general game statistics available and only sparse information about your performance is displayed after battles. Other players’ game stats remain hidden behind the flawed GDPR protection, unless they are the most valuable player.
However, the lack of feedback and a ranked mode are only parts of the big problem with games as a service at its core: sustainability and longevity. I just don’t understand how Foamstars can offer any kind of variety and therefore gameplay value when character selection has little impact on the games. Variety and sustainability require more than just more content. And I would also like to mention that the battle pass is very bad and the store has all sorts of “premium” cosmetics that you can buy right from the start, which is heartbreaking in a context where this is still the case in all other aspects aimed at children…
Maybe Square Enix and Toylogic can fix this and fix the worst flaws with typical live service style updates? Maybe, but I don’t think so. In my opinion, the problems lie too much with the foam in the bathroom. And it’s definitely a shame, because even though Foamstars seems like an amateur Fortnite creative project, I’ve played a lot of fun games with good friends. Aside from some connection issues during matchmaking, the experience was exceptionally stable and bug-free, and the city’s pop-jazz, which highlights both matches and menus, is always very catchy. If you have PlayStation Plus, it’s “free” to download, so you have the option to try it out if you feel like it. However, I would hardly recommend purchasing or subscribing for that reason alone.
