Foamstars Review - Party's Over

There's a moment during Foamstars' introductory tutorial wherein your instructor, Bublo Espuma (see what they did there?), says "this isn't like other games". This wouldn't be a Foamstars review if I didn't make the obvious comment: "well, it looks a lot like Splatoon to me".

It's not an entirely unfair comparison. Foamstars is, after all, an arena shooter in which you can cover the stage with foam, making it easier for your team to move around.

In many ways, though, that's where the similarities end. Foamstars is somehow simultaneously more complex and more straightforward than Splatoon 3, and it does manage to find ways to differentiate itself from its obvious influence.

It's not like there isn't room for more than one cartoony, colorful shooter that de-emphasizes violence in favor of a party atmosphere, at any rate. 

Foamstars is aiming for a slightly more sophisticated crowd, too; its Vegas vibe and less child-like character designs attest to that. Unfortunately, it falls down in a number of key areas, meaning that anyone who receives an invite to this particular party is likely to try and find excuses not to go.

Foamstars Is Fun On a Basic Level

The most important thing for any multiplayer shooter to nail is the core gameplay, and luckily, Foamstars is pretty fun on a moment-to-moment basis.

There's a vibrant feel to hitting enemies that's not a million miles away from popping bubble wrap, and considering how difficult it must be to get foam to feel substantial, that's no mean feat.

Foamstars even manages to throw some pretty clever twists into the mix. Players get "foamed up" when they're close to being splatted (sorry, "chilled"), for instance, and enemy players must slide-kick into them to finish the job. However, if you're foamed up, your teammates can also slide kick into you to grant you a last-minute reprieve.

The foam itself is also pretty clever. It doesn't just allow you to move faster, Splatoon-style, but also builds up in a way Splatoon's ink doesn't, meaning you can create walls or ramps with it. This mechanic can lead to some pretty clever plays that are guaranteed to make you feel smug.

Whether it's the LED rifle-sporting "pro gamer" (ugh) or the edgy green-haired guy who, er, hates parties, I found each of Foamstars' characters somehow simultaneously annoying and forgettable.

While each character is equipped with a weapon that can quickly fill up each of Foamstars' arenas with foam, there's no mode in which the goal is simply to score the most covered ground. Instead, there are twists on classic deathmatch, Rainmaker-style tower control, and, er, spectating matches.

You'll get your money's worth from the deathmatch mode. It's a clever twist on the classic formula; you need to rack up kills in order to designate a "star player" on the opponent's team, and taking them out will then win you the match. It's a nice way to combine the chaos of deathmatches with the more focused approach of objective-based play.

The rubber duck-themed tower control mode is fun enough, but sadly, the third mode, Happy Bath Survival, is nothing short of terrible.

It splits teams into combat and assist groups, each consisting of two players. The combat group fights it out on the ground while the assist group fires off foam from above.

Every time I was part of the assist group, I felt like I was in a glorified lobby waiting for the actual match to start. It felt more like I was being punished for some transgression in-game rather than taking part in a unique and enjoyable spin on Foamstars' solid core gameplay.

Character Design In Foamstars Is Weak

Since Foamstars boasts hero shooter elements, that means it has a cast of unique characters, each with their own weapon and set of special abilities.

When this concept is executed well, it results in something like Overwatch or League of Legends, wherein each hero feels distinct, meaning there's bound to be one with whom most players find kinship.

Sadly, that's not the case in Foamstars. The character design here is weak and generic. Every character is a basic humanoid with a sharp whiff of "hello, fellow children" about them.

Character kits, too, are fairly boring and rote; there were no clever movesets that made me want to learn more about a character or their origin. Instead, I simply sighed with dismay every time I saw another "shoot them, but BIG" or "hide in foam" move.

Whether it's the LED rifle-sporting "pro gamer" (ugh) or the edgy green-haired guy who, er, hates parties, I found each of Foamstars' characters somehow simultaneously annoying and forgettable.

That's not helped by the absolutely execrable single-player mode, in which you take on three wave defense-style missions per character. These missions are hopelessly repetitive and task you with doing nothing but slaughtering endless waves of slow-moving, pathetically weak enemies.

Each mission does reveal a little more about the character you're playing as, but I didn't want to know anything about anyone, because the writing and voice acting are beyond subpar.

It takes a Herculean effort to render a character raised by penguins in the Antarctic boring, but Foamstars found a way. There's absolutely no reason to engage with the missions in Foamstars, so do yourself a favor and set up shop in the versus modes instead.

There's Just Not Much In Foamstars

Of course, even if you do that, you may find yourself quickly tiring of what's on offer, because Foamstars is yet another live-service game that has launched with a massive dearth of content.

There are the three core versus modes I've mentioned (although if you cut out the weird spectator assist mode, which you should, there are only two), and there's also a "ranked" mode that simply cycles through the other modes.

There's a vibrant feel to hitting enemies that's not a million miles away from popping bubble wrap, and considering how difficult it must be to get foam to feel substantial, that's no mean feat.

Considering that the missions aren't worth your time and that one of the versus modes is awful, that leaves a worrying lack of ways to engage with Foamstars' multiplayer mayhem.

More is on the way, according to Square Enix, and since the core shooting is good, you may even feel motivated to head back in and check out what Foamstars has to offer in the future.

Unfortunately, I can only review what I've got, and there just isn't enough here to captivate most people. It's difficult to imagine anybody choosing to play Foamstars when it's basically shown you everything it has to offer in just a handful of hours.

Foamstars Review | Final Thoughts

In his Foamstars preview, our very own Andrew Otton couldn't think of a reason for anyone who currently plays Splatoon to switch to Foamstars. Unfortunately, I've got to agree with him.

That's not because Foamstars doesn't find a way to differentiate itself from its Nintendo competitor, though. Rather, it's because all of the ways Foamstars does differ from Splatoon's formula somehow make it worse.

Thanks to weak, forgettable characters, extremely uneven gameplay modes, and some pretty poor writing, Foamstars can't find a way to capitalize on the potential of its fun core shooting.

If you can somehow look past the irritatingly bland designs and find a character you love, you'll have a good time with Foamstars, but the lack of content means there's no real reason to stick around. It's hard not to feel like this party was over before it began.

Foamstars was reviewed on PlayStation 5 via PlayStation Plus, with season pass and cosmetic codes provided by the publisher, over around 8 hours of gameplay - all screenshots were taken during the process of review.