I believe that Mario Kart 8, Super Smash Bros. 4, and Splatoon are the three finest online games to grace a console this gen. You can disagree, but this topic isn't about which are the best online games from the past few years, but to look at the startling dichotomy between the incredible quality of gameplay and the often baffling (lack of) online features. Yes, all three of these games work online. I can get online easily and play them. However, that really is the bare minimum for online games these days and simply "working" isn't much of an accomplishment [insert MCC joke here]. Let's lay out the pros and cons of each game's online experience.
Mario Kart 8
PROS
+Online tournaments (these are basically just lobbies and not actually tournaments) are well-implemented and allow for communities to quickly start a race with each other. You can save your favorites, and the game even recommends others for you to check out a join. There is also a special tourney ranking, so you can see how well you did against others in a given week.
+The track voting is very fair. They give you four maps, and you get a chance to hit random for a chance to get a completely different one. It allows for there to be variety, and caters more towards the majority of players in the room while also giving the outliers a shot as well.
+MKTV is a nice novelty. If you're tired of actually racing, you can just watch others. You can also spectate matches you join thanks to MKTV. It beats watching a clock count down and gives you some idea who you're up against. Uploading videos directly to Youtube is a great idea and I've seen some funny clips of races gone wrong.
+You can play with two people online. YEAH.
+Online rankings are fair. You get points if you do well and lose points if you do poorly, but it is weighted towards the scores of the other players. For example, if everyone is ranked higher than you, you probably won't lose points if even if you place 9th. But if you are the cream of the crop in the room and are defeated, you will be shamed via subtracted points. Sometimes it can be a bit too brutal, like getting +3 points for five matches in a row, only to have most of that erased with one bad race, but overall I think it at least shows how much time a person has put into the game.
+It's cool that you can see what country each person is from. Sometimes it's like a Mario Kart Olympics if everyone is spread out.
+You can inform everyone that you're using tilt controls.
CONS
-I have no idea how many people are in a specific tournament room at that given time. It could be anywhere from two to twenty with no indication. If there are more than twelve players, you will be put into a spillover room, but there is no alert that tells you this. For all I know, I am the only person trying to join the room. It really wastes time jumping from tourney to tourney to see which one has a lot of players.
-Impossible to send friend requests to other racers online. Maybe you can hope their NNID is the same as their Mii name, but that is rarely the case.
-No sort of community aspect or overall stat keeping. I would like to know which characters are winning the most races, what set ups everyone is using, lap records, what tracks are being picked the most etc. There aren't any alerts about new events like special tournaments either. I just feel very disconnected from the other players.
Mario Kart 8 is fairly barebones when it comes to online features, but it doesn't do anything really poorly. It is easily the best online experience out of the three games.
Splatoon
PROS
+A lot of people hate the Callie and Marie updates, but I think they are great. They tell you what's new with the game and the current online maps. These segments have a lot of personality and immediately inform you on what new things you should be checking out.
+Joining a friend's game is very quick and easy.
+Team rotations every round encourage players to not jump from lobby to lobby, making it easier to keep playing with the same people instead of searching for a new room.
+Splatoon has a lot of excellent passive online features like other inklings appearing in the hub, and Miiverse graffiti on maps. Nintendo is really excellent at these kinds of features, like the notes in NSMBU and SM3DW. Though I did die once from staring at a picture of Hank Hill as a squid.
CONS
-Voice chat. Look, I've heard all the excuses, but after playing this game for several hours, it desperately needs voice chat. For example, I noticed someone on the enemy team put a warp point for their team fairly close to our territory. Now, how can I tell my team that? That's right, I can't. The baddies can just warp there to their hearts' content until either I haul my squid ass over there, or hope someone closer notices it and takes it down. Or when all your team is grouped up in the west, but all the enemy ink is in the east part of the map. Or when you see an enemy launch an inkstrike and want to warn them. Or when you want to time your specials together. But no, we can't have voice chat because Nintendo assumes the community, made up mostly of people making Spongebob puns, will scream obscenities that would make Richard Pryor blush. THIS GAME NEEDS VOICE CHAT.
-Pings. Ok no voice chat nerds, you gotta agree with me on this. Our pings consist of "C'mon" and "Booyah!" Sorry, but I'm gonna need a bit more than that. Or fuck, let me tap the GIANT TOUCHPAD IN THE MIDDLE OF MY CONTROLLER to note points of interest. If I can't tell my team the enemy has a warp point near our base, can I at least tap it on the touchpad so the other teammates can see it?
-Map rotations. Someone please explain the point of this. The game currently has six maps, two of which you can play at one time depending on the mode. It switches every four hours. So if you only have an hour to play, you are stuck with two maps that day. I'm not as angry about this as I am baffled. Please, someone tell me the reasoning.
-Matchmaking. There seems to be none. Why am I getting paired with level 19 players when I am level 6? The team rotations each round kind of help ensure that the teams will be even at some point, but in Mario Kart if you are rank 3000 you aren't going to be matched with someone who is 9000.
-No spectating. If you join a full game, you can watch a clock tick down or play that Squid Jump minigame you've already played a thousand times. Why can't I watch other people play? I can do this in Mario Kart but not Splatoon?
-No party/lobby system. My squid pals and I can't team up and take on the world. Currently, lobbies consist of joining your friend's game, then telling other friends on GAF to join you. That's not a lobby, that's like that barrel of monkeys game where one just jumps on another.
-No stat keeping. I think ranked battle has some stats, but I would love it if the game kept some sort of records of my progress. W/L record, K
ration, average points per match, highest score in a single match, what maps I've played the most, most favored weapon etc. This stuff is really fun to check out and helpful when deciding what loadouts you should stick with.
The developers have promised more stuff will be put into later updates (supposedly you will be able to spectate matches eventually), but it's missing a lot of basic features and the game will always be inherently flawed if they don't implement a halfway decent communication system in battles.
Super Smash Bros. 4
PROS
+Spectating is a lot of fun. You can watch other people's battles and even bet on them. It's an excellent way to observe how people play, and trying to make as much money as possible by guessing the victor is more addicting than it should be.
+Conquest. Kind of a silly thing, but I like how often it updates and the results are always fun to see. Plus you get rewarded for them ever so slightly, so it makes you feel like you contributed something small to the overall online community.
+Friend matches allow for a lot of customization.
+There is a good amount of stat keeping for the online modes.
CONS
-Final Destination on For Glory gets old. Fast. Why can we not just select a map, and then the magical selectotron from MK8 picks one of them? Why does it have to be Final Destination EVERY SINGLE TIME? Maybe they are worried people will troll pick Palutena's Temple, but I honestly wouldn't mind them banning a few stages if it meant that I could be free from the clutches of Final Destination.
-No selecting stages in For Fun. Again, why? Why can't it be like Mario Kart 8, where we get a choice of stages and then we just vote for the one we want? The randomness often results in playing the same stage twice in a row, something that never happens in Mario Kart.
-No stock mode in For Fun. Two minutes is just too short. You can't even see most of the stage transitions in that amount of time. I believe the reasoning for this is so people don't just float around with Kirby, but they could at least do time AND stocks. For those who get eliminated, maybe they could bet on the winner and get rewarded with coins or trophies.
-Terrible update alerts. You get a sparkling box on the menu. However, sometimes these appear later than the actual update, and the sparkles stays long after you have checked it out.
-Sharing is terrible. Downloading Miis and stages sounds awesome, but the implementation is so bad. For stages, you can search for them by country and size. THAT'S IT. You can't search via name, key words, ranking etc. Who the hell cares where the stage comes from? Are there nationalistic Brits out there who refuse to play custom stages from other countries? Miis are the same, except you search for them via their type. You can't search via names, key words, or popularity. Enjoy wading through dozens of Narutos and Lonks to find anyone interesting. There is a special Miiverse where you can actually download stages people post. Awesome right? Well if you want to download a stage you see on Miiverse, you have to restart Smash, even if you are currently playing Smash. I don't even know how this happens.
-No online tournaments. Or tournaments at all. This was promised to us in November and we still don't have any idea when it's coming.
-No sense of community. I should be able to spectate Nintendo-sponsored Smash events in game, or at least hear about them via some sort of notice when I go online.
Though I think Smash is the best game of the three, it by far has the most egregious online gaffes. Nintendo has highlighted the online features and community of Smash more so than any other multiplayer game, yet they still lag behind on basic functions.
What is frustrating is that even though these are all Nintendo games, there are seemingly no uniform features across all titles. Why can I spectate in MK and Smash but not Splatoon? Why does Splatoon give me immediate info about updates and online news when MK and Smash doesn't? Why does Smash have voice chat (sometimes) when the other titles don't? Everything seems so fragmented and directionless. What is also annoying is knowing that Nintendo is not keen on fixing these problems, ever. Splatoon might change this, as they seem to be dedicated to rolling out content and updates slowly, but we are still never going to get voice chat even though it would be a major addition. For Glory in Smash is never going to add any more options or stages. Instead of listening to their fans or adjusting the current offerings, they are just saying, "Look, this is how it's going to be so deal with it. We aren't changing it no matter what."
tl;dr MK8, Splatoon, and SSB4 highlight both Nintendo's capabilities as a developer and their ignorance and stubbornness when it comes to online
To reward you for reading all that, have a picture:
Mario Kart 8
PROS
+Online tournaments (these are basically just lobbies and not actually tournaments) are well-implemented and allow for communities to quickly start a race with each other. You can save your favorites, and the game even recommends others for you to check out a join. There is also a special tourney ranking, so you can see how well you did against others in a given week.
+The track voting is very fair. They give you four maps, and you get a chance to hit random for a chance to get a completely different one. It allows for there to be variety, and caters more towards the majority of players in the room while also giving the outliers a shot as well.
+MKTV is a nice novelty. If you're tired of actually racing, you can just watch others. You can also spectate matches you join thanks to MKTV. It beats watching a clock count down and gives you some idea who you're up against. Uploading videos directly to Youtube is a great idea and I've seen some funny clips of races gone wrong.
+You can play with two people online. YEAH.
+Online rankings are fair. You get points if you do well and lose points if you do poorly, but it is weighted towards the scores of the other players. For example, if everyone is ranked higher than you, you probably won't lose points if even if you place 9th. But if you are the cream of the crop in the room and are defeated, you will be shamed via subtracted points. Sometimes it can be a bit too brutal, like getting +3 points for five matches in a row, only to have most of that erased with one bad race, but overall I think it at least shows how much time a person has put into the game.
+It's cool that you can see what country each person is from. Sometimes it's like a Mario Kart Olympics if everyone is spread out.
+You can inform everyone that you're using tilt controls.
CONS
-I have no idea how many people are in a specific tournament room at that given time. It could be anywhere from two to twenty with no indication. If there are more than twelve players, you will be put into a spillover room, but there is no alert that tells you this. For all I know, I am the only person trying to join the room. It really wastes time jumping from tourney to tourney to see which one has a lot of players.
-Impossible to send friend requests to other racers online. Maybe you can hope their NNID is the same as their Mii name, but that is rarely the case.
-No sort of community aspect or overall stat keeping. I would like to know which characters are winning the most races, what set ups everyone is using, lap records, what tracks are being picked the most etc. There aren't any alerts about new events like special tournaments either. I just feel very disconnected from the other players.
Mario Kart 8 is fairly barebones when it comes to online features, but it doesn't do anything really poorly. It is easily the best online experience out of the three games.
Splatoon
PROS
+A lot of people hate the Callie and Marie updates, but I think they are great. They tell you what's new with the game and the current online maps. These segments have a lot of personality and immediately inform you on what new things you should be checking out.
+Joining a friend's game is very quick and easy.
+Team rotations every round encourage players to not jump from lobby to lobby, making it easier to keep playing with the same people instead of searching for a new room.
+Splatoon has a lot of excellent passive online features like other inklings appearing in the hub, and Miiverse graffiti on maps. Nintendo is really excellent at these kinds of features, like the notes in NSMBU and SM3DW. Though I did die once from staring at a picture of Hank Hill as a squid.
CONS
-Voice chat. Look, I've heard all the excuses, but after playing this game for several hours, it desperately needs voice chat. For example, I noticed someone on the enemy team put a warp point for their team fairly close to our territory. Now, how can I tell my team that? That's right, I can't. The baddies can just warp there to their hearts' content until either I haul my squid ass over there, or hope someone closer notices it and takes it down. Or when all your team is grouped up in the west, but all the enemy ink is in the east part of the map. Or when you see an enemy launch an inkstrike and want to warn them. Or when you want to time your specials together. But no, we can't have voice chat because Nintendo assumes the community, made up mostly of people making Spongebob puns, will scream obscenities that would make Richard Pryor blush. THIS GAME NEEDS VOICE CHAT.
-Pings. Ok no voice chat nerds, you gotta agree with me on this. Our pings consist of "C'mon" and "Booyah!" Sorry, but I'm gonna need a bit more than that. Or fuck, let me tap the GIANT TOUCHPAD IN THE MIDDLE OF MY CONTROLLER to note points of interest. If I can't tell my team the enemy has a warp point near our base, can I at least tap it on the touchpad so the other teammates can see it?
-Map rotations. Someone please explain the point of this. The game currently has six maps, two of which you can play at one time depending on the mode. It switches every four hours. So if you only have an hour to play, you are stuck with two maps that day. I'm not as angry about this as I am baffled. Please, someone tell me the reasoning.
-Matchmaking. There seems to be none. Why am I getting paired with level 19 players when I am level 6? The team rotations each round kind of help ensure that the teams will be even at some point, but in Mario Kart if you are rank 3000 you aren't going to be matched with someone who is 9000.
-No spectating. If you join a full game, you can watch a clock tick down or play that Squid Jump minigame you've already played a thousand times. Why can't I watch other people play? I can do this in Mario Kart but not Splatoon?
-No party/lobby system. My squid pals and I can't team up and take on the world. Currently, lobbies consist of joining your friend's game, then telling other friends on GAF to join you. That's not a lobby, that's like that barrel of monkeys game where one just jumps on another.
-No stat keeping. I think ranked battle has some stats, but I would love it if the game kept some sort of records of my progress. W/L record, K
ration, average points per match, highest score in a single match, what maps I've played the most, most favored weapon etc. This stuff is really fun to check out and helpful when deciding what loadouts you should stick with.The developers have promised more stuff will be put into later updates (supposedly you will be able to spectate matches eventually), but it's missing a lot of basic features and the game will always be inherently flawed if they don't implement a halfway decent communication system in battles.
Super Smash Bros. 4
PROS
+Spectating is a lot of fun. You can watch other people's battles and even bet on them. It's an excellent way to observe how people play, and trying to make as much money as possible by guessing the victor is more addicting than it should be.
+Conquest. Kind of a silly thing, but I like how often it updates and the results are always fun to see. Plus you get rewarded for them ever so slightly, so it makes you feel like you contributed something small to the overall online community.
+Friend matches allow for a lot of customization.
+There is a good amount of stat keeping for the online modes.
CONS
-Final Destination on For Glory gets old. Fast. Why can we not just select a map, and then the magical selectotron from MK8 picks one of them? Why does it have to be Final Destination EVERY SINGLE TIME? Maybe they are worried people will troll pick Palutena's Temple, but I honestly wouldn't mind them banning a few stages if it meant that I could be free from the clutches of Final Destination.
-No selecting stages in For Fun. Again, why? Why can't it be like Mario Kart 8, where we get a choice of stages and then we just vote for the one we want? The randomness often results in playing the same stage twice in a row, something that never happens in Mario Kart.
-No stock mode in For Fun. Two minutes is just too short. You can't even see most of the stage transitions in that amount of time. I believe the reasoning for this is so people don't just float around with Kirby, but they could at least do time AND stocks. For those who get eliminated, maybe they could bet on the winner and get rewarded with coins or trophies.
-Terrible update alerts. You get a sparkling box on the menu. However, sometimes these appear later than the actual update, and the sparkles stays long after you have checked it out.
-Sharing is terrible. Downloading Miis and stages sounds awesome, but the implementation is so bad. For stages, you can search for them by country and size. THAT'S IT. You can't search via name, key words, ranking etc. Who the hell cares where the stage comes from? Are there nationalistic Brits out there who refuse to play custom stages from other countries? Miis are the same, except you search for them via their type. You can't search via names, key words, or popularity. Enjoy wading through dozens of Narutos and Lonks to find anyone interesting. There is a special Miiverse where you can actually download stages people post. Awesome right? Well if you want to download a stage you see on Miiverse, you have to restart Smash, even if you are currently playing Smash. I don't even know how this happens.
-No online tournaments. Or tournaments at all. This was promised to us in November and we still don't have any idea when it's coming.
-No sense of community. I should be able to spectate Nintendo-sponsored Smash events in game, or at least hear about them via some sort of notice when I go online.
Though I think Smash is the best game of the three, it by far has the most egregious online gaffes. Nintendo has highlighted the online features and community of Smash more so than any other multiplayer game, yet they still lag behind on basic functions.
What is frustrating is that even though these are all Nintendo games, there are seemingly no uniform features across all titles. Why can I spectate in MK and Smash but not Splatoon? Why does Splatoon give me immediate info about updates and online news when MK and Smash doesn't? Why does Smash have voice chat (sometimes) when the other titles don't? Everything seems so fragmented and directionless. What is also annoying is knowing that Nintendo is not keen on fixing these problems, ever. Splatoon might change this, as they seem to be dedicated to rolling out content and updates slowly, but we are still never going to get voice chat even though it would be a major addition. For Glory in Smash is never going to add any more options or stages. Instead of listening to their fans or adjusting the current offerings, they are just saying, "Look, this is how it's going to be so deal with it. We aren't changing it no matter what."
tl;dr MK8, Splatoon, and SSB4 highlight both Nintendo's capabilities as a developer and their ignorance and stubbornness when it comes to online
To reward you for reading all that, have a picture:
