Ok, we got more Raiders news, so it’s time for another Raiders yap. This time, I want to focus on Gadgets! From the Treehouse, it seems like there will be fifteen gadgets with each one being assigned to a different tank.
Even though we were only told the name and function of 9 of them, we still have seen all of them in some way, shape, or form. Let’s start with the 9 that were shouted out first:
Blast Boot— A variant of Splashdown. You pick a location in front of you, you jump there, and cause an explosion with a fairly small base paint radius. We see in the Treehouse that there is a customization option where it has extra explosions like torpedo.
Dash Bomb— You get sent far in a direction, presumably controlled via the joystick, and leave an explosion where you once were. Very similar to the Grizzco Dualies’ dodge roll.
Booyarang— Can be launched and idles in place for a moment before returning to the player, dealing damage when hitting enemies. My personal favorite Speed Gadget so far, reminds me of the Cutter ability from Kirby (specifically Forgotten Land, but I admittedly haven’t played many Kirby games).
Splatchet— The player lunges forward with a horizontal slash that can pierce shields. It seems that running into enemies while lunging before the slash still does damage. Has a vertical slash gadget part ability. Current poster child for Gadgets.
Splatellites— Surrounds the player with 8 balls of ink that spin in a circle. They do damage to enemies, provide some floor paint, and will stay orbiting around the player as they move (unless an gadget part is applied that makes it stationary. We see this later in the Direct during the customization section).
Spinwheel—Spins forward after being launched, damaging and knocking back enemies it hits. When launching, you can also make it lock on to boss salmonids. In some Treehouse gameplay, it can be seen moving through a scrapper. It functionally seems to be a larger slower curling bomb with extra bells and whistles.
Shot Pot— A turret that once thrown locks onto enemies who are in range while it’s active. So far the one that benefits the most from the customization system imo.
Bombloons— A large airborne bomb that detonates when shot. Can launch more than one at a time, and all present bombs are linked with a thick line that does damage to enemies in between. Basically Bubble Blower plus the chaining feature Bomb Kirby had in Forgotten Land. Current favorite Gadget.
Tether Wail— A Killer Wail 5.1 laser that connects from where it’s placed to your tank. Salmonids that are in its way take damage, so will have interesting strategy when positioning.
Now from here on out we’ll be mostly relying on gameplay snippets and context clues. We can get a lot from some of these but it isn’t everything. We might not be able to tell what parts of the Gadget are their base function or are added on gadget parts. There are currently two gadgets where we have a name and gameplay to look at.
The first, and more self explanatory one is the Meteor Mitt. We see it as the example of building Gadgets in the Direct and is paired with the power tank. It is basically a splashdown with the exception that it goes higher, takes longer to hit the ground, and has a bit of in-air movement capabilities. The second Gadget is revealed to be called the Hi-Fiver in the Treehouse and I honestly wish they used it there because the direct wasn’t very insightful to me. It’s assigned to the tactical tank and appears to remain stationary, launching 5 lines that are very reminiscent of line markers. I can only assume they do damage but it’s really hard to tell.
The rest of these we only get gameplay for so from now I’ll be covering the next four from least to most vague. The first one I want to cover is the final power tank Gadget and the one we see on the splatfest art that I personally like to call the Conch Cannon. In the direct we see an airborne octoling use it to launch a massive ball of ink at two flyfish. We can see the user charging it up, with the ring marking where it will go changing from grey to white to the player’s ink color. It seems the shot can be released at anytime, but does more damage the longer it’s held. The trajectory seems to have a bit of an arch as well.
Next are the final two speed gadgets. Ironically, the one shown off less times is the one that’s more clear to me. It looks like a variant of the Zipcaster and is used to grappling hook onto the side of a stinger. The player is sent airborne after instead of sticking because the pot it grappled to was destroyed. I’m not sure if the player would be able to stick to surfaces because of the cooldown though. It also can be used more than once before needing to cooldown in the gameplay we see as shown by the dots overtop the Gadget meter. I’m interested to see how long it’ll take before people can get themselves in ridiculous spots with this thing.
The one that’s shown off more often is really confusing to me. In the first shot we see it, it behaves very similarly to the Dash Bomb, except it launches the player vertically instead of horizontally. What got me though is that when the player turns to look at where they came from, there is a whirlwind left behind, and the character behaves the same way they would if Deep Cut launched them. Granted, this is during the customization section, so the odds that these are all base effects are unlikely. The second time we see it though, it behaves exactly like a Dash Bomb??? The player uses it to fling themselves off a ledge and use the Zipcaster Gadget to grab the Stinger. Now I know that this Gadget and the Dash Bomb are very similar in that their icons both appear to be based on bombs (Splat Bombs and Burst Bombs respectively), but I do fear that these are too similar to each other. Unless I’m missing something here, this Gadget feels like a waste of a slot to me in both iterations we see.
Speaking of Gadgets I fear might be too redundant, we have the final Tactical Gadget. It is a large propeller that once deployed will create a whirlwind that you can jump on top of to launch yourself into the air. Near the bottom there is also a swirl of your ink that I can only guess damages enemies. Now although it does fit its category with it offering a vantage point change, my question is why this was needed if Deep Cut’s mech can already do that for you. It can even be called to your position so it can’t be for convenience. I’m not as worried about this one as the Splat Dash Bomb, but I do hope I’m missing something here.
Now before we go, I do have one observation that I want to address. When talking about tanks leveling up and how you will eventually be able to use 3 Gadgets at once, we see a power tank use Splatellites, a Splatchet, and… the Blast Boot? But the thing is that through color coating and the explaination of tanks on Nintendo’s official accounts, we shouldn’t be able to use a Speed Gadget on a Power tank. So, what could this mean? Well I don’t think it’s a bug or error on the devs part. The game is less than a month away and the icon matches up with the effect. My current theory is that you may use one Gadget from another tank if your tank is a high enough level or you collect a treasure that gives you that allows you to do so. I hope this is the case cause ngl I love a lot of these Gadgets and it would be nice if choosing a certain tank didn’t fully lock you out of certain ones.