Foamstars is soapy fun … when I can see what’s happening in it

There’s a new multiplayer game in Town: Foamstars. Square Enix’s latest is a riff on Splatoon that trades in ink for suds. I went into it expecting a quirky little arena shooter that would give me a weekend or two of fun before running out of steam as its live-service model began to rear its head. What I wasn’t expecting was a mountain of legibility problems that made it hard for me to tell what I was doing.

The basic idea of Foamstars was always centered around blasting both the arena and opponents with foam in a neon-tinted style reminiscent of Hatsune Miku. While there’s fun to be had in its version of ink-based Splatoon shooting, Foamstars can be an overwhelming explosion of shapes and colors that soaks up all the fun.

Avoid getting into eyes

My first match in Foamstars had the unintentional effect of perfectly replicating what it feels like to get real foam in my eyes. Everything was bright, irritating, and obscured. The only reason I could tell what was happening out the gate was because all players are given an outline in their team’s respective color, as well as an arrow above their heads to let them know what direction to shoot.

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These bandaids don’t solve the overarching issue that the game is difficult to parse the second the foam starts flying. No matter which character you pick, the foam bubbles being launched in rapid succession are so massive that your screen will be filled in seconds. When you add in three other teammates and four opponents in a relatively cramped arena, you’d be lucky to see anything but solid colors plastering your screen every few seconds. I found myself turning my character away from the combat at times, desperate for a moment of reprieve from the overwhelming onslaught of visual noise like a man drowning, searching for a single gasp