This review was originally written for TheNintendoVillage.com, a website I founded and ran from 2018 to 2021.

Key Info

System: Switch
Developer: Tri Heart Interactive
Publisher: Tri Heart Interactive
Release Date: 2 July 2020
Price: $24.99 / £19.99

We’ve seen a number of iterations on the team shooter in the post-Splatoon world, but few have taken inspiration from other aspects of Nintendo’s inky smash hit. The Otterman Empire however, ignores the four-on-four aspect in favour of the ink/ammo dynamic, replacing it with water and throwing players into an arena with specific objectives to complete.

It’s an innovative take on the multiplayer shooter, but the sense that it’s been removed from the oven far too early means it ultimately falls short of its own ambitions.

R-otter

**The Otterman Empire does not look good on Switch.**

There’s no getting away from it, so we’ll be blunt: The Otterman Empire is an ugly game - at least it is on Switch. Somewhere in there is some well designed and appealing concepts, but they’re undermined by the unappealing facade.

A game where you play as a number of different otters, a fish in a mech suit, a crocodile in boxing gloves or a pistol-packing turtle sounds, frankly, fantastic. Unfortunately they have an almost rubbery aesthetic to them, and the animations are kind of basic and devoid of the character the initial designs would have you believe they possess.

It’s all reminiscent of early Gamecube or even N64-era animations. Even then, the recent Ty the Tasmanian Tiger remaster oozes far more personality than the otter squad here. Lead otter Astrid looks almost terrifying, and isn’t helped by her wooden expressions. The fact the game’s story is delivered via simple text boxes rather than the characters themselves also lessens the impact they should have.

The arenas in which the game takes place aren’t much better either. Everything’s incredibly bold, garish, and weirdly dark in places, making it rather difficult to differentiate the terrain from your objectives and your opponents.

On The Otter Hand

Gameplay again has some excellent concepts at its core. Each multiplayer bout consists of three rounds, with each round consisting of 2 minutes and a different objective. These range from collecting a bomb and flying into a moving hoop - to more traditional King of the Hill style setups.

The single player mode works as a tutorial of sorts for these various modes, with each of the games 8 worlds featuring three levels - aping the three rounds in multiplayer mode. Single player is rather dull though - you can pretty effectively ignore all of the enemies and just focus on following your objective markers. It makes things kinda tedious.

The visual issues don’t help here either, and they’re compounded by the over-the-shoulder camera angle meaning your view is often obscured by your character. That’s rectified a little in multiplayer though, as the camera seems to be pulled back a touch.

***Character concepts are fundamentally cool, but are sadly let down by a total lack of personality and basic animations.***

Fun With Friends

Multiplayer is definitely where The Otterman Empire shines best. Jetpacking around the stages in aerial dogfights can be fun when everything’s going right - though the lack of gyro aiming is definitely pronounced. The force of the jetpack takes a little getting used to, though it’s worth persevering because moving around on foot is unimaginably slow.

Some of the objectives are more fun than others, but having three quickfire rounds of different objectives was certainly a fresh experience. It’s just a shame it comes in such an unattractive package.

It seems evident of a lack of quality testing. I can’t imagine anyone during the development process was properly exposed to this final aesthetic and happily signed off on it. There’s other evidence of this too. For some reason the select button is B rather than A, which is weirdly counter-intuitive. Some stages and objectives are named one thing in the menu and something else when they’ve been selected. I even spotted a typo on one menu item.

All of this just gives the sense that The Otterman Empire is radically undercooked. There’s probably not a lot that could’ve been changed about the art style so far into development, but more time refining the controls, camera, menus, and so on would’ve made it a much less frustrating experience.

Verdict

Tri Heart Interactive are only a four man team, and with that in mind, The Otterman Empire feels like too ambitious a project. The core concept - of jetpack-centric arena battles with quickfire objectives - is an excellent one. Using ridiculous otters and other animals as avatars is right up my street too. Unfortunately the game just feels incredibly unpolished - having the air of a very early alpha build rather than a final product. Movement is unpleasant, combat can be largely irrelevant at times (especially so in single player), and it all comes wrapped in a rather visually unappealing package.

Pros & Cons

+ Fresh core concept
+ Fun choice of characters

- Awful presentation
- Dull in single player
- Feels unfinished