What happens when you combine the fun of partying with your friends and mix it with the innocence of childhood bubble baths and the thrill of combat? You get the latest in foam-blasting frenzying from Square Enix, ‘Foamstars’. Join me as we head into the world of ‘Bath Vegas’ and let the bubbles fly.

In this online, 4v4 foam-party shooter, players will be transported into the fantastical world of Bath Vegas, where they will take part in ‘Foamsmash’ and fight foam with foam to see who of the lucky few has what it takes to be crowned the ultimate Foamstar. In addition to the 4v4 competitive matches spanning multiple game modes, players can also take on missions to protect Bath Vegas from an onslaught of Bubble Beasties. Let’s start this party and slide into everything Foamstars offers, aside from its striking similarity to the famous Nintendo title ‘Splatoon’.

Before I can talk about the variety of objectives of each game mode available at launch, we first learn how to traverse the environment, shape the battlefield, and take out opponents. Each athlete is armed with a foam blaster unique to each character, reminiscent of the typical weapon variety you would see in other shooters, except that they all shoot foam. Players can shape the battlefield to create mountains of foam for that perfect vantage point, build walls for cover, and even create a path that will allow faster travel using their slide board. Taking down your opponents is a simple affair. Foam them up into a ball to leave them utterly defenseless, then sliding into them with your slide board will kick the enemy out resulting in a “chill”. Each character is also armed with two unique skills and a superstar power that can easily turn the tide of battle.

Rather than just jumping into the frenzied battles of PvP, I first wanted to familiarise myself with each character, opting to try out the PvE mission modes. Solo missions allowed me to practice using six of the eight characters, while also providing a bit of back story into why each character was competing to become a Foamstar. For each mission, the player will face off against waves of Bubble Beasties that conclude with a rather easy boss battle against a giant Bubble Beast all to protect the bubble core. At the end of each mission, you’ll be rewarded with miracle dust and XP toward player level and season pass progression. Miracle dust can be spent on upgrading your energy core which gives you a fighting chance against the tougher waves of Beasties. Upgrading your foam hit power, reload speed and even skill cooldowns certainly comes in handy, especially in squad missions. While I did find each of their stories quite amusing, I can’t find much reason to play through them more than once other than to farm for resources.

Squad missions play out much in the same way as solo missions, except they are way more fun and much more challenging. Team up with up to three other players and face off against ten waves of enemies and a final boss. At the end of each wave, you’ll be given a few seconds of reprieve as well as be able to select from one of three modifiers that will help increase your chances of survival. I found most of the normal difficulty missions to offer a decent level of challenge without needing to have many energy core upgrades. Hard squad missions on the other hand required much more teamwork and strategy. Aside from often lengthy wait times to get into a match, squad missions were a tonne of fun.

Now that I’d gotten my feet wet I was ready to get into the PvP action. There are three core modes available at launch. In ‘Smash the Star’, teams will battle it out in the arena to defeat the opposing team’s star player. First, the teams will duke it out to be the first with seven chills, the best player on the team is then revealed as the star player.

Defeat the star player and secure victory for your team. Aside from becoming the target of every dirty play in the book, being the star player has its advantages. Star players gain an increased foam capacity and a buff toward defense, taking less foam damage. This game mode is quite chaotic and loads of fun. The only real downside is that it’s only one round per match.

Next up we have Happy Bath Survival, where teams are split into two groups. Two players will provide a constant barrage of foam from the outer edge of the stage. While the two players in the centre of the arena fight for survival and to eliminate their opponents. This mode plays out as a best-of-three scenario, with the first team to eliminate all players in the centre of the arena winning the match. This game mode has a heavy focus on strategy and wore pretty thin on the fun factor pretty quickly. Thankfully, this mode is on a rotating roster with our third game mode.

The final game mode is the ultimate in foam party chaos, I’m talking of course about Rubber Duck Party. Teams will race to the centre of the arena and fight for possession of a giant rubber duck. Once aboard the Rubber Ducky Express players must dance to advance toward the opposition’s goal to win the match. Absolute carnage ensued when playing this game mode. I had a tonne of fun, scored some extremely satisfying chills on the enemy, and even managed a few wins. As much as I enjoyed Happy Bath Survival and Rubber Duck Party being on rotation I still feel as if there needs to be more game modes. Perhaps the classic team deathmatch experience could be a very welcomed addition to the roster.

Whether you are playing PvP or PvE, all matches will earn you pretty decent amounts of XP toward player level and season pass progression. You’ll also receive a pretty nice boost toward this progression completing challenges. You guessed it, reaching certain levels and completing challenges will unlock some pretty sweet customisation options as well as new characters.

Customise your lounge with decorations, unlock weapon skins, and even some new dance moves to bust out just to name a few. I must admit I was more than a bit bummed to find certain character skins locked behind a paywall and not earnable. That gripe aside there is a tonne of great stuff to unlock from the season pass, which is very reasonably priced.

After spending several hours in the caos trying my damndest to score some victories it was time for me to soak in some of the glorious visuals. Spending some time in the Royal Lounge away from battle, I was able to appreciate just how good all of the character models are. All of the maps flow incredibly well and are also incredible set pieces that seem to have a lot of inspiration from Las Vegas casino games. Among the carnage of gameplay, it’s pretty easy to get lost in the glorious visual effects on display as I’m unleashing skills and superstar power.

Audio is as to be expected from the likes of Square Enix even garnering some laugh-out-loud moments as I realise what just happened. The blasting of foam weapons and deploying skills sound incredible and are paired beautifully with the party-pumping music in the background. Even chilling out in the lobby is exactly that, matched perfectly with some very chill elevator music. As much as I enjoyed the chill in the lobby area, I never wanted to be in there long for fear of drifting off to sleep.

It feels like forever since I’ve enjoyed so much good clean fun with my friends and Foamstars delivers exactly that. There is something here for everyone from the casual gamer to the ultra-competitive. I think that there needs to be a few more game modes added to make the rotating roster more effective. With a few more additions and some minor bug fixes, this could easily have you foaming at the mouth, itching to get your party on. Available now on PlayStation Plus pick it up and I’ll see you in Bath Vegas.

Written by: Gary Nielsen