One of the best games Nintendo has made, one of the best multiplayer shooters ever made, and the last bastion of traditionally monetized AAA multiplayer games. In my circle of real life and online friends I’ve found this game to be pretty unpopular for whatever reason. To vehemently disagree, I’ve found Splatoon 3 to be unbelievably fun and exciting. The gameplay is tighter than ever, the modes, from turf war, to ranked to Salmon Run all feel fresh off the second game and the skill ceiling has been raised even higher with new movement mechanics that are hard to master, but not too difficult to execute meaningfully or counter. The campaign is lackluster, minus the genuinely great final stretch that I wish extended to the rest of it. It’s easy to overlook though, after I take into account that it was around five hours of my 110 total, with dozens and perhaps even hundreds to go. I love this game so much

(Date is just there for show I been finished this game). For some reason I could never get into the second one for very long but this one's pretty good. There's a LOT of problems however; the catalog level ups are so annoying to get through and take too long, the matchmaking sucks, NSO sucks, Salmon Run is not as effective to progress as playing Ranked/Turf War, none of the interesting elements from the story mode like the rails and stuff are used in the multiplayer maps, weapon balance is so bad, and I personally miss the old S2 Splatfest maps so much, where they would be specifically made for the splatfest and use interesting gimmicks that would be playable that weekend. All in all, it has a LOT of problems, but to me it's a pretty fun game, when you're playing with friends and not taking it too seriously. Last complaint is this should not be 60$ in any way shape or form. Way too much for what's here but w/e. Good game, lots of problems.

Splatoon 3 is a sad game, on one hand it has the best singleplayer experience out of all the games so far, and on the other it has the worst online and multiplayer experience I've seen in a long while. Splatoon 3 started out strong, then waited 3 months to add ANY new content to the game. Splatfests aren't monthly anymore, and the themes have been nothing but exceptionally lame to say the least. Month 1 this game was just as good if not better than 2, month 2 this game was getting stale, and then by the time they added new content I dropped the game and only played it during Splatfests. The online drops you from ranked so often that I didn't even grind for S+ and stuck with S and honestly it hasn't been fun with the weird balancing and specials that feel frustrating to play against. The reason I love this game though is the singleplayer, which is a full on Octo Expansion with outstanding gameplay, story, and lore. Without the singleplayer being such a good experience, I would have said I regretted spending $60 on this game, I just hope the DLC expansion is just as good and worth purchasing because I'm very much looking forward to it. Also Shiver supremacy (though I love Frye and Big Man too).

welllll...the games jank okay the games jank as hell. it's jank as shit and sometimes the multiplayer doesn't even work!!!!!

when it does, though.. hoo boy strap in. despite it's really terrible meta issues, it sticks true to the classic splatoon formula of ping ping woomy shoot ink go squid, albeit with the new unbalance that all of the new specials subs and mains bring. despite that, though, splatoon 3 is a genuinely fun experience even if it makes me want to go back to it's predeccesor on occasion.

the singleplayer is on a whole new level, too - especially with it's finale and the MAIN IDOLS FINALLY GET TO SHOW UP AS WELL WOOOOO, so even if the multiplayer doesn't work all of the time singleplayer is always there, with banger tracks and a fun blend of old and new oe-style singleplayer mechanics to boot.

ping ping wahoo squid yay

There are so many small improvements in Splatoon 3 compared to Splatoon 2, I honestly believe it justifies its existence as a new game. If you liked Splatoon 1 or 2, you'll like this one as well.

The only thing that got worse is the map design. Maps are so damn boring and same-y here, it's atrocious. I really miss my janky weird Splatoon 1 maps.

Oh and maybe that's only me, but the insane amount of weapons leads to me never trying out the weird ones and just sticking with the standard stuff. Idk, there are so many purely situational weapons here, why should I even use them? But then I feel like I'm also missing out on all the cool weapons, idk, it's weird.

Oh and at this point it's beyond excusable that this game still uses peer 2 peer instead of dedicated servers, wtf Nintendo?!

Splatoon 3 was a good time, especially as someone who never touched the franchise before. I’m marking this as Complete as I’ve finished the Alterna story mode, but I plan to continue playing multiplayer with friends.

At this point, I’ve played plenty of Turf Wars and had some Salmon Run sessions. These multiplayer modes are very fun, and do a great job at highlighting what makes Splatoon as a series unique from other shooters. The simple concept of covering more of the battlefield than your opponent is paired with surprising strategic depth, and I can see myself easily picking this up to play with friends for years. The maps, especially for Turf Wars, are varied and interesting, and I’m excited to see more of what Salmon Run has to offer as I play more maps and use more weapon types. All this alongside the series’ trademark goofy meets cool and cute artstyle and its eclectic yet appealing soundtrack make for a worthwhile multiplayer experience.

The singleplayer is no slouch either though it doesn’t go above and beyond itself. The campaign is broken up into multiple island overworlds that task you with clearing out a dangerous fuzzy substance using Power Eggs you earn by completing levels. Levels are usually short but feature fun challenges that require you to learn and utilize pretty much every weapon, sub-weapon, and special type in the game. A lot of these can feel gimmicky and shallow, but the later levels start to add some nice complexity. The run of levels at the end in particular are a nice challenge to cap things off.

What is consistently engaging though are the bosses. Creative with their weaknesses and use of the game’s unique mechanics, I had a blast with each one, and they made for great highlights to finish off every couple islands or so. I honestly wish there were more as not every island ends with a boss fight.

There’s not really much else for me to say. At this point, Nintendo has figured out what makes Splatoon click and continues to plow ahead without making any revolutionary changes from what I can tell. I kinda wish we had gotten a more in depth campaign instead of a collection of short, sometimes gimmicky challenges, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have fun with them regardless. The hubs were fun to clear and explore too. Overall, it’s a good time even if it’s not a stellar experience.

mehhhh, this game i am pretty conflicted about. It is definitely splatoon, and I like splatoon, but the thing is this game doesn't really do anything to spice things up besides add a couple new flourishings to existing features in the previous games. This game doesn't even have any particular mode to call its own besides the splatfest-exclusive tri-color turf war, which you can't even play outside of splatfests. As for the story mode, it definitely plays a lot like the Octo Expansion from the second game, which is a good thing. A lot of the levels are kind of boring though, as there's not much reason to explore them as all the collectables are now only in the hub world rather than in the levels. The finale is great though, as is every splatoon game. All in all, if you haven't played any other splatoon game in the past, absolutely get this one instead of the others. If you already own splatoon 2 and your friends didn't already make the jump, there's not a lot different here to really make it worth the 60 bucks. But you probably should make the jump anyways because everyone else already bought this and nobodys gonna wanna go back to 2 even though its the same game, ugh.

Half a year has passed since this came out and I think that's given me enough time of playing this to know how I fully feel about it, and I feel so incredibly conflicted.

The gameplay itself is still as fun as ever, Salmon Run still rocks, and the story mode content is probably the best of the series. However, as time has gone on the game's hugest issue has crept into my mind and that is its abhorrent level of grinding this one has in comparison to the previous games. Going for the basic level requirements is fine, but if you're like me and want to try out a variety of weapons for online, you're grinding out the prestige of each weapon for the licenses, and that grind only feels worse with how many new weapons they keep adding in. The clothing grind from the previous games is still here, which ties in with the drink ticket grinding, as you're absolutely flooded with gear slot tickets that can only ever be used one every 20 battles, only to have to haul back to get them scrubbed and just keep doing it over and over again. The worst of the PvP grind additions to this game, however, is the season pass-like catalogues, which sound like a great form of replayability in practice, but begin petering out the actually good rewards quick and incentivize grinding out the entire thing for the brief 3 month period they're active. Getting the dab from the first season already felt exhausting to me, and the idea of doing that grind four more times this year just caused me to not care.

I still don't think this is the worst grind of the game though, as what I believe to be it is the grind for the fish scales in Salmon Run. The mode itself, like in 2, is still my favorite aspect of the game, as PvE in general is always a good time especially with friends, but the way rewards are distributed in this mode now are like Pokemon Gen 3 battle facility grind bad. The boss salmonid on its own is a really good incentive for continued teamwork, and beating it the first time feels great, but all positive feelings faded away when I learned that the fish scale drop rates from it are in the single digits for each every time, no matter if you beat it or not. That deflated my incentive for working towards the cool shop rewards in general, as the prices are completely ludicrous and you can very easily have to grind out multiple months worth of cohozunas for just a simple recolor of the work suit.

TL;DR, why does this full priced game with no microtransactions feel so much built like it has them in it.

Oh yeah also why is the online somehow way less stable than it was for the previous game five years ago

I thought I liked Spatoon, I really did. I skipped the first game but the Second game fucking ROCKED. I would grind it solo or with random friends on twitter and had just a ball. I loved everything about the combat and movement and STYLE. So when this was dropping, Day one purchase and holy shit is this game not for me. When I say I put in 4 hours that's being generous. I mean it's literally Splat 2 but yikes this is waking up to a one night stand and just seeing a different person. Like it looks fucking terrible. Barely runs even docked. Everyone is cracked out to the point of being unenjoyable but even when you have a good game, a kill or even a win doesn't feel good. This game is honestly as optimized as a Switch game can be and still is the wake up call Nintendo needs to update this fucking console.

Splatoon 3 is a tough but often rewarding shooter unlike any other, aside from the others in the series. Having started with the 2nd game, I'm a leg down in terms of long-time fans. Even so, following this series has always been fresh and exciting.

This review also provides me with the unique opportunity to lay down my own personal ruleset going forward on backloggd. I've finished Splatoon 3's story mode, but as support continues its likely that more story content will be added. All the same, if I'm to log the game, it seems as though the point at which it is suitable for me to rate it - in its entirety - is almost exclusively up to my own judgement. I feel as though after logging about 100 hours of gameplay and having finished but not 100% completed the games story mode, I'm in a suitable position to log it.

This is a natural stopping point for most players. I've experienced the breadth of the game's content. That said, you can safely bet I'll be playing for hours and hours to come.

The gameplay loop, the community, the style, the lore, the way the DLC looks... it's hard not to love a game that leans into itself so much as Splatoon always has.