A lot of my problems with this game are things lifted from Splatoon 2, and tripled down on. As a quick recap - 2's Maps are smaller and WAY more focused on nonstop PVP. Splatoon as a concept was designed originally for people who weren't really into traditional shooters, the maps in the original game were big enough to give you breathing room and genuinely strategize on how to help your team even if you couldn't 1v4 the enemy. Now in 3 maps are so cramped that some barely even feature floors to heckin ink dude. It's a nonstop teamfight and it sucks. I was never this actively frustrated playing 1 or even 2 despite the problem cropping up there. Even games where my team ends up winning I find I'm just straight up not having any fun.
Sploon 3's improvements are small but felt really cool at first. The lobby is nice, not locking hairstyles to gender is HUGE for making the male inkling a viable aesthetic choice. The hub is unnecessarily large which is nice coming off of 2's miniscule hub. Salmon run is more properly integrated and feels worth playing now. There's more to unlock than ever with a rotating free battle pass and daily loot box along with a fully customizable locker.

But at the end of the day, I find I'm only playing for worthless FOMO content. They really have us out here grinding for 50+ hours for a dabbing emote, png's, and objects to put in your locker that do absolutely nothing. Man having 2 of these games on the same console already really harshes the "keep it FRESH" counter culture anti-online shooter nature the series was founded on...But if I'm gonna be grinding out meaningless slop content I'd probably genuinely have a better time playing one of this game's contemporaries that have got this trash down to a science. Another splatoon comes and goes and I'm still a bit let down by how few stand out character customization options there are. Ten years of them drip feeding just a morsel of new pants and hairstyle options and almost nothing else has me going delirious.

And while I enjoy Salmon run's implementation more here...What the hecc is big run? I kept hearing people clamoring for it for a few months and we finally get it and it's just Salmon Run but on one of the turf war maps? Is this where we are that we're waiting months for lazy asset flip content? I just don't get it.

Complete with a fourth campaign that I've lost any and all tolerance for. An absolute snoozefest that's supposedly taking after the octo expansion? Idk, the octo expansion was already taking after base splatoon 2, which was "inspired" by the nothing single player of the original game. Batting 0 for 4 with no legitimate improvements here had me feeling burnt out and not wanting to even finish the incredibly short campaign. It's got some actual boss fights so it's better than octo expansion I guess, can't say I remember anything about any of 'em besides one of them being a mario sunshine reference - Love when mid games reference significantly better games to inject artificially positive feelings~ The lore additions aren't as interesting as Octo Expansion though so eh it's really whatever.

Splatoon 2 was carried for me by Pearl and Marina, their dialogue/dynamic made the Splatfests fun to participate in. I didn't even once use any of the crystal mushroom things you get, I just enjoyed playing 'em for the sake of it. That and the devs basically admitted they ruined turf war by making the only good turf war maps exclusive to the splatfests. They were a highlight of 2 that gave me the fun I needed to have positive associations with the game. This time around there's no splatfest exclusive maps, so even these events are hurt by the pvp first focus that Splatoon as a concept was designed to not be about. And I really tried but I just can't get into the new idols. I barely even know what they're babbling about half the time and I find their dialogue pretty dry and I don't really closely identify with any of them enough to fight for their side. The prompts are pretty mid and the system doesn't seem very well thought out as they've had to change it four times already. There was criticism towards how 2's victor was handled but I never felt like what I did didn't matter like in 3. 2's results being rigged was more of a conspiracy theory and in-joke than legitimate major design issues that hurt the experience much. Just like the normal game itself, Sploon 3 has me annoyed and feeling empty even when I do win. For the first time I found myself actively not caring when a Splatfest came around. I've done a handful of them but the tri battles aren't strong enough in their implementation to carry how nothing the rest of the experience is now. In 1 and 2 I always tried so hard to participate in as many splatfests as possible, rarely missing one. But 3? Yawn. Callie and Marie are sisters, Pearl and Marina are all but confirmed dating (I'm not usually a shipping type but I love these 2), but these 3 feel like co-workers that are at most throwing very surface level competitive jabs, not able to really cut very deep at any point. Pearl and Marina would get so fired up but these 3 sometimes can't even decide what side they themselves want to be on. 2's so quotable and full of lines that catch you off guard. 3's dialogue feels so phoned in and devoid of stakes.

Hec they let you skip the news now so that's probably why they put less effort into a good localization. Gamers just wanna grind their CONTENT they don't want EFFORT just let them GRIND. Genuinely any change to make the majority happy is a bad decision when it comes to gaming. I remember people debating the Japanese culture of curated experiences when the original game came out. America likes to preach the customer is always right, but anyone who's worked anywhere can tell you, they most certainly are not. I'll take a nonconventional approach made to give a legitimate experience over something that sheepishly gives into peer pressure and gives us nothing. Make Splatoon 4's news screens twice as long as 2's to filter out half the audience please. They've got restaurants in Japan where you have to literally catch your own fish before it gets cooked. Americans above the age of 40 can't even handle self check out machines that have been around for 20 years man don't listen to us.

The idea that I've just outgrown the series popped into my head so when I went to go visit my family I dug out their now extremely crusty, disheveled wiiU who's gamepad can NOT hold a charge to save its life...And I just had a blast playing the original game. Instead of the unfun uphill 1v4 feeling of modern Splatoon I was inking the walls and strategizing and flanking. With maps and weapons that were expansive enough to foster a healthy level of direct combat instead of it being the ENTIRE focus...And without all the slop slapped on to justify the existence of a sequel it just felt like a coherent experience instead of a complete chaotic mess. I wasn't just hopelessly grinding battle passes like any other generic online game...I was just playing because it was inherently fun, because the first Sploon was made to be the exact opposite of the unfun state online shooters had found themselves in. Watched a compilation of all the Splatfest debates 2 had and it was consistently a joy to revisit, and I'm so glad I was there to play them all live. I have my problems with 2 but it was a really fun game to follow. Here we are at the third installment and not only is it not fresh anymore, the series itself has forgotten why it was made to begin with and became what it used to stand against.

On a somewhat positive note I guess, I'll never understand the universal hatred Nintendo's online gets. Obviously it varies on location I'm sure and I don't wanna completely white knight them. It's a topic that warrants its own focused essay to properly do justice...But in most cases Nintendo's online works just fine. If it was truly anywhere near as bad as reputation would imply the Switch itself would never have popped off, a huge percentage of the library is online-first in its focus and the games are good BECAUSE the online is there. Like yeah they're missing some standard conventions in a lot of cases but if I wanna play mario kart online I can do that, same with mario party, tennis, smash, splatoon. It literally just works. Tends to be pretty no frills attached but Nintendo has ALWAYS competed with a high amount of actual games to play. 20$ a year with the Switch's lineup is giving a lot more value than over three times the cost on the competitor's side. That said sploon 3 succ I genuinely prefer Foamstars by a landslide 'boutta drop 100$ to play that online for a year or something 'cuz my PSPlus expired this month and I sad that I'm stucc with sploon 3 when Foamstars is a much better designed game in almost every way. But uh, +1 to the online working perfectly fine, Nintendo's online is no different than any of the other guys. I say as an American who's pretty sure we have some of the most genuinely trash internet options in the world in a lot of states.

Oh yeah they added some card mode thing. Was kinda into it and was waiting for them to add online matchmaking to it. Don't think that even ended up happening, so yawn.

Also dog did they really announce paid DLC that lets you use the hub world from the first game and then you'd have to wait a whole year for yet another mediocre single player experience? Was that any good? Dunno if I'll ever bother with it 'cuz this series really just gets worse every time they put out more content. Idk if I've just lost all tolerance but updates for this game in general really felt abysmally slow. Less dripfeed over a long time and more...absolutely nothing for months then the updates don't feel big enough to warrant the wait. I'll prolly look into it soon 'cuz Chaos winning the final splatfest in the previous game felt like it was leading up to something really exciting. Pearl went on about how things staying the same predictable thing is LAME. Leading into the most safe, inoffensive game in the series is such a missed opportunity. Splatoon 2's canonical ending we all fought for was an excuse for 3 to be completely insane and change everything. Then maybe it wouldn't have been such a nothing sequel fighting an uphill battle to justify itself.

-You're a kid now, you're a focus tested milked dry franchise with all positive qualities drained out noooowwww, you're a kid now, you're a-

okay so good vibes first :
- great solo campaign, awesome soundtrack, looks as good as ever with some fun new characters, some awaited QOL improvements and as always the base gameplay is extremely fun.
but I still end being a bit frustrated with the fact Splatoon's subsequent entries end up not feeling like enough has changed to warrant getting a third game in the series so quickly. to me, the fact that Splatoon 2 and 3 are so similar and exist on the same console is just.... so bizarre to me. and it's like, yeah the game's good and has improved somewhat and has a different identity from 2, but at the end of the day it's just more Splatoon? idk, I kinda wish I didn't drop the game as soon as I did.

Splatoon is a weird franchise. I honestly didn't get the hype for the first two games. It always had this 'baby's first fps' kind of vibe that turned me off of them. The idea seemed promising but I couldn't get behind the weird 'squid' music and it all just seemed so childish to me. I completely ignored them and stuck to my hardcore tactical shooters like Apex Legends and Rainbow 6 Siege that I knew and loved and let Nintendo's weird newest IP pass me by.
But then in 2022 I went through a really vulnerable time in my life where my future became extraordinarily uncertain and fell into a depression.... right when Splatoon 3 came out.

And thank god that it did honestly, because I was sleeping on one of the best FPS franchises of the last decade.

"They call it Splatoon 3 because really you're getting three games in one" is what my friend told me as a joke, but they're really not wrong. You get a single player campaign that lasts 4-6 hours, a multiplayer FPS that has way more depth than I gave it credit for, and an absolutely bonkers PvE game mode that rivals the likes of Left 4 Dead 2 as one of the best swarm shooters I've ever played.

I never finished the single player campaign though, so lets just call it a cool FPS with a great PvE mode.

The normal FPS aspect of the game is the same as the other two Splatoon games. You have guns that shoot ink, you can 'swim' in surfaces painted by your ink, and you can 'splat' your enemies by shooting them with your ink. Each weapon has its own loadout, with a secondary grenade-like throwable and a special 'ultimate' ability that every FPS has to have now-a-days. It's really a cool setup, and allows for a variety of different playstyles. If you want to focus on the ink part of the game there are weapons that are good for spreading ink, but you can also say fuck that and take duelies and roll your way into the enemy base to score a killstreak.

If I had a gripe with this system it would be that Nindendo seems absolutely terrified of ever making a weapon that's... well... too good? A lot of the weapons I like are best 2 out of 3 -- that is -- the Weapon is fun to use, but either the Ultimate of the Secondary or both don't play well with it. Have a weapon that's good at picking people off but is lacking in the ink category? Well then of course, the grenade has to be the angle-shooter, an extremely hard to hit grenade that only does piddly damage and doesn't ink anything. Have a roller that is slow to move but wide and great for inking? Well obviously any Roller player would want to stop everything they're doing and place down a Splash Wall right? .... RIGHT??? ROLLERS LOVE STANDING STILL RIGHT???? I honestly can't blame them though, on release there was a weapon that was good at inking with a really powerful ultimate that you could easily spam and it took multiple nerfs just to get it back in line.... just for another variant of that weapon it to take it's place. Ahhhh live service balancing <3

Anyway, the creativity in the design of these weapons are perfect too. Splatoon takes place after a vague end of the world event that killed off all the humans, so all of these weapons are repurposed version of human tech. There's a sniper fitted to a #2 pencil called the Snipewriter. There's a mini-washing machine called the Sloshing Machine that chucks ink all over your enemies. There's a whole class of weapons that are repurposed window wipers, it's great.

But if Splatoon 3 was just it's PvP mode I probably wouldn't bother talking about it, besides curtly saying 'yeah it's pretty good'. That's where we get to Salmon Run, the PvE game mode.

No joke, Salmon Run is some of the most intense gaming moments I've ever had in an FPS. You have to fight hoards of frothing bipedal salmon called salmonoids and try to collect their eggs by delivering or throwing them into a basket at a central location. Outside of the normal salmonoids you get harder variants called boss salmonoids that are more threatening and all require unique ways of defeating them. It's all pretty straight forward until you find out that your weapons are all randomized from a daily set of four weapons. You and your team must work together to fight off the swarm while also often figuring out how some of these weapons even work, and compensating for any disparities in ink or range.

Every once in a while you'll get the privilege to face off against one of the 'King Salmon', these giant kaiju-like salmonoids that can absolutely wreck your shit. If you manage to take them out you'll get some salmon-run-specific currency that can be spent on special cosmetics you can show off in the PvP mode too.

And the whole thing comes together perfectly. The atmosphere of the rest of the game is gone. You're now in the trenches of inkling 'nam, and all you have is the weapon in your hands and your coworkers by your side. I fucking love this game mode and I climbed to Executive VP, the highest rank, over the course of 6 months.

A side note:
My friend group figured out that there's a role in high level Salmon Run called 'princess', and it's typically a role given to whoever has the most garbage weapon in the set. 'Princess's job is to ignore all Salmonoids and just focus on getting eggs to the basket. This is absolutely hilarious and I refuse to play Salmon Run without bringing it up in conversation at least once.

The community of Splatoon is really what gets me honestly. You remember the Wii-U Plaza from back in the day where people would post images and shitposts on the homescreen of the Wii-U? They basically kept that and brought it all the way up to Splatoon 3. If you log on consistently enough you'll get to see absolutely wild drama play out, such as one user named 'gao' fervently writing out the phrase: "Throw me to the Salmonoids, I'll come back PREGNANT" and deciding to post it for the entire world to see. I can't get this kind of unhinged shitposting anywhere else man, and believe me I've tried.

And if you've gone your entire life without experiencing a Splatfest, then good god man you're missing out. Basically every month or two Nintendo decides to split the community up by asking room-splitting questions like: "what's the best ice cream flavor" and watching us all devolve into cavemen. For one weekend, the entire atmosphere of the game changes. The day before, you can see them start to put up decorations, and as night falls the entire plaza is turned into a mixture of a rave and a festival as we all party and have religious arguments about how Strawberry is CLEARLY THE SUPERIOR FLAVOR and how I will SPLAT THE NEXT FUCKER WHO TRIES TO TELL ME OTHERWISE.

And when there isn't a Spaltfest to look forward to, then there's a Big Run on the horizon. If normal Salmon Run is squid 'nam, then Big Run is Squid World War 3.

The premise is fucking genius. The PvE and PvP gamemodes have completely separate maps because they're completely different games. The PvP gamemodes have pretty, sunny, generally family friendly vibes, while the Salmon Run maps are hell in a handbasket. Red horizons, green seas, everywhere you go is death.

So what if the Salmonoids actually made it past us? What if they made it allll the way to our safe and pretty little PvP maps? Well then you'd get a Big Run. Basically one of the PvP maps gets overwhelmed by Salmonoids and it's all hands on deck, all out war, for all that is good for Squid-kind. The music in the Plaza? Gone. The skies? Red. The TV's? All showing an emergency broadcast. It's lowkey one of the most unnerving shit you can put in a E10+ game.

It's these scheduled events that puts Splatoon into a tier of it's own for me. It made me feel like a kid again, waiting for the next update, waiting for the next community event so I can do my part and take down more anti-strawberry heretics. You really don't get this kind of shit in live-service games these days because, despite what the community thinks, they really don't make much money for the amount of time and effort needed to pull it off. But I think that's a horrible way of thinking about it.

It's a bit embarrassing to say, but, in a time where I didn't know what the fuck to do with my life anymore, I had Splatoon to keep me going. Did you see todays Salmon Run rotation? What about tomorrows, is that going to be any good? Did you hear? The next Splatfest was just announced, I can make it to then right? And then there's the next Big Run 3 weeks after that? It gave me something to look forward to when I had nothing else in my life to look forward to. And it's made this wonderful weird community of idiots that I can't help but miss now that the games entering it's sunset phase.

In all honestly, I can't in good faith recommend Splatoon 3 to people these days because I think it's juuuust about run it's course. They haven't announced when the last Splatfest will be, but I'm predicting it'll be in the next couple of months and after that there will be no new content. The community is a lot smaller than it was on release, and the casual scenes kinda taken a hit because of it. I can't hop into a turf war these days without getting absolutely bodied by people with 300 more hours than me, but honestly that's fine.

Splatoon 3 was a highlight of one of the worst years of my life. I deeply cherish the memories I had with it and you can bet your ass I will be there on day 1 for Splatoon 4 ready to fuck up some 10 year old's with my dualie rollouts.