Splatoon is something ive been into since its debut on the Wii U, and as a series it has always been very innovative and stylish. The world and its single-player campaign are consistently good throughout each of the three titles, and i believe they're all worth playing just for that.

I want to talk about the multiplayer modes however, because splatoon 3 feels so horribly designed that every time i play i cant help but notice.

First off, its a multiplayer game. So its very hard to prevent bad and uneven matches from happening completely, and one would expect them to happen occassionally. But with splatoon 3, i feel like either you crush someones ass or they crush yours, very rarely do i feel satisfied after losing because more likely than not i was getting camped at the spawn the either time, unable to do anything.

There are several reasons for this. First off, the maps are so boring and horrendously designed. Many are just straight lines with an interconnected point in the middle. Moray Towers and Camp Cuddlefish nowhere to be seen; most maps are nearly identical. Mahi Mahi resort even has the gall to barely have any ground in a game, where the goal is.... to ink the ground. I feel like theyve lost sight of what made splatoon special. Unlike most shooters, you dont have to be good at pvp to assist your team in a match, as long as youre putting ink on the ground or advancing the objective you are contributing to the game. However, because of the way the maps are laid out it makes it virtually impossible to not just focus on pvp. There are no open ends here, no routes to flank a team from behind. Its pretty much just keep running into the other team till you die, and if theyre better than you then you lose. As a sidenote on maps, shifty stations or another gimmick has failed to present itself so splatfests feel very repetitive and not as eventful

This in contribution with another issue makes playing these maps fucking horrible, and thats of course the dominance of long ranged weapons. Because everything is either a square or a straight line, there is absolutely no reason why you cant just stand very far away and shoot at people where the other person's weapons cant reach. If you try to go up to them to engage in a close ranged fight, which is supposed to be their weakness, 3 other players will materialize out of thin air and put you down immediately. It doesnt feel fair and its obviously not fun to lose when you feel like you could absolutely not help it.

Matchmaking is an issue too. I feel like this games way of making sure players with even skill levels get to play with each other is absolutely dated and doesnt work whatsoever. For example, during splatfests there is no option to play ranked and everyone is put together to play turf, so all those diehard weirdos come out of the cracks and make sure you have as little fun as possible. Turf in splatoon 2 used to be a safe zone where you could just zone out and focus on inking the floor, but in 3 everything is a live or die competition and its incredibly wearing. Again, thats not what makes splatoon splatoon

Salmon run is by far my favorite mode but its also hindered by completely dated ways of keeping track of how good you are at it. No matter how well you may do in a match, this is cast aside because if you have 1 bad teammate at higher levels it is pretty much over. If you die in round 1 you are heavily penalized, if this happens a few times at the start of a rotation youre docked back down to a lower rank. Then again, its also feasible to get carried to ranks you should not be in with a couple of lucky matches. its nearly impossible to get out the lower ranks because its filled with people who shouldn't be there, and dont know how to play the video game. It also resets your rank at the start of the rotation, so even if youre at maxVP the game sees fit to whack you back doen to 40 where youre at risk of losing capable teammates due to something you cant control.

Back to normal multiplayer, i stated before that long ranged weapons get away with a lot but i feel like theres also a clear hierarchy of weapons, unless youre an abnormally good player. I feel like ive elaborated on the superiority of long ranged weapons, but blasters also just let you shoot literally anywhere and still hit people. Specials are absolutely broken beyond all belief. I play tetra dualies, and it is so ridiculously unfair that theres a special that makes you invincible and huge and you can splat anyone who touches you, but my stupid little reef slider is vulnerable the whole time and theres a clear mark on where im going to land so everyone can shoot at me when its over. I feel like my tetras cant aim whatsoever but everyone else is absolutely locked onto me. I dont know what theyre doing and i dont care, i just want to have fun.

The game attempts to be friendly for children on one hand but then adds several elements that encourages highly competitive and aggressive playstyles. I definitely got very mad at the previous games but it was never as consistently as this. I feel as if this is reflective in the playerbase as well, as they seem definitively more meanspirited and stupid as compared to what i remember of 2 and 1. If the players just controlled themselves a little this game could be better, but from what i am seeing of the plaza posts that tend to grace my eyes, i dont think anyone is working with all that much up there.

Theres more issues, like how slow the updates come out and how you cant block certain plaza posts, but these are the ones that make the experince most miserable to me. Just normal dated nintendo garbage ruining what was otherwise a very fun, happy, and unique game.

Also, as an edit to my review: splatfests are the worst they have ever, ever been. Constant mirror matches, especially during tri color which is also a mess, and a seemingly jacked system where Shiver is going to win every time. The prompts are typically terrible as well. Just awful to experience in general.

I love this series, so much that I want it to be its absolute best, and while this is a great upgrade from the previous titles, it still has its faults.

The maps have gotten worse overall by being smaller, having fewer routes to flank and also by not using the new awesome movement mechanics at all which is such a shame! While the Anarchy modes are all good, I wish they’d come up with something new since it’s just more of the same. Getting the "Battle Pass" for free is based and is how everyone should be doing it, although unlocking items takes a little too long for me and gives me this wacky FOMO by not collecting everything. The connection is unstable and frequently disconnects you or others, even while on ethernet and on the most stable connections (not to mention the 15hz pull rate doesn’t help at all either).

But aside from that is a game with great personality, a great story, fun Splatfests I like to join and is overall still the best time I've had with a shooter. Hope the DLC’s just as great, and the next title even better!

Getting into Splatoon 3 about a year after launch, I've heard much about the game's apparent mishandling. Starting the game up, the pure amount of stuff thrown at you from every angle is overwhelming in a way the first two games never were. A dizzyingly big hub, seasons and challenges and the catalogue, so many different little currencies, all the objects to collect and a locker that can clearly be customized to be bigger and colored but who knows how that's done. So much stuff to spend money on with the feeling of knowing how long it would take to even begin catching up... it's so much to take in and feels so tangentially plagued the same way more monetized GaaS games are, it puts me off from wanting to engage with the multiplayer systems entirely.

Luckily for me, I've never really been able to get super invested into Splatoon's multiplayer anyways. The base game campaign of 1 was the highlight of the entire experience, and 2's, while I understand the flack it gets for its general derivativity, was still a really solid time. And of course, Octo Expansion is one of the best single player campaigns Nintendo has ever made. I got 3 almost exclusively to try out the campaign (and have it for when Side Order releases) and--surprise, surprise--its another one of them!

The campaign builds off Octo Expansion akin to 2's campaign built off one, also in a way that feels a tinge derivative. Fortunately for the game though, there's a LOT worse things you could be derivative of than Octo Expansion. The bite sized level system is a joy, offering a ton of variety in its use of all the weapons the game has to offer. It's a refreshing treat to go into a level and the only thing on your squid is a sub weapon or a super, and you get to explore that item in novel ways you never would've been able to in a normal multiplayer battle. One of my favorite levels in the whole game gave you a single Curling Bomb in each section that you had to carefully aim to maneuver through enemy ink. The game never stops offering fun, new ideas to play with, even into the secret level after finishing the game, and I appreciate it a lot.

Keeping secrets out of levels was a boon to the pacing; it never was much fun scrounging every nook and cranny of the levels to find a Sunken Scroll. Scrounging every nook and cranny of the hub however... now that's a lot more enjoyable. Each one is laid out almost like a little puzzle box, slowly chipping away at obstructions by completing stages, finding little items dotted everywhere, trying to find the path to new areas in the hub. It's a fairly simple joy, but it led me to really appreciating the construction of each hub, especially towards the end of cleaning up, once I've cleared enough goop to be able to do the balloon challenge that laps around the area.

Despite all this, the strain of the series' relative inertness is becoming fairly apparent. This is the fourth Splatoon campaign and seeing the same core set of enemies with a new texture on them has gotten incredibly dull and knowing Side Order is going to be utilizing them essentially-unchanged for the fifth time is the only real knock against my anticipation for it. Even going into this game's finale gauntlet, it was just a bit frustrating realizing--oh, this is just a carbon copy of how Octo Expansion handled its finale. The entire game felt a bit of a retread of Octo Expansion, but just a notch lower (probably because the prior one was a dedicated campaign vs one made as more a tutorial for a general audience of the game). Again, Octo Expansion was incredible, so this isn't much of a knock against the game, I just hope Splatoon 4 offers something that feels truly new single-player wise. The series needs it.

Picked this up again recently after buying it near launch only to play it for 3 hours and drop it for over a year. I was a bit confused on what justified another Splatoon on switch + worried about if I would still enjoy this series as much as I did half a decade ago but im glad to see that hasn’t changed at all. Whether or not this game’s existence at all is justified or not I guess varies on who you are but the main campaign is once again very, very good and while I do wish there was a new ranked mode style added or something, it’s still a really fun time and that’s about all I can ask for from a sequel.

I do want to say my perspective from this game is coming at it as a competitive player, so naturally I have a way more critical angle on it, and I don't think my thoughts on the game's quality can really be conveyed by a star score. Splatoon 3 is a game that has changed me as a person dramatically, though it has less to do with the game itself and moreso through the people I met playing it and the competitive hurdles I jumped through. Though I’m very hard on the game in this review, I still really enjoy playing it and a lot of my complaining comes from a desire for it to be better. Anyways, before we get to multiplayer I’ll briefly dip into the other noteworthy modes. Tableturf will not be covered as I have not yet beaten Baby Jelly despite over 800 hours of playtime.

Splatoon 3's campaign merges the hub world progression of the first 2 games with the individual levels/subway structure of Octo Expansion, with excellent results. Aside from defeating 3 bosses, you have tons of freedom on what you want to do, with your only restriction being how many power eggs you have to progress. This results in a great amount of agency given to the player to navigate the game, which is amplified by the campaign levels being fun mini-challenges as they were in Octo Expansion. The finale is also super hype, with the sheer scope of the operation making it a great follow-up to Octo Expansion's finale, even if it doesn't hit as hard emotionally.

Salmon Run, the game’s PvE mode, has also seen many improvements from its predecessor in 2. Perhaps the most significant improvement is the ability to throw eggs. Aside from giving players way more flexibility when passing eggs back to base, it costing 2/3rds of your ink tank makes managing your ink economy a far more interesting and urgent problem than it was in Splatoon 2. Choosing between throwing eggs or keeping your ink for a bomb can often be a difficult choice in the moment, with each having its own set of tradeoffs.

The new boss salmonids introduced are also all good, with the Slammin’ Lid and Fishsticks being highlights for the unique interactions they introduce to the game. One might want to leave Slammin’ Lids alive despite the enemies they spawn in because baiting their slam attack can dispatch any salmonids unfortunate enough to be stuck underneath it at that time. Fishsticks constantly painting over you provides a novel nuisance to deal with, and their pillar remaining after death gives you more terrain to use. However, this idea isn’t too well-realized in practice, as fishsticks aren’t placed in areas that open up new movement options on these largely horizontal maps and mounting them for anything side from their eggs aren’t worth it. Also why is Flyfish still in the game, it having universal range and needing 2 bombs to be killed at a specific interval doesn’t make it a fun problem to deal with. I don’t think we’d lose anything from Stinger being the only universal range Salmonid in the game, since their fragility offsets their immense reach and remote position.

Anyways onto the meaty stuff: multiplayer. The core fundamentals from Splatoon 2 have been largely untouched, with the same excellent mechanics of spreading ink through using weapons and ink being tied to player mobility, making the stage control common in shooters very explicit and easily readable. Everything stacked onto this has been well-considered, from the subtly-improved audio design to the excellent UX to squid roll and squid surge being very natural extensions to player movement. You can also finally play Anarchy Open/Turf Wars with your friend in a lobby after 7 years out of the box, thank you for the measly crumbs of play options Nintendo! All new weapon classes are also excellent, with the stringers and splatanas offering playstyles unlike anything else in the game. The former litters explosives on the ground allowing for a novel form of long-range space control and the latter is a jack-of-all trades, enabling control of several ranges at the cost of being substantially harder to execute.

Unfortunately, a lot of core issues from Splatoon 2 remain. The biggest one of these is the map design. This has been frequently discussed in the competitive community, but to abbreviate it a bit many maps are overly linear and often force players through chokepoints with no way around them. Due to the lack of options for approaching critical areas of the map such as mid, this creates a reliance on specials to safely force your way through these chokepoints and puts several classes of weapons at a disadvantage. It’s harder for rollers and brushes to do their job as close-ranged assassins when they have fewer and fewer angles to approach from. Looking at the current meta of the game makes this even more apparent given how the most popular special is Tacticooler: a special that buffs Inklings’ mobility, and more importantly, their respawn time and special gauge retention. Given how cooler mitigates a lot of risk that comes with a team fight in a game where death is normally very punishing, it’s no surprise it’s considered so vital in the current state of the game where death is almost inevitable given the lack of approach options combined with the need to take space, especially against some of the game’s special weapons.

Speaking of those special weapons, there’s a lot of new ones introduced in Splatoon 3. From old favorites in 1 being reimagined like Trizooka, Big Bubbler, and Kraken Royale to returning specials from 2 such as Ink Storm, Inkjet, and Booyah Bomb to cool new concepts such as Zipcaster, Wave Breaker, and Super Chump, there’s a lot of options for specials. 18 to be exact. Many of these new specials are well-designed, though some are left quite overtuned for a while (looking at you Crab Tank and Trizooka) they encourage fundamentals of good positioning to get the most out of them. To lock down an area with a Crab Tank, you need to be in a good position to overlook the area without getting flanked. When popping Tacticooler, everybody needs to go to that same section of the map to get the buffs and push forward. This trend is good to see despite the balance needing improvement, particularly for autonomous specials such as Super Chump and Wave Breaker. The main special that doesn’t fit in here is Killer Wail 5.1, as although it’s less lethal than infamous universal range specials such as Tenta Missiles and Sting Ray, universal range + lack of interaction on both sides doesn’t exactly make it an exciting special and it’s in a place where a couple of good buffs could make it about as unhealthy as the aforementioned two specials. Also this isn’t a novel observation but Nintendo please why are Tenta Missiles back in the game, there’s specials that can take their place and are more interactive than it. We really don’t need it. In addition, considering how cool of a special Zipcaster is it’s a shame it’s so weak.

Splatoon 3’s kit design, though better than Splatoon 2’s, still isn’t great. A lot of promising kit concepts seem to be designed in a fantasy world where the subs and specials are more viable than they actually are, and they would be excellent in that ideal parallel universe where the game’s sub and special weapons are balanced. Slosher Deco is an excellent example of this, as Angle Shooter’s line could exert marker pressure and make it more difficult for the opponent to move while Zipcaster allows it to get in really weird positions and pressure opponents from odd angles. Unfortunately, it exists in a game where Angle Shooter and Zipcaster are both woefully underpowered, resulting in nobody playing it over its vanilla variant which has good area control in Splat Bomb and a good displacement special in Triple Inkstrike. There’s also a few cases like in Splatoon 2 where a kit is “bricked” by having one excellent sub/special but a really poor third option. For instance, so many potentially strong kits are kneecapped by having Sprinkler or Angle Shooter, the two worst subs in the game, and it sucks that having one of these subs neuters a weapon that much. The kit design could go hard when the game’s weaker subs and specials get some much needed buffs, but for now it’s still very flawed.

As an aside, though this was also an issue in Splatoon 2, it’s been a shame seeing the balance team favor shooters so much. Shooters in Splatoon 2 got several movement buffs for no good reason, making them overall the best class in the game. This trend continued in Splatoon 3, with shooters occasionally getting random buffs for no reason and the devs being very hesitant to nerf their special output compared to literally any other weapon class in the game. They’re too good at filling in holes in team compositions, as for nearly every other weapon you need to carefully weigh its strengths and weaknesses to slot it in on your team but shooters have the tools to be self-sufficient and almost nobody says no to having them on. This also hurts weapon diversity, as flexing to multiple shooters is easy due to many of the most viable ones playing similarly to each other. You can see how certain aspects of the game’s design favors shooters/multihit weapons as well. Torpedos, though well-designed in their multifunctionality, are uniquely difficult for weapons with slower attack speeds to deal with. Slower weapons also often have lower object damage potential, which isn’t great in a game where several viable special weapons are countered by high object damage.

Despite all of this working against the game though, the game’s fundamentals are still rock solid. Paint controlling player movement makes for an intrinsically fun feedback loop of painting to establish stage control and then continuing to do it to improve your mobility options while restricting your opponents. Range generally being shorter than other shooters for most weapons also makes fights way more spacing-oriented, with pre-positioning and coordination often being more important than aim especially given this game’s lightning-quick kill times. Most game-modes are fun, and the game’s volatility and quick rounds makes it so that very few games feel like a lost cause, any team is always a couple of team fights away from advantage and victory is always possible even in the most dire of situations. Most weapons are fun to play, particularly the really unique ones like brushes, buckets, blasters, and bows. That’s a lot of B’s looking back. The groundwork is there, and it’s so close to being great, it just needs a game that supports it better.

Splatoon 3 is a game that improves over its predecessor substantially, but there’s still a lot of work to do. It’s saved by its incredibly strong fundamental gameplay, but if the game wants to truly thrive it needs good maps, good kit design, and better balancing. For the foreseeable future, this ball is entirely in the developers’ park, and it has been notoriously difficult to determine their experience goals with kit design, map creation, and balancing over the past 14 months of the game’s lifespan. For now, though, I’ll keep playing.

SPLATOON 3 - YEAR ONE REPORT

There's probably no game that I'm more "into" than Splatoon. There's games I like more, things that have been and gone, but Splatoon is its own scene. A subculture, and a massive push of energy from a new generation of remarkably talented Nintendo devs. Building on the lessons taught by the Marios and Zeldas, but it's a socially conscious online shooter that embraces new players. I love that while other monolithic multiplayer icons were collaborating with movie studios to promote a new release, Splatoon was collaborating with the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, to encourage fans to take interest in the real-life species of aquatic creatures that the games take inspiration from. It's also a refreshingly progressive title from a safe, Japanese family brand like Nintendo, with its embrace of street art, Octo Expansion's overt anti-racist themes, and 3's abandonment of gender classes. It's quite encouraging to see how much a young queer fanbase have adopted the game as a positive community, in contrast to hostile, masculine spaces like Call of Duty and Gears of War. I think it does a great job of representing contemporary Japanese pop culture too, showcasing regional pop idols as fun, positive icons that fans can bond over, and not the icky, fetishised exploitees that the west tends to view them as. There's just a lot that Splatoon does that I think is really cool, and I'm consistently supportive of it.

It's a shame then that Splatoon 3 doesn't really seem to have as much of a voice as the previous titles. The energy seems to have diminished somewhat. Whether through complications with the pandemic, a less experimental, more efficient design structure, or developer burnout, I don't get as much sense of direction with the new game. Map designs seem reined-in and conservative in their approach, while previous games were introducing new mechanics and distinct playstyles with each new drop. Deep Cut haven't had the same impact as the Squid Sisters or Off the Hook, with the game's DLC allowing oldheads (me) to regress into Splatoon 1's Inkopolis lobby, largely ignoring the direction of the new title. New seasons bring back maps from previous titles, many of them from Splatoon 2, which players could access just as easily on their Nintendo Switch already. It just seems to have plateaued. Splatoon isn't pushing at the boundaries anymore. They're digging up nostalgia for games that came out a few years ago.

I don't think it's dead, though. There's encouraging signs that Splatoon 3 is still just finding its shape. Deep Cut's three-piece presents a fundamentally different dynamic from what's come before, presented as petty, bickering bumpkins from a smaller town, and it's great to see how that's been incorporated into their new track, Big Betrayal (their biggest banger so far). Their disappointingly restrained performance at Nintendo Live 2022 seems to be behind them, and I think their next concert could be a lot of fun. At time of writing, Deep Cut's Splatfest is currently in session, with the winning member seemingly becoming the leader of the group. I want them to stick to whatever the result is, and I think it would be a lot of fun to see Shiver's resentment if she has to take orders from either of the other two. While I moan about how relatively regressive 3 has been, I will die a hardcore Squid Sisters devotee, and it's been great to see how much the new game has catered for those who got invested in Callie's disappearance before 2's release. I want the series to continue to present them as the icons who started all this, and 3 has largely been following the trajectory I'd hoped to see, in that regard.

I just feel very precious about Splatoon. There was a time when each new development felt like a step into the future. How exciting it was when Camp Triggerfish first dropped, with its multiple base territories converging in central hot zone. Even as a Team Order voter, I feel concerned about Side Order's revisionist theme, turning its back on the significance of Splatfest results. If we were going to see both the Chaos and Order timelines anyway, what was the point in taking part in the Final Fest? It doesn't seem like the kind of move Splatoon 1 would have made.

Splatoon 3 is still the best place to play Splatoon today. The pre-match practice lobby and skippable Anarchy Splatcasts make it a much more inviting option on your Switch's home menu, and the active season rewards keep active players invested in returning regularly. It just doesn't feel like we've really got the game it's supposed to be yet. It's safe, and that's not something I value in Splatoon. I want them to see the big swings, and weird experiments without worrying about the impact to its established playerbase. I know a lot of people who bought it at release, and I think I'm the only one who hasn't dropped off playing it regularly. I know what this team can do. I'm telling them now's the time to do it.

I play Splatoon for the story. I can't make myself be consistent with any kind of online game, even one in a franchise I love as dearly as this. And thankfully, Splatoon 3's Story Mode (titled "Return of the Mammalians") didn't disappoint. I don't think it's as good as Octo Expansion, but it took the best parts of that and combined them with parts of 1+2's base campaigns to give us the best base game campaign in the series so far.

The multiplayer is still fun as ever, with a number of QoL changes that shake things up a bit, but I've probably put less hours into it than any Splatoon game thus far.

I'm gonna be real here, this game did not deserve to win Multiplayer game of the year 2022 at the Game Awards LOL.

Splatoon 3 is quite possibly the textbook definition of the term "going through the motions". A game purely content squeaking by doing the bare minimum, and somehow still fumbling even that. For those of you keeping score, we are currently on the third installment in the Splatoon franchise, and a particular installment that released on the lifespan of the exact same console that the second game did, and the multiplayer has not fundamentally changed or evolved in any meaningful way. Some of you might see this statement and retort "well what's the big deal? If it ain't broke, don't fix, right?", except no. There's a lot of aspects that Splatoon's multiplayer contained that ARE broke, and they aren't fixed at all from previous entries. Like, for instance, the map rotation system: only being allowed to play 2 maps every 2 hours. Not only is this mind numbingly repetitive, playing the same map (and for ranked gameplay, the same maps and modes) over and over and over again, but as I'll get into later on in the review, the maps themselves aren't even good to begin with. Even the Overwatch team ended up realizing that map pools are a bad idea and eventually did away with them altogether during Overwatch 2. Splatoon 3 currently has substantially less content in comparison and yet it still decides to...limit content at the same time? I genuinely don't get it. But that's not even the worst of it, no. The worst part of Splatoon 3's multiplayer is that it's so agonizingly SLOOOOOOOW. Not necessarily in terms of getting into and out of a match, these elements are fine. I'm talking purely progression, leveling up, getting new weapons, gear and clothing items. First off even if you've already played Splatoon 2 before (which the game does recognize if you have save data from that game or not and unlocks ranked mode early because of it), the game STILL insists on gatekeeping literally everything from you and pulls the "oh you need to be at least level 4 to get anything" garbage. Leveling up in any capacity, whether it be your player level or your catalogue level takes ages. If I need to play like 30+ matches back to back with a double XP buff activated from a snack ticket and I still haven't gotten from level 7 to 8 yet, that's a bit of a major problem. Progressing in any capacity in this game is a massive grind, an issue they still haven't really addressed since the first game. Even when you DO level up it doesn't really feel like you've accomplished anything, it feels like you've waded through a thick waist high swamp for about 3 hours, you get to the surface to grab a bit of candy as a reward, and afterwards you gotta do the whole wading game all over again. I wouldn't go so far as to label it as an endurance test, but man that's really what it feels like sometimes. 3 being a dated grind fest that barely feels any different than the other entries in any way shape or form would be one thing, but if you ask me it also managed to make multiplayer elements of the previous games even worse if you ask me. The matchmaking for instance is all types of borked. You either queue into matches were you absolutely stomp the enemy team, or you're the ones getting stomped. Those are the two extremes, no in between. It's basically been every single match. Turf war either feels too lethargic and easy or too sweaty and tryhard. On top of this, too many matches get canceled completely because someone disconnected last second immediately after a match started. I kid you not, 3 matches in a row were canceled because someone DC'd, further compounding the sluggish grindy progression system.

The worst offense out of all of what they changed, however, are the new maps. The map design in this game for whatever reason took a massive hit and pretty much 90% of them are the exact same in terms of design philosophy: linear hallways funneling everyone into the center where team fights typically break out. It's bad enough that the maps are all designed like straight shots with barely any room to add creative high ground opportunities or vertical structures (in fact half of the map areas are unable to be inked at all), but it's even worse that we're basically stuck with 2 of these maps at a time for 2 hours. I genuinely cannot think of a single aspect that Splatoon 3 added to improve the multiplayer experience outside of being able to practice your weapon in the lobby room. I legitimately was just not having fun with 3's incredibly lackluster multiplayer experience. Outside of multiplayer, Salmon Run is essentially unchanged, just with a few additional mini bosses. You do get an addition of a ton of new cosmetics to collect and equip, and the catalogue is the equivalent of a battle pass (though thankfully it's free with no option to pay for it). There's also a brand new card game that I must've played for a grand total of 5 times before never touching the thing again. Here's the thing: by the third game, you should have something that innovates and improves upon the previous products. Splatoon 3 doesn't really do anything to innovate and improve on what came before, instead content to cruise by not really doing much of anything. It's quite ironic, in fact, how much this game uses the term "fresh" despite nothing about this game containing anything of the sort. That is except for one thing of course: the campaign.

Yeah, I was as surprised as you were. The campaigns of the previous Splatoon games were a whole lot of nothing. Meandering excuses to give the games single player content and nothing else. It took until the Octo Expansion DLC for the single player to become something interesting. And wouldn't you know it, but the story mode of this game is a lot like Octo Expansion! I do like how it's a complete bait and switch too: it makes you think you're just playing a typical point A to point B level based campaign just like the previous 2 games, until after you face the first boss, the game completely pulls the rug out from under you and fully reveals the cards in its hand. It's a challenge based story mode with a variety of gimmicks and objectives for each stage, the hub worlds that hold these stages are filled with secret items and text logs for added lore, you even get a fully fledged skill tree! A lot of challenges were also crafted for a lot of the special weapons: for instance, that borderline useless Zipcaster special weapon in the multiplayer has challenges built around zipping from building to building in a snappy fashion, it's a lot of fun. The bosses could stand to be a bit better and the game kind of ends up lore dumping everything on you at the end when I felt it could've been more evenly spaced out, but I'm surprised at how much fun I had with Splatoon 3's campaign.

In a way, this is an interesting though unfortunate inverse of Splatoon 2; wheras that game had a mediocre forgettable single player campaign with a beefy and fun multiplayer, this game has a fun and inventive single player campaign with a sluggish dull overly grind-y multiplayer. Sucks that it had to leave the portion of Splatoon that by far has the most amount of content out for the wolves. Perhaps they'll finally start to improve and innovate the multiplayer when the inevitable 4th entry happens, because if they don't then I'll REALLY be in a state of utter dumbfounded shock. Or maybe I won't. Kind of hard to tell at this point.

Do not spend $60 on this game. I would hope they discounted it by now but I don't know.

um... splatoon 3. i like it but its different to be reviewing a game that is still getting updates, patches and changes, one you have experienced from the start and have had to deal with some crazy shit LOL. i think splatoon 3 is easily the best in the series due to its quality of life changes and better ui among other things, but i have very mixed feelings towards it. but im not going to sit here and be uncertain about the future, ill just go over some stuff im doing in it present day. i think splatoon 3s salmon run is miles better than splatoon 2s, i mean obviously right? but honestly i could play it all day (and i do.) king salmonids are such a cool addition, and big runs > splatfests. splatfests are really cool in this game, love the idea of 3 teams even if it hasnt been working in my favor much. personally i think splatoon 3s hero mode tries WAAAY too hard. it tried to bank on octo expansions success by making them the exact same but then sucking the life out of it. in my opinion it is boring and tells kind of a nothing story. i did not feel invested at all which is very sad because ive been looking forward to it for years, but oh well. i trust side order will treat me better... one last thing since this is getting long, i havent really clicked yet with deep cut. right now they have absolutely nothing going for them and im really hoping they get some interesting developments soon. BY THE WAY I DO NOT HATE THIS GAME. sorry if im overly negative, i am for some reason very critical of games i absolutely love. i look forward to what the coming years of content bring!

I do wish the story mode borrowed a little less from Octo Expansion (it doesn't work as well here as it did there) and dared to be more of its own thing, but the aspects of the story mode that were original (the new idols serving as obstacles instead of new guides, smallfry, the exploring) were great. Deep Cut acting as sort of team rocket figures was fantastic and extremely funny.

As for the online multiplayer, it definitely has issues, but I think it's overall the best the series has been yet. The new map designs are awful, with the shapes being far too simplistic, but the gameplay is as vibrant as ever. The level of customization you have, between your tag and your locker, is super fun and sorts Splatoon very well. Tableturf is a fun addition, and this game overall has a very bright, welcoming community. It's just a ton of fun to sink hours into. A lot of people have complained about connectivity issues, but I didn't experience too many.

It doesn't quite reach the highs of Octo Expansion, but I love this game and I'm excited to see what Side Order brings.

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.

I have never played such a poorly designed multiplayer in a minute. To the terrible onboarding and the confusing multiplayer setup and also the fact that it takes a lot of fucking work just to get into a match. It is genuinely just an overall bad time. And you know ill concede I am hopping on the third entry of a series I only played very sparingly throughout the years but still what an experience that is not at all welcoming. I knew I was gonna get stomped but I have never felt so lost in a multiplayer experience as a whole. Also with just the poor servers feeling like I constantly disconnect and the atrocious map design I really couldn't get behind this game. Also this review stands for the multiplayer portion of the game because that is indeed the main focus. The weapon balance sucks dick, the map design is confusing and not cohesive with several map elements not being conveyed and only existing on certain maps. While having unique map gimmicks is cool and works in a lot of shooters it kind of just doesn't help this game's case of confusion. Really wanted to try to like this game but unfortunately I kind of hated my overall time with it. Im sure splatoon fans like this game so its not like my opinion will really change their minds and it may seem overall very bitter and spiteful in this review but its kind of me trying to give my genuine shot into a series I heard so much of. Just if you've never really played one of these just really think about it and watch more of the game is what i'd say.

Splatoon 3 is another incremental sequel in the franchise, but unlike its predecessor, serves very little purpose as a unique product. Yes, Splatoon 3 is quality and is the best game in the trilogy, but how much does saying that really matter when it is clearly so similar to Splatoon 2 that released half a decade before it. The single player campaign did entertain me, and the lore of these games have always been fascinating to me, but outside of that it doesn't feel very unique when compared to the Octo Expansion. Outside of the undeniably incredible new lobby, the multiplayer changes are interesting, however don't feel superior to what came before it, rather just different. I am honestly of the belief that a third Splatoon game would have benefited being reserved for a new system, but Splatoon 3 should still be entertaining for hardcore fans and newcomers.