A colourful, artistic, and creative world of just kids, squids, and octopuses shooting ink.
The setting and the hidden stories the world of Splatoon showcases managed to keep me captivated. While I never played 1 or 2, this game made me want to consume everything about the franchise. It's a cute and exciting game and I love seeing myself grow better at something I never thought I would've played before.
Despite the shitty connections at times and the map designs being disappointing when I see how 2's maps looked, I still keep coming back to it.

Just cleared credits on Hero Mode, the single player story mode. In short, Splatoon is a 3rd Person Shooter, following an inkling squid kid who paints terrain by shooting enemies, floors and walls with paint guns alongside other arsenal like buckets, rollers and brushes.

There’s many modes, Turf Wars probably being the most popular - working competitive in a group of four to cover the most terrain against a rivalling group.

This is mostly a Single Player review, since I’ve rolled credits on that and are still working towards playing the other modes. The single player campaign is always a good time, they’re on the level of the bonus stages of Super Mario Sunshine in terms of platforming but with much more versatility in movement.

The catch in Splatoon 3 is the exploration available in the hub areas, this used to be a matter of exploring zones to find the levels hidden in invisible grates.

Whereas the zones in Splatoon 3 are covered in fuzzy goo which will kill you upon touch, only your buddy small-fry can eat the goo when you amass enough disposable points to wipe them away. It creates an addictive pull between finishing missions to get more points and using them to clear more terrain to unlock mode levels, bonuses like decorations, playing cards and improving the music for each zone as you uncover the terrain - it’s subtle detail but cool addition. Sunken Scrolls are now hidden in the over world meaning stages can be speedrun without needed to check behind every single corner to find a collectable!

The stages themselves are like the Octo Expansion, you start in a desalination box basically with a choice of load-out for the mission. I like replaying stages with different load-outs for the full completion status and nothing else really. The story fills some gaps in the lore, namely Mr. Grizz and evolution of the inklings with some character info drops.

I really enjoyed the single player and are looking forward to more Octo Expansion tiered difficulty. Only towards the end did the levels become more difficult and enjoyable.

I liked the singe player campaign. The new main lobby is cool and the game plays very smooth. The soundtrack is really good and memorable.
But here are my criticisms: No new modes, a few new weapons and a new dodge mechanic just feel like they could've been an update for Splatoon 2. I recognize that they made some smaller changes. But for me personally there were not enough changes to warrant a sequel on the same console (from a casual perspective). Also the online connectivity is still terrible.
I played the online mode a bit but dropped it after the first Splatfest. At last, I wanted mentioned that I found the catalog way too grindy.
Overall everything regarding the single player was fine. The game has some minor improvements but I wished that they waited until the next console so there are bigger changes. In this state, the game is fun but it could've been better.

I finished the campaign long ago but I’m marking this as “finished” now because I just don’t play this game as much anymore.

I like Splatoon 3! I’m not super deep into competitive so maybe that’s why I don’t have many actual criticisms of the game. I like how the single player campaign was more like the Octo Expansion, it felt a lot more satisfying to complete, and I look forward to more DLC for this game! As for everything else, I am a bit disappointed we didn’t get any new ranked modes or ways to play other than tricolor, which I’m still not convinced is super balanced. Also, challenges are a neat concept, but they don’t seem to be available at convenient times for my time zone so I can’t comment much on them other than general frustration that we once again have a time locked mode. Going back to tricolor, it’s at least fun to have three teams! I’d love for this to be playable outside of splatfests though. Salmon Run being available 24/7 is a plus, but I’m wondering why that wasn’t a thing from the get go in 2! The catalog kept me playing every day, but now I feel like I’m playing just to complete it and not because I’m having fun with the game anymore… so I’m gonna consider it “done” here, and hop on for future splatfests.