It pains me to give this game a 4,5 given on how much it has offered and affected me. There hasn't been a single game that has made me to drop my controller and let me sink in on what I had experienced by the end of it. This game is not a 5/5 because of just how slightly lacking the combat can be and how (even though I adore it) the story can be hard to piece together as you go along with how many terms and names the game throws at you without always doing the best job at properly explaining them.

It wasn't obvious until after the release of Splatoon 3 just how much this game offered to the overall franchise. If you dryly look at it on how it was at launch then yeah...I understand the disappointment, but i feel like this game did a lot of things right with one of them being Splatfests. I still haven't felt as excited for a Splatfest since they stopped organising them for Splatoon 2 and that majorly has to do with the implementation of the Shifty Stations and how fun even the worst ones were.