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
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
Reviewed on Mar 15, 2023