Let me start out with this: Splatoon is a great series, and Splatoon 3 from a mechanical perspective is a great game. It expands upon the system mechanics of its predecessors and does so very well. It adds two new movement options (albeit one is much more useful than the other) and two new weapons, both of which are very fun and useful in their own ways. Alongside that, the story mode is fantastic. Easily the best in the series.
With all of that being said, very little of it matters. The online is broken beyond belief. I'm not someone who has suffered with hundreds of connection issues like you'll hear some people talk about, but there have been plenty. The server issues are not acceptable and need to be fixed immediately. Splatoon 2 was perfectly fine, and they screwed them up for 3. My second major issue is the ranked system. It is beyond comprehension why they would remove the ability to de-rank, but it, alongside several other issues both obvious and not, leads to matchmaking that is virtually nonexistent. The ranks do not matter in the slightest, it seems. It is completely broken. If you're in B-, it's just as likely you can be matched up against S or S+ players as with other B- players. It is very very common to be in the highest rank, and matchmake with either unbalanced team compositions, players that clearly aren't supposed to be there, or both. I rarely get games that I feel are of equal or similar skill levels, leading to feelings of undeserved wins or hair-pullingly frustrating losses. The team comp balancing is overall better than Splatoon 2, you won't see teams of 3 chargers like you did before, but there are numerous times where you'll be put with a composition that just can't compete with the composition of the enemy team and vice versa.
I love Splatoon to death, it's one of my favorite Nintendo franchises, but I'm not exaggerating when I say this is the worst online experience I think I've ever had. Rampant connection issues and disconnects (alongside the game gaslighting you into thinking your internet is somehow the cause of the disconnect when it isn't), extreme latency issues that lead to unfair exchanges (like being splatted upwards of 2 seconds after the fact by someone you just splatted yourself) especially over long distances, a nonsensical ranking system, and the worst matchmaking in any modern multiplayer game to date. Nintendo, how could you have possibly let this slip through? I will probably not be playing this until these issues are fixed, but unfortunately, knowing how Nintendo can be, they won't be. I'm almost to the point of saying that this was a waste of $60. I will gladly change my rating to 4.5 or 5 stars, delete my review, and replace it with a new one if or when this all gets fixed, but until then... I'm sorry, this is abysmal.