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'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.