after abandoning it originally back in 2022 when it came out, thanks to xenoblade 3 and its amazing side content consuming my life, I have finally come back and finished the main story of splatoon 3. i needed a game to hold me over until No Rest For The Wicked released. and wow, yeah, i should've finished it sooner. that finale was fucking awesome. the singleplayer is, of course, quite fun. the lore was actually super sick this time around too! but man... nothing about this game shouts innovation to me. nothing about it seems worthy of an entire new game on the same system as the last game. its basically just doing the splatoon 1/2 singleplayers again, with some octo expansion type levels in there too, but now with smallfry (who i barely used outside of clearing fuzzy ooze). and thats just... disappointing to me. even the multiplayer is basically just more of the same. Its not like i wanted them to remove the previous gamemodes, but they couldn't at least add a couple? we got clam blitz out of Splatoon 2, but we got no new gamemodes here, and barely anything else new in the game either. it really sucks to see. I love this series, been a fan since the early days of splatoon 1! so I say this from a place of love: despite it being a great game, i just can't help but feel let down. I still need to play side order, that very well could be the originality i'm looking for like octo expansion was for splatoon 2, but until then... lets just hope that splatoon 4 is more than this.

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.

First of all, Single Player out the way:
Return of the Mammalians is a fun campaign that even in moments is better than octo expansion. The hub world and collectables is my fav part of it alongside prefering the story and lore. However, OE didn't do any of these poorly, wheres RotM does one thing very wrong. It doesn't have the variety of level themes and challenges compared to OE, as it tries to have standard levels like S1, which whilst fun fill up too much of the campaign for me. That creativity and variety of challenges wasn't as present. The one thing OE did bad that this game does great is boss fights with only one stinker!
Anyways, time for the multiplayer:
This game has my favourite controls in the series that pushes the movement based focus of the games to its limit, with overall amazing special ideas that don't reach the BS of some s2 specials (COUGH INK ARMOR) and with some amazingly fun and creative new weapon classes alongside new weapons within pre existing weapon classes! The season system feels like a non fomo approach to what free to play games do, giving you something to always work to without the pressure of fomo as the game will have the items available in stores 1 or 2 seasons after.
That being said, seasons have been too slow in terms of how much content has been added overtime, especially with weapon kits getting smaller and smaller. A big problem has been how inconsistent the kit quality has been alongside the poor stage design this game has been having, needing more options and openings. Map reworks took too long to happen and it still isn't enough to fix as they clearly have a fundamental issue.
A lot of criticism huh? And yet I still love this game, I adore it and it frustrates me at times how poor the update system has been despite me preffering it so much more in concept than how 2 handled it. It's a shame how many highs and lows this game has, as I adore this game and how queer and creative and FUN it has been.

Story Mode Log:
Doesn't blow me away enough to say it's better than 2's story mode, but not really worse? Though I have to say, Octo Expansion still stays on top as far as single player campaigns for me. Unlike past titles, it didn't really give me any reason to care more about the new idols or even give me a clue about their personalities. I feel like the characters in 1 and 2 are infinitely stronger and more fleshed-out designs, and I feel like this campaign could have benefited
from just sticking to past tropes rather than trying to be new and not getting all the way there. Although it doesn't succeed at open-world, unfortunately, I would love to see that for the franchise at some point. With the boss fights being fewer and far between, (even if the manta boss being a huge Mario sunshine reference got a kick out of me) it made for a less memorable story mode, and the only thing that got me psyched was my big salmon buddy. Maybe not the best Splatoon campaign, but still a fun time!