I’ve always thought Splatoon looked pretty cool, from the twist on shooter gameplay to the aesthetic of the ink itself. Somehow though the games always passed me by, but I made sure to get Splatoon 3 on release, and as it turns out… it’s fine. But I do think the style is its strongest point, whether that be the colourful ink, the presentation of information from the idol giving newscasts, the whole splatfest being a big event in-game. When I actually play it, it just feels shallow. Turf War plays too much like team deathmatch with a tiny arena and every weapon being able to kill in 1 shot or 1 second. The inking everything aspect feels secondary, though it does provide certain things that other shooters don’t, like the fact whoever has the most inked ground has the movement advantage, while those with less ground get a faster special charge advantage.
Single Player mode takes the form of a bunch of individual challenge levels which can range from a Pac-Man Maze-eque collectathon, using your weapons to sculpt a set of boxes to match another sculpture, grinding rails and shooting targets, going through generic obstacle courses in levels set in a void where you have to take down a bunch of enemies, going through generic obstacle courses in levels set in a void where you have to take down a bunch of enemies, going through generic obstacle courses in levels set in a void where you have to take down a bunch of enemies. Okay yeah, for every fun idea the single player has, it has 5 courses that are just boring plain “Kill the enemies and move on” with light platforming. Apparently this single player mode takes inspiration from the Octo-expansion of Splatoon 2, which everyone loves, and this just makes me wonder…how god damn boring was Splatoon 1 and 2’s vanilla story mode? Maybe if they actually put any effort into the environments of these stages I’d care, but it’s just the same goddamn backdrop, the same enemies, the same everything with a slightly different layout. The section leading up to the last boss is a bit better since they put effort in to make it feel like an actual location that exists in the world, so you can feel some sense of immersion.
As for the multiplayer… This game has to be one of the worst ways Nintendo has ever handled multiplayer. Rotating maps so every session will guarantee you playing on the same 2 maps if you want to stick with your preferred game mode. But then there’s the competitive, hoo boy. I have never in my life seen a game where the main game mode is the only one that isn’t available in competitive, and the gimmicky modes are exclusive to competitive. And they’re also on timers, so if you wanna play competitive but jump on at the wrong time, I hope you like Clam Blitz (you won’t, Clam Blitz is fucking awful).
Salmon run can be fun, but it also suffers from having 1 map available at a time, each with only 4 weapons available at a time, and it can shake things up a liiiittle bit with the amount of round variety, but it too often just falls into fighting off huge waves of enemies while the same 5-6 bosses spam their attacks at you.
Tableturf or whatever it’s called is just a small distraction. I can’t imagine getting super invested in that.
Customisation is decent, but with the way abilities work, getting a piece of clothing you both like and has good abilities is down to huge amounts of luck, and/or a lot of grinding.
The game does boast a pretty good weapon variety, there’s really one for everybody. Each main weapon has a set-in-stone sub and special weapon, so there’s no way to build your perfect build, which could be good or bad since you just know the optimal one would be online within hours and everyone would be using it. As it stands it can be frustrating though to find a weapon you love, but the sub and/or special feels useless.
I can't really believe this is building on the foundation of 2 previous games though. This one still feels it's finding its legs and making weird choices, so how bad must be the past 2 have been?
Single Player mode takes the form of a bunch of individual challenge levels which can range from a Pac-Man Maze-eque collectathon, using your weapons to sculpt a set of boxes to match another sculpture, grinding rails and shooting targets, going through generic obstacle courses in levels set in a void where you have to take down a bunch of enemies, going through generic obstacle courses in levels set in a void where you have to take down a bunch of enemies, going through generic obstacle courses in levels set in a void where you have to take down a bunch of enemies. Okay yeah, for every fun idea the single player has, it has 5 courses that are just boring plain “Kill the enemies and move on” with light platforming. Apparently this single player mode takes inspiration from the Octo-expansion of Splatoon 2, which everyone loves, and this just makes me wonder…how god damn boring was Splatoon 1 and 2’s vanilla story mode? Maybe if they actually put any effort into the environments of these stages I’d care, but it’s just the same goddamn backdrop, the same enemies, the same everything with a slightly different layout. The section leading up to the last boss is a bit better since they put effort in to make it feel like an actual location that exists in the world, so you can feel some sense of immersion.
As for the multiplayer… This game has to be one of the worst ways Nintendo has ever handled multiplayer. Rotating maps so every session will guarantee you playing on the same 2 maps if you want to stick with your preferred game mode. But then there’s the competitive, hoo boy. I have never in my life seen a game where the main game mode is the only one that isn’t available in competitive, and the gimmicky modes are exclusive to competitive. And they’re also on timers, so if you wanna play competitive but jump on at the wrong time, I hope you like Clam Blitz (you won’t, Clam Blitz is fucking awful).
Salmon run can be fun, but it also suffers from having 1 map available at a time, each with only 4 weapons available at a time, and it can shake things up a liiiittle bit with the amount of round variety, but it too often just falls into fighting off huge waves of enemies while the same 5-6 bosses spam their attacks at you.
Tableturf or whatever it’s called is just a small distraction. I can’t imagine getting super invested in that.
Customisation is decent, but with the way abilities work, getting a piece of clothing you both like and has good abilities is down to huge amounts of luck, and/or a lot of grinding.
The game does boast a pretty good weapon variety, there’s really one for everybody. Each main weapon has a set-in-stone sub and special weapon, so there’s no way to build your perfect build, which could be good or bad since you just know the optimal one would be online within hours and everyone would be using it. As it stands it can be frustrating though to find a weapon you love, but the sub and/or special feels useless.
I can't really believe this is building on the foundation of 2 previous games though. This one still feels it's finding its legs and making weird choices, so how bad must be the past 2 have been?