It's easy say that Splatoon 3 is basically just Splatoon 2 again, because in a lot of ways it is. When you get into a turf war match, Splatoon 3 feels almost identical to Splatoon 2, just with some new weapons, maps, and specials added. That isn't really a bad thing necessarily though as Splatoon 2's was an incredibly fun and unique take on the competitive shooter genre, and Splatoon 3 is just as fun, but perhaps not quite as fresh with the series being 7 years old now at this point. That said, what makes Splatoon 3 worth the $60 (for at least fans of the series) is all the quality of life updates and sheer amount of content here.
This game has a lot of quality of life improvements that make the game quite bit better than it's predecessor. One of the first you may notice is that the cutscene that plays when you boot the game up is now skippable, which is fantastic. The lobby system now has you able to walk around a sort of training ground while you queue for a match making the wait a lot more bearable. You now spawn into the maps by shooting into them, which is a whole lot more fun than the previous system. Salmon Run is available 24/7 now. You have only one rank now instead of one rank for each mode, plus the ranked mode is designed around sets of 7 matches where you need to win 5 games giving real nice quitting points in the game. The ranked doesn't just judge you on the number of wins you got though, but also on the awards you got which means you can rank up even if you lose, which helps get rid of the frustration of bad teammates. While not quality of life per se, they also added a squid roll for mobility and iframes, and squid surge which allows you to get some vertical height when jumping out of a wall. All these add up and make the game a lot more fun.
Want to note also that the net code is also pretty good, but connection errors happen way more often than they should. The connection errors aren't frequent enough to make me stop playing, but if you play for like an hour it is very likely you have at least one. Hopefully this is fixed as it is incredibly annoying.
Much of the new content in this game bring a little closer to what most modern day competitive shooters do. For example, you now have a name tag which you can customize with a banner, a customizable title, and badges. You can also unlock victory emotes and decorations for your locker, because yes, you have a locker you can customize in this game. The locker doesn't affect anything, but adds one more area of customizability that will hopefully increase the longevity of this game. All of these things (except badges which are unlocked through challenges) can be unlocked through the catalogue which is this games (free) battle pass system, and a gacha system which you can spend in-game money on. All this will help keep people coming back to the game, as it gives you a sense that you are working towards something. Specifically you are working towards that sick dab emote at level 98. Don't want to be missing that!
This game sees the return of Salmon Run as well. It is more or less the same as Splatoon 2's, just with some new events and boss salmonids to encounter. Though it is worth noting you can throw the eggs now which is nice. The big new thing is of course us the new final boss which can randomly occur called Cohozuna. Cohozuna is absurdly difficult, but a really fun fight. In this fight, you can throw eggs at him to deal a good chunk of damage, but also balance the fact that there are tons of other boss salmonids to worry about, plus an incredibly short timer. Only complaint is that beating Cohozuna doesn't seem to award that much, but still pretty fun nonetheless.
With another Splatoon comes another single-player campaign. This one might be the best of the series (except for perhaps octo-expansion). It is admittedly more of the same, but with some big hubs to explore and more diversity of missions (seemingly quite inspired by octo-expansion). A little disappointing they didn't spice it up this time around, but it's still a solid campaign.
This game is also a card game now? The card game is called Tableturf Battle where you placing what are basically tetris pieces in order to claim the most turf. It's honestly better than it has any right of being, though certainly no where near as good as Turf-wars and Salmon Run. Bafflingly though, you can't seem to play against other players. You can play against other players decks, but they are still AI controlled which is incredibly lame.
Splatoon 3 is easily the best of the series, no contest. There is so much polish here, and the sheer amount of content and stuff to do is fantastic. It does feel practically identical to Splatoon 2 in a lot of ways, but Splatoon fans certainly won't regret picking this up. However, if you weren't a big fan of Splatoon, I doubt this will get you into it. I'm looking forward to putting another hundred hours into a new Splatoon game though, and very excited to see the new content they add to this game over the next two years!
This game has a lot of quality of life improvements that make the game quite bit better than it's predecessor. One of the first you may notice is that the cutscene that plays when you boot the game up is now skippable, which is fantastic. The lobby system now has you able to walk around a sort of training ground while you queue for a match making the wait a lot more bearable. You now spawn into the maps by shooting into them, which is a whole lot more fun than the previous system. Salmon Run is available 24/7 now. You have only one rank now instead of one rank for each mode, plus the ranked mode is designed around sets of 7 matches where you need to win 5 games giving real nice quitting points in the game. The ranked doesn't just judge you on the number of wins you got though, but also on the awards you got which means you can rank up even if you lose, which helps get rid of the frustration of bad teammates. While not quality of life per se, they also added a squid roll for mobility and iframes, and squid surge which allows you to get some vertical height when jumping out of a wall. All these add up and make the game a lot more fun.
Want to note also that the net code is also pretty good, but connection errors happen way more often than they should. The connection errors aren't frequent enough to make me stop playing, but if you play for like an hour it is very likely you have at least one. Hopefully this is fixed as it is incredibly annoying.
Much of the new content in this game bring a little closer to what most modern day competitive shooters do. For example, you now have a name tag which you can customize with a banner, a customizable title, and badges. You can also unlock victory emotes and decorations for your locker, because yes, you have a locker you can customize in this game. The locker doesn't affect anything, but adds one more area of customizability that will hopefully increase the longevity of this game. All of these things (except badges which are unlocked through challenges) can be unlocked through the catalogue which is this games (free) battle pass system, and a gacha system which you can spend in-game money on. All this will help keep people coming back to the game, as it gives you a sense that you are working towards something. Specifically you are working towards that sick dab emote at level 98. Don't want to be missing that!
This game sees the return of Salmon Run as well. It is more or less the same as Splatoon 2's, just with some new events and boss salmonids to encounter. Though it is worth noting you can throw the eggs now which is nice. The big new thing is of course us the new final boss which can randomly occur called Cohozuna. Cohozuna is absurdly difficult, but a really fun fight. In this fight, you can throw eggs at him to deal a good chunk of damage, but also balance the fact that there are tons of other boss salmonids to worry about, plus an incredibly short timer. Only complaint is that beating Cohozuna doesn't seem to award that much, but still pretty fun nonetheless.
With another Splatoon comes another single-player campaign. This one might be the best of the series (except for perhaps octo-expansion). It is admittedly more of the same, but with some big hubs to explore and more diversity of missions (seemingly quite inspired by octo-expansion). A little disappointing they didn't spice it up this time around, but it's still a solid campaign.
This game is also a card game now? The card game is called Tableturf Battle where you placing what are basically tetris pieces in order to claim the most turf. It's honestly better than it has any right of being, though certainly no where near as good as Turf-wars and Salmon Run. Bafflingly though, you can't seem to play against other players. You can play against other players decks, but they are still AI controlled which is incredibly lame.
Splatoon 3 is easily the best of the series, no contest. There is so much polish here, and the sheer amount of content and stuff to do is fantastic. It does feel practically identical to Splatoon 2 in a lot of ways, but Splatoon fans certainly won't regret picking this up. However, if you weren't a big fan of Splatoon, I doubt this will get you into it. I'm looking forward to putting another hundred hours into a new Splatoon game though, and very excited to see the new content they add to this game over the next two years!