Splatoon 3 is finally on the verge of being released, continuing a series that seemed like it might have been finished after the release of its excellent second game. We weren’t sure if it was ever going to happen, but it finally looks like it will. Longtime fans of the series will be pleased to hear that the third game plays an awful lot like more of a good thing, which will be music to their ears.
Splatoon 3 Review:
Splatoon 3 does exactly what it says on the (paint) label.It has a variety of fun modes, and each of them has a gratifying gameplay loop that may easily trap you. All of them are fun and exciting, with more weapons than ever before and the promise of continued support for a long time after they come out.
We have already invested a significant amount of work into it, and once Splatoon 3 is released, the addition of three-player Splatfests will make online play even more appealing. Although there aren’t a lot of huge new additions to the game’s visuals, it’s still a lot of fun to look at, and the soundtrack is as quirky as ever.
A revitalising experience for aficionados of the series, we are keeping our fingers crossed that Splatoon 3 will also attract a fresh crop of gamers. After all, a shooter that is actually friendly to families is worth much more than its weight in gold.
- Splatoon 3 features increased fun and icky shooting.
- New mapping
- Against Motion offers a variety of options for players to experiment with, but its controls require some getting used to.
- does not come across as being significantly novel.
Back to Splat
Splatoon 3 transports you to a brand-new city populated by Inklings, the squishy children who have acted as the series’ protagonists from the very beginning, and allows you to create your own unique play style for your character once more. You will have the opportunity to personalise your character’s appearance as well as select their weapons before embarking on an adventure in one of the several game modes. The game features a single-player campaign, similar to the one that was included in Splatoon 2, and we were extremely delighted by how it caught us. In fact, we finished it in just a couple of days, over the course of maybe four to six hours or so, and it was over before we knew it.
It serves as an excellent introduction to the gameplay principles of the game and allows you to experiment with a variety of different weapons and abilities. Although certain stages are more focused on the actual fighting while others pose more puzzle-like questions, it was still a lot of fun to sail through all of them. A small fry is a small salmonid (usually the baddies but seemingly not uniformly evil) that you carry on your back throughout that campaign. You can toss him about to open up new pathways or even act as a distraction when you’re in a bind with him by your side.
Salmon Run, the series’ co-op option, is also returning in Splatoon 3, and it is quite familiar to veterans of the series. Once again, you will be pitted against waves of foes as you seek to collect a minimum number of golden eggs during each round. These are dropped by Boss Salmonids, which are more difficult foes that appear every so often and need a greater degree of teamwork to defeat. There is a diverse assortment of these, and it is fun to adapt your strategy to each of them, despite the fact that a handful of them are still straightforward wins.
At long last, the multiplayer component of the game is being brought back after being absent for such a long time. We have been having a lot of fun playing rounds of the classic game Turf War, which is a four-on-four combat in which players try to paint more of the battlefield in their team’s colours while also attempting to eliminate one another through the use of various weapons. Even though this isn’t necessarily an array that adds anything particularly new, it hints that Splatoon 3 could enjoy just as much of a long tail with its players as the previous game did. That’s because each mode feels like it offers up a rewarding loop to get hooked on. That’s a broad smattering of modes, and each feels like it offers up a rewarding loop to get hooked on.
A pleasant feature across these modes is a lobby system that lets you choose loadouts and personalize your Inkling while you wait for games, including a shooting range to let you warm up and get acquainted with new weapons. Unfortunately, before you can return to the lobby after a match, you have to lock in your loadout. This means that you need to be quick on your feet if you want to take the limited opportunity to change your weapon or attire.
Put the rest of the field to shame
The actual experience of playing these modes is like putting on a familiar pair of shoes; the appropriate phrase to describe this situation is “evolution,” not “revolution.” That means you’ll still control your Inkling with the left stick, and you’ll use the right stick and motion controls, if you have them turned on, to aim your ink shots.
Although there are a lot of high-level players who swear by the motion controls and get crazy results from using them, we found them to be finicky enough that we turned them off in order to have a more enjoyable experience. The amount of muscle memory you have from playing other third-person shooters may affect how well this game works for you. The actual shooting is just as fun and splotchy as it always has been, and there is an even further extended armoury of weapons that we have had a nice time experimenting with. Each piece of equipment, from buckets and twin pistols to new items like a bow, provides a somewhat different playstyle that is fun to manage.
It is great that Salmon Run swaps your weapons between rounds, for example, to make sure that you are not in a comfort zone the entire time, while picking new special abilities also makes for an additional layer of tactical thinking. This is in addition to the fact that the single-player levels switch things up in their own ways. Turf War is the one that continues to captivate our interest, and it was this mode that we found ourselves returning to in the intervals when Nintendo made servers available. Both co-op and single-player modes are entertaining and fun, but Turf War is the one that wins.
The thrill of seeing who managed to cover more of the countryside by the conclusion of a round and watching the paint metre grow is still very unique. In a similar vein, the central premise of Splatoon 3, which is that you may contribute equally to your team whether you are splattering your environment or destroying your opponents, ensures that the game is just as approachable as its predecessors. Again, this may not necessarily have the feeling of being brand-new or fresh, but it does have a new coat of paint, and as a result, it is as smooth and responsive as you could want it to be.
Paint me an image – Splatoon 3
We have to remark that the game does not appear all that different from Splatoon 2, despite the fact that the initial bundle of gaming options is more extensive, and the maps as a whole feel larger. Because of this, it appears that the level of fidelity has not changed significantly between updates. Notwithstanding, the developers have been able to include more content while keeping the same level of visual performance, which is a welcome development. We have been continually switching between docked and handheld play, and it is also worth pointing out that the game’s colourful paint splatters look better than ever on a Switch OLED, which was released a long time after Splatoon 2 was released.
The contrast and brightness that the newer display provides make a world of difference to the handheld experience. However, this is something that applies to pretty much every Switch game and not just Splatoon 3, so it’s not specific to that particular title. The music and sound effects are once again satisfyingly chunky and strange, with that same funky electronic flavour to the soundtrack that’ll have you bopping along as you wait for the matches, and the all-important splatter effects sound just amazing.
It is wonderful that things are perhaps a bit brighter and easier to see this time around. This all adds up to a really solid product on the graphical and sound side of things, which is not a surprise given how solid Splatoon 2 was, but it is nice that things are brighter and easier to see. In order to provide you with the best possible deal, we search through thousands of different rates offered by thousands of different stores.
Conclusion
More Splatoon 3 is always a welcome development, and we have had a lot of fun with the third installment of the game. Furthermore, our little experience with the online component has given us reason to be optimistic. It’s getting a lot of attention, and it’s still the most kid- and parent-friendly shooter out there.