I really wanted to like this game but in the end I think it put me off the series instead…

Time Played

1090 hours sounds like a lot doesn’t it? Especially for a game that I’ve given such a low score? Well I do feel it wouldn’t be an exaggeration that 1/3 to 1/2 of the time was waiting in lobbies… If that sounds like I was stupidly wasting my time, I did spend it doing other things like reading manga and writing blog posts. The wait times were that long I got a lot of other things done LOL. Splatoon 3 was really like the secondary activity in my multitasking…

Writing

Most of the plot is single player related and I can’t say Deep Cut was really that engaging. I’ll withhold judgement on them as a group until Raiders since Octo Expansion was where Pearl and Marina really got to shine. I suppose they did try to interlink single player and Salmon Run? But because of the way Mr Grizz was translated in English (angry boss) it was kind of at odds with business boss persona from the single player campaign. Or at least that’s what I vaguely recall.

Gameplay

Single Player

This was just a mish mash of previous Splatoon single player campaigns and Octo Expansion so I didn’t really care for it. The most fun part was trying to figure out how to get further on the overworld without having to do more missions LOL

Side Order

Not really my kind of thing (rogue-like). It felt like it was either very difficult or very easy, once you had levelled Pearl-bot up enough. Also I greatly disliked how they incorporated Splat Zone/Tower Control-ish mechanisms but they weren’t really true to the actual multiplayer versions. I suppose an expansion isn’t the best place to teach players how to play these modes, but one thing I feel like Splatoon has always lacked is more tutorial on the specifics of the different Ranked Modes (‘Make it Rain’ is such a useless description and recon mode can only teach you so much when there is no opposing team to trigger penalities etc).

Turf War

I played a lot of turf war so there are a lot of things I have to say about it…

• None of the maps were fun. This was the first Splatoon game where I didn’t have even one map where I would see it in rotation and think about how I would try to fit in some games in that time slot.
• I feel like people are a lot meaner with disconnects this time? In previous games I feel like everyone played around when there was a dc which made it feel like a very friendly community. I don’t know if it’s because the player base is bigger now (or maybe playing with less Japanese players because of ping?) but man people bully hard when they have the numbers advantage. I wonder if it’s a negative feedback loop where people get bullied when they have a dc on their team so when it’s their turn to be on the bigger team they go and bully the other team to ‘even things out’ or something…
• Curious as to why on a Friday/Saturday night between 8 and 11.59pm AWST I struggle to get turf matches during what should be prime Japanese Splatoon time???
• As a result of the above and also other players dc-ing a lot forcing match ends or the inexplicable ‘communication error’ I honestly spent just as much time waiting for matches as playing them.
• Two Map Rotation often felt like One Map Rotation

Anarchy (Series)

I didn’t like the new system, although I didn’t play that much of Splatoon 2 Ranked to really compare. Just from a psychological point of view, being able to go into major negative points is not very motivating. And I also disliked how you could choose to stay with your teammates after a match. It didn’t seem very fair that you could get lucky with a team comp (which is such an influential thing) and then have easy mode to five victories against everyone else who wasn’t lucky. This could just be me being sour grapes because I tended to play support style weapons that can’t solo very well. But I did feel it was telling that I could see good E-liter players end up switching to Splattershot in a single rotation… If it’s meant to be a serious mode teams should get shuffled every match.

The other thing I hated was having to grind back to S+ every season. But in the end what made me quit the mode was the abysmal weapon comp matchmaking. This was probably the straw that broke the camels back for me:

Anarchy (Open)

So I get that it’s good to enable people to practice the ranked modes/play with less pressure. But it failed at this the moment they gave up on bringing League back. How is it fun as a solo player to get matched against an obvious duo/trio/team? And then get penalised point-wise for losing. And if I formed my own team, I would only get matched against the same other duo/trio/teams. And even worse, if our team was made up of 3 Aussies and 1 Japanese we would get rematched against the same 3 teams with such differing skill ranges, the outcome was obvious: one was top level Aussie players (so obvious loss), another was a team of 4 that were much better than us (so after the first few matches became an obvious loss) and the last against a team much weaker than us (so obvious win). How is that any fun?

Salmon Run

So I did play a lot of Salmon Run in Splatoon 2. So I can confidently say that they sapped all the fun out of the mode. I liked being able to play for 1 hour and get super bonus. Splatoon 3 Salmon Run is so much more of a grind. Many things to say on this as well:

• I disliked that the special weapons were randomised and from more than a pool of 4. I liked that you could learn how to best use each special for each map/scenario. They made it slightly better when they patched it to ensure you’d have at least certain special weapons in the team, but then they also expanded the pool of specials. I would have preferred if they chose a set group of 4 for each shift, if they really wanted to include more than 4 specials in the mode.
• It was too easy to get to Profresshional and they added the additional Profresshional tiers after I’d already abandoned the mode, if it was in there earlier I might have actually felt more incentive to play
• The new special modes were pretty boring tbh. Mudmouths was pretty easy and the egg relay felt like an excuse to showcase the new throwing ability.
• The King Salmonids were too hard to coordinate in solo. Unlike Grillers/Goldie Rush where you could learn techniques from randoms, I didn’t really see how you could organically learn strategy without going to look up guides.
• The randomness of the rewards from defeating a King Salmonid was laughable.
• The amount of currency required to get all the stuff in the shop made it not even worth making it a goal
• They brought back the old maps without really taking into account the changes between the games.
• Eggstra work was probably only fun if you had a dedicated team of roughly the same ability playing together. Personally I didn’t like the scripted scenarios
• Slow-down was terrible

Big Run was interesting but I didn’t enjoy it that much, I think it was because the skill levels within Profresshional were too varied and the full random weapons made that very obvious. I know I’m not a top overfisher level player but I do have a good handle of all the weapons so it could be very frustrating seeing people struggle with anything not a shooter/dualie.

Splatfest

I think the pre-Splatfest conch system was a good way to encourage people to play not just on the Splatfest weekend. I also feel like Fizz Bangs were an ok addition to the mode (I wouldn’t miss them if they went away). Stuff like 10x and 100x matches were also a good idea. What I didn’t care for was Tri-colour, give me Shifty Station any day over that mess.

Also I hated that the lobby UI/system was different in Splatfest compared to normal Turf War. Always wasted so much time with people not remembering to drop with everyone else.

Weapons

The best thing about this game was the main weapons. Not the kits, I think most of them were pretty badly thought out (I’m pretty salty about the lack of synergy in the Splatling weapon kits). I thought most of the new weapons were really interesting. Shame the Tri-Stringer (cover weapon) was probably the weakest out of the 6 new weapons in the two new weapon classes. They did a good job with the Splatanas (all of them are unique and interesting to play) and I think REEF-LUX and Wellstring V had interesting mechanics. I also liked their foray into more hybrid weapons and extensions of existing weapon classes. I was always a fan of the Flingza and Squeezer so getting the S-Blast was really cool. And the dynamo-of-rollers Painbrush and long-range Douser Dualie FFs were weapons I had fun learning as well. Dreadwringer was great, wish it (and Wellstring) were released earlier in the game’s lifespan to be honest. Snipewriter actually made me pick up a charger weapon. And of course I liked the Heavy Edit Splatling. I guess I didn’t care much for Splattershot Nova (I don’t care for shooters anyway) or Big Swig (I didn’t get how it was meant to be played) or the Recycled Brella (which I totally forgot existed).

So basically the weapons is what kept me playing this game. Even if the maps sucked and the matchmaking experience was trash, I could still get satisfaction from gradually learning the quirks of each weapon.

Graphics

Clothing

The clothing in Splatoon is always great and the Catalogue was a good incentive to make me play. But that also meant once they started recycling Catalogues a lot of motivation to keep playing disappeared. Also only 5 Freshest Fits was limiting for me, but I realise I’m an odd case.

Banners & Emotes

I liked the addition of the banners but wish you could also save Banner configs to outfits. But that’s probably a very me specific request. Same thing with the Emotes.

Lockers

The idea is good but the space was too limited. Needed like a Mario Odessey/Monster Hunter World style room. Sure this means you can’t really see it in the lobby easily, but I bet most people stopped going into the locker room pretty early on. And there are other ways to showcase rooms if they wanted to, like showcasing the ones with the most likes. And I would totally go to my friends rooms to check out their changes.

Music

The worst of the three games. So unmemorable. In the previous games I would play a lot just to hear the songs. With this game I would just have the thought ‘oh this the one with Pearl in it’ or ‘oh this is the one that sounds like Mario Kart’. I had definite favourite bands in each of the previous games and I loved the Splatfest song/songs as well as the Single Player (Splatoon) and Octo Expansion ones. I couldn’t hum a single one from Splatoon 3, I don’t remember them at all.

Overall

So I’ve always ended Splatoon games on a low note. The difference this time was I felt like I had achieved everything I wanted in the series. Splatoon was my first shooter so I spent most of it learning how to play a shooter. Towards the end I had set myself a goal (try to get to S+) but I ended up giving up because I couldn’t take the lag any more. In Splatoon 2 I had a gear set goal for all the non-charger weapons. I got pretty close but then they added extra weapons, which kind of killed my motivation. Plus it was a lot harder in that game to get the gear abilities you wanted. This time I knew that if I wanted to actually say and follow through with “I probably won’t buy the next game” I would have to actually achieve my goals. At first my goal was a very vague ‘to get better at ranked modes’. But I quickly realised that playing ranked isn’t fun at all. So my goal switched to being weapon and outfit based. I really wanted to like the game so I kept adding to the list of goals and it ended up being about learning weapons and creating gear sets (with the restriction of having to have glasses/some sort of eyewear in all the outfits):

So I’ve gotten to what I think is a decent level in 42 weapons over all weapon classes and tried every Special and also got them to 4 star so I could put it on a banner as a ‘trophy’ of sorts. Given the weapons have returned in every Splatoon game so far, I really don’t see the incentive to play a Splatoon 4.

Also, I’ve realised that while I’m not too fussed about rank letters/numbers, I don’t like it when things aren’t stable. As in, for example, I didn’t play Sloshing Machine or Squeezer while they were meta because I knew they were going to get nerfed and I didn’t want to invest time learning a weapon that would no longer exist in that form after patches. Which can’t be helped in an online multiplayer game. So maybe I’m just never going to feel accomplished playing multiplayer games. The exception to this would be Salmon Run since it’s cooperative and I feel like they never really nerfed anything in that mode, it was more belatedly making things a little stronger so it wasn’t as struggle-town.

Anyway, this has been an overwhelmingly negative review so let’s end on my five happiest Splatoon 3 memories:

• That time early game when I was playing Anarchy Open (Splat Zones) with my husband where we were Mini Splatling and Heavy Splatling and were matched up with a Hydra Splatling player. We stuck together for a long time and managed to win a lot of games because we supported each other and played to our range roles.
• When I won a real 3v4 in Anarchy Series (Splat Zones again, and real as in we weren’t miles ahead before the dc. I don’t remember exactly when we had the dc but we managed to get/keep the lead to win), because my teammates each played to their weapon roles. Splatoon really is the best when you manage to synergise with your random teammates.
• Turf War on Undertow Spillway as a Hydra Splatling with two E-liter teammates. We each took up position such that we could cover each others backs and we were basically untouchable and won the match despite having very poor inking capabilities. I love it when us support weapons can win via support haha.
• Turf on Um’mami Ruins when there were multiple dcs but we all just played around instead of bullying each other (I don’t even remember who’s team was at a disadvantage, it didn’t matter). This is actually the only time I can recall where the disadvantaged team didn’t get bullied. Which makes this a bittersweet memory I guess lol…
• SplatFest with my Japanese friend on Barnacle & Dime (I don’t recall what the other stage was, quite likely it hardly ever appeared) where we both chose weapons we liked (me on Heavy Edit Splatling and him on Explosher) and where our playstyles actually ended up complementing each other. We won so much we got to Ruler in a single rotation, which is unheard of for me in Splatoon 3. But more so than the win streaks, I feel like I could tell he was having a lot of fun (we weren’t on voice chat) and that I was enabling him to play without abandon (which can be hard as an Explosh imo). It is always a bit hilarious seeing a Tacticoolered-up Explosh rush to the front lines haha.

So would I pick up a Splatoon 4? I’m leaning towards no if only because I don’t feel like the game respects my time (grindfests galore…) and I don’t think being an Australian (or maybe just non-Japanese) means I’m getting a good online experience (lag, dcs, ping resulting in slow/unsatisfactory matchmaking). I suppose if they had actual League with fun maps so I can play casually with my husband OR decent Salmon Run I might consider it. Although we’ll see how Splatoon Raiders turns out…it could a co-operative multiplayer, customisable Salmon Run to my tastes. Setting my expectations low though 🙃

Categories: Games

Tagged as: Splatoon 3

hikaru