At the launch of Splatoon 2, the phrase “Splatoon 1.5” was frequently thrown around within the community. Players did not feel that there was enough new content in Splatoon 2 to warrant a completely new game. Now, following the release of Splatoon 3, players are similarly calling the game “Splatoon 2.5”, for many of the same reasons. With all the buzz in the Splatoon community right now, I want to give my two cents on the positives and negatives of this new Splatoon iteration. While I agree that on paper, the game looks similar to Splatoon 2, the adjustments they’ve made make the game feel fresh (no pun intended) and original.

The first thing that immediately blew me away about this game was the new maps. They’re absolutely amazing. After years of playing on maps like Camp Triggerfish, Arowana Mall, and Hotel Albacore, it felt so good to play on maps that are actually well-designed. These maps have multiple approach options, open areas for teamfights, and don’t seem to heavily favor certain weapon classes. Scorch Gorge, what I’d consider to be the weakest of the new Splatoon 3 maps, is still leagues better than most of the maps that were new in Splatoon 2, as well as most of the Splatoon 1 maps. As far as the returning maps go, Wahoo is still trash but having maps like Museum, Mako Mart, and Sturgeon back makes it better. 

Besides the great new maps, what makes Splatoon 3 stand out so much are its specials. Splatoon 2 was riddled with unbalanced and unfun specials. Tenta Missiles and Sting Ray had global range and forced the enemy team to displace. Ink armor gave your entire team free defenses. Bubble Blower granted you instant survivability with its giant bubble shields that could easily be turned into weapons with the bubble-bomb combo. Splashdown was basically a suicide button. These specials made the game significantly less enjoyable, as often, the only way to counter a special was with another special, meaning that the meta revolved around weapons that could farm specials as quickly as possible (*cough* *cough* Jet Squelcher). Splatoon 3 removed Splashdown, Bubble Blower, Sting Ray, and Ink Armor, and Tenta Missiles aren’t as oppressive since they haven’t been given to any shooters. Additionally, the new specials in Splatoon 3 are a blast. Instead of just clicking the special button and instantly activating Ink Armor or Tenta Missiles, you have to actively use your special. Arcing your shots with the Trizoka, flying around the map with Zipcaster, rolling into people with Crab Tank, coordinating with your team in order to buff everyone with Tacticooler, choosing when to explode with Reefslider, all things that you as the player control. Plus, these specials have counterplay so that they aren’t as dominant and game-breaking. The Crab Tank can be damaged while in shooting mode. The Wave Breaker and Big Bubbler can both be broken by the enemy team. The Killer Wail 5.1 can only lock onto opponents within the player’s line of sight. Granted, these specials are not very balanced, but they are well-designed and could easily be toned down with slight changes. 

These new interactive specials tie into the updated kits for all the weapons. For the most part, these kits are pretty good, staying true to the original kits while also toning down some of the shooters. 52 gal lost its Booyah Bomb but still have splash wall for survivability. N-Zap 85 has Tacticooler instead of Ink Armor, requiring it to actually coordinate with its team. Jet squelcher no longer has Tenta Missiles to spam but can still play a more supportive backline role with Ink Vacuum. Meanwhile, some of the non-shooter weapons ended up with really good kits, such as Splat Roller having Big Bubbler, Slosher having Splat Bomb and Triple Inkstrike, Splat Charger having Ink Vacuum, Tetras actually getting a decent special in Reefslider, and Sloshing Machine having Fizzy bomb and Booyah Bomb. Splatana and Tri-Slinger, the two new weapons, also have kits that synergize with their weapons well. These additions, along with changes to various other weapon kits, should hopefully encourage players to run a variety of different weapon types rather than only playing quad-shooter. 

With that being said though, some weapon kit choices are… questionable to say the least. For some reason, even though Splatoon 3 introduced Angle Shooter as a new enemy-marking sub, Point Sensor is still in the game. For those who are unaware, Point Sensor is a sub that marks the enemy location. This may sound fine in theory, but all of the Bomb variants do a better job at locating enemies while also painting and dealing damage, meaning that Point Sensor is terrible in comparison. Squiffer and Nautilus in particular are severely nerfed by the sub. Ink Stamper, the “heavy” variant of the Splatana, also has a strange kit. Its main appeal is that it can combo its main attack with Burst Bombs in order to get kills, but its special Zipcaster prevents it from using Burst Bombs. This means that the weapon can actually get worse when you use its special. Furthermore, Sprinkler, another notoriously bad sub, is also still in the game, and really hurts the weapons that it is on. These lackluster kits should be less impactful once more variants of these weapons are added, but for now some players will definitely be hurting with their weapon’s kit. 

Beyond the new weapon kits and specials, there are a few other additions that shake up the gameplay. The first is the squid surge and the squid roll. I don’t find myself using the squid surge very much since it’s usually faster to just swim up a wall, but the squid roll is a game-changer. It feels so natural as a movement option that I’m almost shocked it hasn’t been in the other games. Using it to quickly retreat or get a mid-air kill on an opponent is super rewarding. I also like that it’s not something that you can do instantly since you need momentum in order to actually input it. This makes it so that people aren’t constantly squid rolling during a fight and being impossible to hit. Between the gear abilities that enhance the squid roll and the squid surge, along with potential combos with sub-strafing and squid rolling, I could definitely see these movement options having a high skill ceiling later on in the game. The other major change to the multiplayer is the new Tri-Color Turf war mode. I don’t have much to say about this, considering that YOU CAN’T PLAY IT. During the most recent splatfest I queued up in a Tri-Color lobby for 20 games and in all 20 I was placed in regular Turf War instead. In the first splatfest, I got to play Tri-Color once and it was fun, so hopefully, they make it easier to queue into. 

Splatoon 3 also comes with plenty of quality-of-life updates. They may not seem that important, but in practice they are massive. First of all, the training room is so cool. Just being able to do something while you wait to queue up is great, and seeing all the holograms of your squadmates is pretty funny. When I went back to Splatoon 2 after playing 3, I suddenly felt super bored sitting around and doing nothing while waiting for a match. Secondly, joining your friend’s game means that now you’ll automatically be on their team, which was already a thing in League battle but is nice to have in Turf now. Third, you can skip the news. No more mashing A through all the boring dialogue (As a side note, the idols in this game are bad so I like that you can just ignore them). Fourth, when a player disconnects from the match, the match automatically ends. I cannot even begin to describe how huge this change is. Having to play out 3v4 matches while already knowing that you’d lose was one of the worst aspects of the first two Splatoon games. Thankfully, as long as people aren’t disconnecting, the online is still as seamless as ever. Minimal lag and glitches, and the frame rate and visuals are always spectacular. Another neat feature is that at the end of the match, each player gets little tags to commemorate their performance, some examples being “#1 Overall Splatter”, “#1 Turf Inker”, “#1 Enemy Base Inker”, etc. Additionally, the game now shows you your kills as well as your deaths at the end of a match, like in Splatoon 1. This seemingly small adjustment completely changed the way I played during my matches. At the end of the game, you no longer check to see how many kills everyone has and instead check their KD ratio. Normally in Splatoon 2, I play really aggressively and go in a lot in hopes of getting kills and trades, but in Splatoon 3, I find myself focusing on surviving for longer and outputting more specials. Most of these changes aren’t groundbreaking by any means, but they are very much appreciated. 

With those positive changes out of the way, I have to bring up one immensely important feature that is missing from Splatoon 3. In almost every shooting game, including the previous Splatoon game, you can change your weapon and gear set in between games. However, if you queue up for the ranked Anarchy Open mode (basically this game’s equivalent of League Battle right now), you can’t switch your weapon between games. If you’re playing with your friends and even one of you wants to switch off, every single person has to leave the current lobby and create a new one. This is annoying as is, but what’s even more frustrating is that if one person doesn’t hit “stop” at the end of a game while everyone else leaves the lobby, that person will be forced to queue up in a game on their own unless they physically close the game on their switch. Maybe I’m just completely missing an option that allows you to do this, but so far, it’s been a very tedious experience.

There’s one last thing I want to talk about that I intentionally saved for last: The story mode. This was by far the biggest surprise that came out of this game. Splatoon 1’s story mode was okay. Some boring levels, but I managed to complete them as a kid. Splatoon 2’s story mode on the other hand was a snooze-fest. Absolutely horrible experience. I think I got to about world two and stopped. I had heard that the Octo-Expansion was really good, but I was so put off by the base campaign that I never ended up going back and playing the DLC. However, I guess the Splatoon devs must have really hit their stride after Octo-Expansion because the Splatoon 3 story mode is ridiculously fun. Some of these level designs are actually genius. The way they use all the different subs and specials for traversal and puzzle-solving is super creative. In addition, the difficulty is perfect. At the beginning of levels, you’re allowed to choose which weapon you’d like to use, with more difficult weapons netting you higher amounts of eggs for completing the levels. You’re incentivized to try the harder variants because eggs are what allow you to access certain areas of the map and unlock cool secrets. These secrets can include upgrades as part of the game’s skill tree system where you can choose to power yourself up in different ways depending on what your playstyle is. The story itself is really good as well. It’s more fleshed-out than the other games, with plenty of full cutscenes and back-and-forth character dialogue. There are definitely some cool bosses and twists that you DO NOT want to get spoiled if you can manage it. Honestly, I would have paid $60 for just this story mode alone. 

So, is Splatoon 3 really just Splatoon 2.5? Yes and no. The basic formula is the same, but between the fun new maps, interactive specials, balanced weapon classes, new movement options, well-crafted single-player campaign, and other quality-of-life improvements, the game feels completely different from Splatoon 2. Plus, we haven’t even gotten the new stages, ranked mode, weapons, and story mode DLC, so Nintendo could have many other surprises in store. This is without a doubt the best Splatoon I’ve seen so far.