oakk_

Splatoon 3 has become a mere echo of what made the series unique in the first place. Splatoon 3 took what made 1 and 2 unique and threw it to the side, instead opting for another high dopamine intense shooter. The core of Splatoon was always to prioritise inking the ground over killing the other players, with ranked objective based modes for those wanting more. Splatoon 1 and 2 did this well, with excellent and fun map design and weapons that allowed everyone, pro or not, to have fun. Want to play casually? Turf War. Want to play competitively? Ranked Battles. Splatoon 3 still has these modes, but unfortunately has blended them together and now every mode has been designed with a competitive focus pushed right into your face at all times. The maps are too small with uninspiring rectangular lanes that have 0 flanking routes, no verticality and hard coded designs that funnel everyone and everything into the mid where all you can do is just fight and die over and over again. There is no room for anything else in this design mindset. You must fight and try your very hardest or you will have no fun and god forbid you use a weapon that has low kill potential. Overall I'm very disappointed with how Splatoon 3 turned out. It feels like Nintendo decided to follow the current gaming trends of high stimulation instant PvP action and has unfortunately lost what made this series unique in the first place. Is it a bad game? No. Is it a bad Splatoon game? Yes.