By: Emmanuel LaRoche

Splatoon 3 is a 3D shooting game with a unique mechanic: your shots leave ink on the ground, which you can swim through to gain an upper hand on your opponents. The main game mode, Turf War, is a fast-paced game of covering the floor and wiping out your opponents, with the goal of covering the most ground when time is up. However, there’s much more to the game than just that!

Online and Ranked Battles:

The online battles in this game are amazing to play! Although it’s important to note that you’ll need Nintendo Switch Online to participate in them, which costs extra. Turf War, described above, is the main game mode. Other modes available include the Ranked Battles, which give a substantial change to the usual inking you’re doing in normal battles. There are 4 ranked game modes, each with their own spin. 

Ink Zones is like King of the Hill, with the goal to keep a small area filled with your color until time’s up. In Clam Blitz, you collect clams across the stage and go to your opponent’s side of the stage to use them to destroy their base. Think of this game mode kind of like Pokémon Unite. In Rainmaker, you use The Rainmaker, a special weapon, to traverse through the stage.

If you can place it on the enemy’s base, you win. Think of playing the most risky game of “Protect the President” of your whole life! Lastly, Tower Control is sort of like a “payload” equivalent, where you fight to ride a moving tower into the enemy base. The closer you are to winning, the harder it gets! No matter which Ranked mode you play, you’ll get points to increase your rank, from a lowly C- all the way to a prestigious S+.

Story Mode: 

The story mode takes a change from the standard “ink floor, fight enemies” gameplay of Turf War. Instead, you go through smaller pre-set challenges: get to the end of the stage with a set amount of ink; carve out boxes to match the image on the side; etc. Completing these levels gives you power eggs, which allow you to explore the hubs where each level is found. After exploring, you can move to the next hub, sometimes after an exciting boss fight. There’s a new upgrade system, which grants you perks like increased fire rate, improved defenses, access to different secondary weapons, etc. The upgrades are unlocked through a combination of collectibles found in each hub, and through a points system which increases as you ink the ground in levels or hubs. It gives you an incentive to keep on inking!

Salmon Run:

Salmon Run is the perfect place for beginners to start. Think COD Zombies, but instead of fighting for your life, you’re doing a part-time job for the mysterious Mr. Grizz. Rather than fighting other players, you fight creatures called Salmonids, which are the “zombies” for this mode, hunting you down until their last breath. You team up with 3 other players to collect Golden Eggs and put them in a basket. Meet your quota to survive 3 rounds fighting waves of normal and Boss Salmonids of all

sorts of shapes, sizes, and gimmicks. If you played Salmon Run in Splatoon 2, you’ll find a familiar experience, upgraded with new boss Salmonids to defeat, plus a rare and powerful mega-Salmonid.

Tableturf Battles:

Also of note are the new Tableturf Battles. Throughout the other game modes, you get packs of Tableturf cards, which you can use to create a deck to play against opponents in a card game. Cards have different designs on them, and are placed on the game board to “cover turf”, like in Turf War. It’s like Tetris, except your goal is to have more spaces of your color than your opponent by the end of the game.

Shops:

Splatoon 3 is full of customization options. But where do you find these? In the shops, of course! And these shops are amped up from the last game. For one, there’s Harmony’s general shop (which has an absolute banger of a track), in which you can buy items to customize your locker (a new social feature).

Sheldon, the weapon salesman, has also gotten a glow-up, using a new currency, Sheldon Licenses, letting you save your main currency for the other shops, or the new capsule machine, which is filled with banners, titles, and more. The clothing shops haven’t changed much since Splatoon 2, although the shops are run by new shopkeepers with new music.

Conclusion: 

In conclusion, Splatoon 3 is a great game for old fans who’ve played a Splatoon game before and knows what they’re doing, and for fans completely new to the series. If I had to give it a number rating, I’d have to give it a 9.5/10. It’s reaching perfection on honing into what the series does best, but is held back by needing Switch Online to do most of the good stuff in the first place. Past that, however, the game is a blast, and I’d love to play it again if I had the chance to.