My Nintendo Switch has been getting a lot of play so far in 2023, and one of the games in that rotation is Nintendo’s Splatoon 3. I’ve always been a big fan of the series, but I never invested a ton of time into the previous two entries. I figured I should make an attempt to actually keep up with this newest installment, and now my Nintendo Switch profile is telling me I’ve passed 150 hours played on the game.
The seventh generation of consoles, more specifically on the XBox 360, really soured my interest in shooting games. I was able to still go to a rental store to check out the newest XBox 360 games at that time, and it seemed like there was at least one weekly “bros with guns” game launching on the systems. Most of them were serviceable, but that stretch of games provided me with one too many games where merely doing one playthrough of the story was enough for me. I actually quite enjoy the XBox 360 library of games, but it was absolutely filled with games that I will be perfectly content with if I never play them ever again in my life.
When I first saw the teaser for Splatoon set to release on the Wii U, I admit I passed it off and had no interest in it. However, as I learned more, it became a bit of curiosity, as I really enjoyed the vibe of the game. The cartoony nature of the presentation and the vibrant characters were hard to ignore. By chance, the Christmas shopping season the original Splatoon released, it was already $20 in a local Black Friday sale.
With the wide range of modes, equipment and weapons available, I quickly grew attached to the game. I played it a fair amount, but it got lost in the shuffle for me as I didn’t have anyone I knew who played the game as well. The same thing happened for the sequel, so I prepped myself going into Splatoon 3 to enjoy it knowing I wouldn’t have any other players to squad with.
Plus, I’m a sucker for games that launch on or very near my birthday, so I actually considered taking time off work to play Splatoon 3 through the first weekend. What stopped me was the fact I had requested a number of days off prior to that, and this birthday vacation is what led to the GemuBaka feature on Dynamite Deka EX, as well as other arcade-related media from around that time.
I’ve already covered some of the basics of my experience with Splatoon 3 when I participated in the Splatfest World Premiere, which was a sort of open beta testing of the game. I was a fan of using the dualies that were introduced in Splatoon 2, and I gave them a shot in this test. They actually worked quite well during this premiere, but I found I wasn’t much of a fan of the subweapon and special attack this specific set offered.
Then when the game launched, I found people learned from the tricks I was using in the beta, and I was getting absolutely destroyed in this first weekend. This quickly prompted a weapon change, and at that point I experimented with the splattling guns. I actually quite enjoy these as weapons, but most of them slow you down quite a bit. Even if I splat 10 opponents in a match, that doesn’t mean anything when the turf isn’t being inked in the standard modes.
This brought me to the current configuration of the aerospray weapons. The idea behind these weapons is the ink doesn’t have a lot of strength or range, but the weapon shoots it out FAST. It isn’t ideal for engaging the opposing team, but if you work fast enough, you quickly build up special meter to throw a booyah bomb to keep the other team on its toes. My splatting ratio might not be impressive, but I can guarantee you I’ll cover at least 1,000 points-worth of turf every single match.
I suppose the overall beauty of Splatoon is that it is constantly evolving. Every time I find something that works for me, over a matter of time, the playerbase gets wiser and they fall for the tricks less and less until I have to completely change things up … again.
In the very beginning, the reefslider special brought me a ton of splats. Only a few weeks into the full game, everyone knew what the special move did, and the move’s startup and recovery frames did nothing but get me splat instead. Then, in yet another full circle, the booyah bomb was initially bringing me a high number of splats, and now it’s mostly only useful as a means of redirecting opponents, getting some ink deep into enemy territory or throwing down a “smoke screen” so you can get away.
If I had to say one thing I really dislike about the current landscape of Splatoon 3, is that the versus modes are at times unplayable because of the massive number of player disconnects. Conveniently, it seems like any time someone from the opposing team drops out, the match has to stop immediately, but when someone drops from my team, the match is allowed to continue so the game can watch me squirm. The last time I attempted to do the ranked play mode, four out of five of my matches were cut short by disconnects, and I am 100% positive two of those were rage quits – one of those with about 10 seconds remaining in a match where it was clear my team was going to win.
As a result, I’ve grown really attached to the Salmon Run mode, as this was really sparked after the last Big Run event. While the Salmon Run currently has a default cycle of four stages, these limited time events repurpose one of the larger maps played in the team-versus-team modes for this player-versus-environment mode.
The mode has really helped me adapt to the game’s weapons, and it gets very challenging with the increased difficulties and modifiers. As a bonus, the mode at times introduces completely unique “Grizzco” versions of the game’s weapons. These typically seem to be “cursed” weapons as they have a primary function that is very strong at the cost of other attributes such as firing rate or range.
I’m not much of a Splatoon influencer, so I only sporadically made posts and videos about the game. My most recent videos include a quick look at the last Big Run event, as well as some media from recent Splatfests. If you would like to see more frequent Splatoon content on GemuBaka, let me know in the comments!
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