I’ve always been partial to team-based multiplayer games that let me contribute in less, shall we say, confrontational ways. Back when I played Overwatch, I enjoyed Lucío’s speed-boosting and healing abilities; in the Battlefield games, I tend to play as a medic, etc., etc. It’s like being the paparazzi on Princess Diana’s commute: sometimes, it’s just nice to help out.

This is a roundabout way of getting to my main point, which is that Splatoon’s gameplay is a winner (in my book, at least). Unfortunately…

A COMMUNICATION ERROR HAS OCCURRED

…yeah, you’re going to see that a few times (both in this article and the game itself). It’s not the end of the world, but it means you have to reconnect to the game’s online service and queue up for a game all over again…and, given the consistency with which this occurs, the time really fuckin’ adds up.

Nintendo’s online services seem to be powered by a mix of laziness and good, old-fashioned contempt for their customer base. A delicious concoction, indeed.

A COMMUNICATION ERROR HAS OCCURRED

…oh, for fuck’s sake. Try to read this fast, before it happens again.

In case you’re unfamiliar – as I was, prior to picking up this third entry – Splatoon is a third-person “shooter” where every weapon fires ink. The ink serves multiple purposes: first, it damages enemy players (and covers up the ink they’ve, uh, “splatted” around).

More interestingly, your team’s ink can be moved through in a low-profile, high-speed “squid form”; doing so in a patch of your team’s color of ink also reloads your selected weapon, whether that be a a giant paint roller or a BIGGER paint roller. (There are other weapons, but I’m all about the rollers). In the primary multiplayer mode, “Turf War,” players compete to cover as much of the map as possible in their team’s color of ink. This means that you’re pretty much always engaged moment-to-moment, whether you’re fighting enemies or painting the terrain. The matches’ short timer helps to keep the pace up and makes it easy to lose hours to the game’s suite of competitive offerings.

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It’s not all handjobs and rainbows, unfortunately. Only two maps are available to play at a given time, with rotations occurring every few hours. To me, this comes off like a half-assed attempt to cover the somewhat meager total number of maps that the game shipped with…and I ain’t buying it. I don’t know why you’d ever buy half an ass, anyway. That’s just a bisected donkey.

On top of that, the game’s leveling system is slower than a slug on a treadmill. Things start off fine – but so did the Weimar Republic.[1] You’ll be getting enough experience to level up (and thus unlock new weapons to play with) after just a few games…until things get fucked around level 15. I’m currently at level 19, but I’ll probably have to leave it to my grandkids to get up to level 20.

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I haven’t spent a ton of time with the cooperative “Salmon Run” mode, but the rounds I’ve played have been enjoyable, if not particularly deep from a mechanical standpoint. I didn’t run into any frustrations with level or enemy design, and the competitive modes’ engaging gameplay translates well to fighting hordes of enemy…salmon? They’re salmon-adjacent, at least. I’ve loathed salmon ever since one of them killed my great-uncle in Korea, so I had no problem making enough fish fillets to feed a senior home (I feel like people younger than 80 don’t like fish fillets).

Splatoon 3 also gives the player access to limited-time events dubbed “Splatfests.” Each Splatfest is themed around what is essentially a three-option popularity contest (for example, the most recent had players voting on whether grass-type, fire-type, or water-type Pokemon are best). The Splatfests are fun (albeit infrequent) diversions that put a three-team twist on the game’s usual multiplayer shenanigans – but the word ‘Splatfest’ makes me feel uncomfortable enough that I almost wish the events didn’t exist. It sounds like an underground orgy that’s trying (and failing) to go mainstream.

There’s more to the game than the selection of multiplayer modes detailed above: from the hub world (“Splatsville”), you can shop for new weapons and gear, customize your character’s locker with various doodads, and goggle at eye-poppingly impressive profile art created by other players who are much more talented than you.

I thought it was a little weird that you need to follow a random old guy down a sewer to start campaign mode for the first time – I felt like Georgie being lured into Pennywise the Dancing Clown’s lair (I guess we all do float down there). That said, you can just hop in the sewer uninvited after finishing the tutorial – and you should do so! The single-player mode opens up a ton after you defeat the tutorial boss, giving you access to a semi-open world with gateways to a variety of short levels that range from puzzle-focused jaunts to platforming and shooting challenges. I haven’t finished the campaign yet, but I really don’t anticipate any nosedives in quality (if I do encounter any, I’ll update the score below to reflect that).

I haven’t mentioned the game’s graphics or audio yet, and won’t say too much about them now, because Splatoon is the kind of game where your enjoyment will come from engaging with gameplay mechanics – not mind-blowing visuals or exhaustive licensed soundtracks. Still, the title’s bright color palette and whimsical background music are both more than serviceable.

A COMMUNICATION ERROR HAS OCCURRED

I ran what could loosely be termed an “experiment” (that is, playing the game on several different wireless networks), and had the same connection problems on each…which would tend to indicate that the issues are on Nintendo’s end, not mine.

Rating: 7*/10 (+.5/-.25)

*If Nintendo ever fixes the game’s connection issues, consider my score an 8 (with the same spread). Similarly, I may make small adjustments to the score depending on my future experiences with the rest of the campaign mode.

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[1] This is factually untrue.