Splatoon 3 – Preview, Shooter

The little giant

Don’t underestimate the Splatoon brand! The family-friendly color shooter does not (yet) have the nimbus of other Nintendo greats, but in terms of player numbers and sales, the young, and yes, quite fresh franchise is already outperforming many other brands: on the flopped Wii U (only 13.5 million consoles), the first Splatoon sold five million units from a standing start, part 2 for the switch even wandered over (virtual) counters 13 million times. With Splatoon 3, Nintendo – more precisely a certain production team within Nintendo’s largest development department EPD (short for: Entertainment Planning & Development) – now had five years to develop a successor to the popular shooter bash. If you were wondering who came up with the idiosyncratic, fresh design of the Inkling, then you can discreetly look towards Animal Crossing, because a large part of the art department of this long-running hit is also working on the Splatoon series…

If you only take a quick look, you might think that Splatoon 2 was just like Splatoon 1, only with more content. And Splatoon 3 somehow doesn’t look that different from part 2. There are reasons for this: On the one hand, the unmistakable look of the figures and the game world has become a trademark that is retained and only subtly developed further. On the other hand, the first was released for hardware that wasn’t dramatically weaker than the switch, and part 2 for the hybrid console – it’s quite natural that the jaw stays up at first. On the other hand, even the biggest nags will notice that something has changed when they watch part 3: the characters are animated in more detail and are more cute, and the cheerful, wet ink is twice as shiny as in the predecessor. It may sound silly, but the soup of colors is always in front of your eyes – and the glitter and mirror effects on the splattered level surfaces are really a treat!

tutorial

The first port of call for all rusty Splatooneros is the new story mode: In “Return of the Mammalian” you will face off against the hairy Octarians. Charmingly arranged, short levels await you, which not only require aim but also brains. You can of course see the solo mode, which – in my impression after the first six mini-stages played – should be played through quickly, as an overly long, pretentious tutorial, after all it is perfectly suited to showing the intricacies of the game before the public show internalize. On the other hand, Nintendo has come up with some really cool level complexes that invite you to acrobatic escapades and cleverly introduce the different types of weapons. I was happy about the elegant dashing through the color lines, the use of a small colored fish helper and of course the generally very elegant controls. Anyone not familiar with the Splatoon series will be surprised at the low standard running speed, but once the color has been properly distributed, you can glide elegantly and quickly through the areas at the touch of a button. The hit feedback from your blob cannons also feels good – in combination with many vertical level elements and small switch puzzles, the result is a seductive flow.

Station 2 of my Splatoon 3 preview trip were a few robust rounds with the “Salmon Run” co-op mode, which of course fans of the series already know the basics of. For everyone else: Basically, we are dealing with a kind of horde mode here, in which the fire power from the paint sprayers is not aimed at each other, but at a common enemy. This also works well and promotes team spirit – the latter also because each player is randomly assigned a specific weapon set per wave and some bosses can only be cracked effectively if the co-op players communicate with each other. Where other horde shooters are mostly about surviving waves to the last enemy, in Splatoon 3’s Salmon Run speed is even more important than pure tactics: In order to get to the next wave, you have to meet a certain quota to be captured eggs, otherwise the game-over-screen is approaching. In terms of level design and game balance, I can’t allow myself a final judgment after a few rounds of Salmon Run, but of the three game types it was the one that gave me the least pleasure in the test game – despite the cool boss salmonids.