Is Fresh Season The Step Up We NEEDED? 

They added crocs, 10/10 update

If Range Blaster was the problem instead of Splash, it would’ve already been dealt with

disappointed that there were no splatana/stringer kits :(

Fresh Season is definently a step up from Chill Season for me. With Chill, I think the main problem was that there wasn't alot of exciting/noteworthy stuff. It felt like "whatever" season. With Fresh, there are alot of noteworthy stuff. Return of Kraken, brand new special, new King Salmonid, better weapon kits, tableturf online, pools, jukebox, Inkopolis, new Squid Sisters song, etc. It just feels like there is more to talk about/remember with this season.

Cool team ya had for big run B)

The update was pretty fun especially in the beginning, but adding new kits for weapons other than shooters would have made the update 10x better.

I think the main thing about Reppin' Inkopolis that I dont like aside from Dualie, Brella, Splatana, and Stringer not getting anything from it is that the Inkling Boy's Win animations weren't included either as a separate emote so you can pick your style :/

at the very least, I’m happy it’s overall an improvement from last season even if it is still flawed, and I think at least kit-wise the next season will be a lot more interesting since they are literally running out of shooters, so they’ll have to give the other classes something

Something tells me that since they’re so reluctant to give splash Zipcaster that squeezer might get it instead, perfect accuracy but with a higher skill ceiling, could be fun

The worst is that devs refusing to nerf splash really hurts other weapons Carbon roller and L3 really didn't need those crab and burst nerfs

As a Krak-on Splat Roller main: First off, the special is too strong, especially in Tower Control, which was already my favorite mode. Stringers, Brushes, Brellas and Splatanas (maybe not Splatanas) deserved a Kraken kit more than Rollers - there's a ridiculous amount. I'm imagining something like: - Krak-on Bow: Burst Bomb/Kraken - Krak-on Ink Brush: Curling Bomb/Kraken - Krak-on Splat Brella: Ink Mine/Kraken I'm not an expert, but I think this would work far better, especially with the brush.

Nah bro they added so many shooter kits that they had to copy Ttek 💀

nah but the jukebox changing the ingame music is a brilliant edit lmao major props to luci on that one

I miss Squid Beatz so much. All the minigames need to comeback. I also love that Manta Maria and the Kraken are back. I'm personally hoping Ancho V Games, Camp Triggerfish, Snapper Canal, and The Reef come back too.

6:28 also might as well add that the boy animations had subtle differences in s1 and could have clearly been added under the label "reppin inkopolis B" similar to some of the amiibo gear

The DLC also unlocks new opponents for table turf battle. You can play Spike & the shop keepers. It's a small but nice addition. Unfortunately, none of my friends like table turf, so without being able to play randos or have some kind of ranked mode, it's all I have right now. Hopefully, in the next update they expand on it though because it's my favorite mode.

I think the biggest problem the devs doing these updates and the reason we don't feel that they are doing enough, is that they treat 3 months=12 weeks. However just like how inflation works, a pile 120 bucks three months ago doesn't equal to 10 bucks for every week for three months.

I discussed this with some other friends a few times in the past, but it really does feel like Splatoon 3 is being managed by the B-team at EPD 5. This is especially apparent with the balancing team (& the map design team) given all the questionable decisions made within Splatoon 3.

The only thing I really hoped for was making splash 210 or 220p for crab im tired of fighting this thing😭

Okay I hear “Battle at Sea” playing in the background and thank you SO MUCH LUCI FOR USING THAT. It’s the best fucking song in the game!

Killin it like always with the editing and ESPECIALLY with the choice of background music. The past couple of videos have had Octopath or SA2B or other big hit game songs in the background and it is always very much appreciated to see. And I don't even have to say it, but the editing is fire as always, I don't know how the team of editors work their magic so well, but they all do a fantastic job. Biggest gripe by far with the season is the obvious lack of alternate kits for non shooters especially for the newer classes like Brella (new from Splatoon 2 and severely lacking in buffs and kits), Stringer, and Splatanas. I correctly was more hesitant with the upcoming map updates so I wasn't as disappointed as everyone else and I had a good laugh about the poles being everywhere (and yet also nowhere as they disappear on certain modes for some reason???). Overall nothing too exciting update wise aside from the Big Run as Salmon Run is definitely my favorite part about Sploon 3, but hopefully now after 3 failed attempts at telling crab to go sit in the corner for a timeout, they actually do something about it in the next update. Honestly don't even care if they do over nerf it, just so long as the meta shifts to something else for just one season and then they can go back and tone it back up a bit. Also hope the 3rd dapple kit gives me something I want (was really hoping for Dapple Nouvea to essentially be the same as in Sploon 2 as that was my favorite weapon and toxic mist and ink storm is probably my favorite sub and special synergy wise which is why I am LOVING C Jet right now. I'll take a different 3rd kit if it's not that, just please let it be something good that shines on its own.

Overall the season is good for the game, but your point about how if they tone back Crab, the buffs they gave to the other specials for countering crab become kinda useless is so true. Ultra Stamp just feels like a joke now that Kraken is in the game and it makes me sad. Really hope they make the front protection actually work so it's not just "get shot in the face" as a special while Kraken gets full invincibility...

10:30 I love this detail in editing your editor did that changed the music in the video to the song selected in the jukebox

Personally, I’m vibing with the season structure for updates. It gives every 3 months their own feeling, and I feel each one (so far) has introduced substantially enough content to justify this update structure. Knowing when new things will drop also helps too, so that we have a roadmap of when we can expect things to change (not necessarily the changes we want tho). I hope that balance changes coming in monthly will stick and will be impactful enough tho. The only thing missing at the moment are big map reworks like we had in previous games, which I don’t think need to be tied to the start of a new season

Loving that Octopath Traveler music!

They just need to add a LOT more kits each season

The fact that it was stated that Splatoon 3 is going to have 2 years worth of content updates makes me worried with the questionable hellscape we’ve been given so far I just hope the quality in the updates ramp up real fast or Nintendo pulls a “ha sike” like they did with Splatoon 2 and give many more years of updates

(Mostly) Easy fix for Kraken in Clam Blitz. Make it like Inkjet and Zipcaster where you jump to where they activated the special, not where they are currently. It won't get rid of the problem entirely, but it will lessen it at least

My biggest issue with the new kits is that half of them are just unusable due to balance issues despite being incredibly fun F for my clash blaster getting a worse but funnier kit

They need to do more splatfests. If they keep releasing maps at this rate, and plan to have a unique tricolor mode for each map we should at the minimum have 26 splatfests. This would sound great given that those doesn't include thing like final fest or other events. We are midway through season 3 out of 8, and only just getting a 5th splatfest. If they were spaced out evenly we should have had two more. I suppose you could argue that Bigrun takes up those two which means maps will either get a trickle mode. However Bigrun is such a lesser event to replace a splatfests with. If they want to make Bigrun equal they need to: 1. Provide Super sea shells as an incentive 2. Give more catalog points proportionate to the amount to time it take to play all three rounds. 3. Give us more opportunities to pull from the Shell-out machine.

With brellas being my favorite class from Splatoon 2 and both splatanas and stringers rapidly becoming my favorite classes in Splatoon 3, all I can really say is maybe next time…

10:32 Nice touch on the editor’s part. Very smooth transition.

also about reppin' inkopolis: the animations are based off of the inkling girl poses, no matter what style character you use. it would be pretty cool if they brought back the poses for the inkling boy, and maybe dualie and brella emotes from splatoon 2

I really hope at some point they start adding new kits midway through a season. I remember every day before the Fresh Season started I was super hyped for the new kits they would reveal. Plus we need more kits anyway. My biggest hot take with this season was that Reppin' Inkopolis was really lame. Maybe I'm a little biased because I never played Splatoon 1 but the lack of new animations for the newer weapons (as mentioned in this video) was really disappointing

I feel like they're adding weapon kits mainly based on when their respective weapons were introduced. For example, we're probably going to get more Dualie and Brella kits soon, then after that Stringer and Splatanna kits. I actually kind of prefer this route, because they're getting all the shooters out of the way first. Looking at how many 1-kit shooters are left, soon we'll get new seasons with no new shooter kits, only the other classes. Sure, shooter meta is pretty annoying but let's be honest, would you rather get the annoying shooter kits at the start of the games meta, or at the end of the meta? Even if they do third kits (I'm like 100% sure they will, because Splatoon *3*), I hope it follows the same shooters-first-then-everything-else timeline

Definitely a step up from Chill, but not w/o some issues. I'll be waiting for the day they give us new kits for the recent weapon classes, mainly stringers/Splatanas and anything that's not a shooter. Not saying we won't still see shooter kits as they'll likely roll out some more, but their focus has to shift at some point. Loving the jukebox, pool feature, new king salmonid, among few other things. At least we'll remember this season for something. Maybe over the course of the game, it'll get better, but that's a whole wait-and-see thing. I'm keeping reasonable expectations as this goes on.

I’ll never fully understand how the devs released snipewriter in such a god awful state, gave it one of the worst kits out of all the chargers, gave it some of the worst object damage in the game, and have refused to give it any buffs ever since. It’s like they actively resent giving it any buffs and just wanted people to completely forget about a week after it was added.

I keep saying that we should of had Squid Jump in Inkopolis, it would of made the extra $5 worth it for sure but I also like the idea of the Splatoon 1 training room returning, I wanna chuck splat bombs into the basketball hoops again, been a very long time since I've done that.

I did not expect octopath background music but good choice though!

binged through like 2 years of your videos over this last week, keep up the great work man :)

Tableturf was absolutely the best aspect of Fresh Season 2023 (and thank you for promoting Duel On).

honestly, after two weeks of testing kits and doing random stuff in Splatoon 3, i’ve just been waiting for the next update and not even maxing the new catalogue. the idea of more partial seasonal updates excites me more than the current seasonal schedule.

they could fix the objective-based issues with kraken by taking a page out of tf2's book and making it so you can't interact with the objectives whilst invincible

I hope, unlike the Fresh Season, that the next update is focused on Splatoon 3 itself. Not nostalgia towards past Splatoon games. I’m talking weapon kits for stringers and splatanas, two or three new sub weapons, a new mode or two, and two brand new stages (no returning ones.) I think that’s what this game needs. More content focused on itself and not the other games.

I'm having a lot of fun so I can say it's the step in the right direction giving the game a bright future

Tri slosher

loving the ocotpath traveler 2 background music in the last videos

I really do wish they did more, like basically everything you've proposed, especially the arcade stuff, but I guess I can be satisfied with what we've got. Fulfilled promises of drip feeding is better than an abandoned game of broken promises.

I think something else people are missing is that this season didn't have a trailer AT ALL, just Twitter drops. If any of y'all remember Splatoon 3's development cycle, you'll also remember how grueling Twitter drops were compared to the trailers the community lived off of back then. I can get it if they simply had a budget cut, but people are forgetting that Splatoon is played by CHILDREN and CHILDREN do not HAVE Twitter (sane people also don't have Twitter but I digress-). They get their news from the in-console news system which didn't even really announce the Fresh Season iirc. Also trailers are just so much more hype fr.

I'm starting to like the removal of the inkable block in manta, it sucks not being able to retreat to snipe but I hated how much it snowballed in TC back in S2,now you have to flank all the way or hop from tower to take control over snipe and thats nice for the defending team, could even argue it makes other classes likes sloshers and chargers more viable that can fight ppl standing on/behind the walls around the tower

I would love to see a tier list on how much you like the current specials based on design alone!

I feel like spongebob showing Gary he's on TV at 2:15 😂

this update was very necessary, Prochara got his glasses back

I think the fresh season is an improvement, but it could be more of an improvement

im desperate for them to rerelease the arcade games. i was already disappointed i couldnt play tableturf online with strangers, but the arcade games look dummy easy to put in the game. and "online" for it could just be grabbing the ghost data of players you run into it'd be so cool

Felt tranquil listening to octopath music on the video

You got all the different shooters. And then, below that, everything else.

I’m getting Mario kart 8 booster pass vibes from the splatoon updates, in that they are gradually getting better and by the end of it all the game will be amazing

I try to be a nice person that doesn’t want to discredit work a lot of the time, so automatically I say this is a good update. Even putting me trying to not be rude aside I personally loved the update while it does lack some things like more non-shooter kits I still loved it and the maps weren’t bad. The specials are somewhat balanced but it’s super fun to use them, with a few patches like tower not being completely cheesed by something such as kraken or maybe buff to super chump damage (I’m ignoring splash cause no clue what’s gonna happen), this update is super good in my own opinion. Then again I’m not somewhat that plays very competitively so take that as you will.

One thing I wanted was new music from different bands

Props to the editor for using Octopath music :>

i think there are a lot of shooters these recent updates because once nintendo is done with all the shooters early, they can really focus on other weapons which will be really cool

As .96 gal enjoyer, this update made my weapon viable so it’s been really fun. I do think the main weapon needs some accuracy and damage buffs if the other kit it has ever wants to shine, and maybe a buff to its sub and special as well…

The end of shooters is near, because there are only 4 more kits left that will all be added in the next season and then i hope that the shooter class will get heavly nerfed, but this will take almost 6 more months of waiting

Still feels weird how the meta has not changed for the past 5 months despite the multiple attempts at a fix. Really hoping to see if the mid-season balance patch shakes things up enough.

Octopath music makes me very happy.

Appreciate the Octopath Traveler 2 music!

Overall with this update, there's just so many opportunities they **could** have done (squid sisters news, lobby minigames, more kit variety, new weapon emotes, more special balance, more stage changes)... this is probably one of the worst eras in splatoon new content history being honest... hopefully the side order update will serve as a sort of "2.0" though, or maybe they'll extend the update cycle again. Weekly/midseason drops for stuff like weapons would make a huge difference though

I have a sneaking suspicion that charas editor likes octopath...

Even just 2 or 3 midseason kits would be really nice.

this season is the best cuz now i can be sans the inkling/octoling

At this rate, people will play salmon run more than anarchy

Justice for squid jump mini game

I think it adds enough but man I’m starting to get antsy at Splash ruling the game for this long. Like Kraken is Goated but considering it’s only on two weapons right now, I’m not sure it’s gonna impact much right now when it comes to the games current state.

Another thing I feel like was a negative was that, while the two new specials we got were cool, we only got them on two weapons each, only one of which most people would consider "usable" (both of them shooters). So if you want to try out and play the new specials, you better hope you like the *one* good weapon that has them.

The wahoo world pole does do one thing! It nerfs tristringer, my main! It does nothing to fix chargers but they did nerf the back line stringer!

Hot take: unami ruins is worse than brinewater springs

Honestly its just so little content for 1/4 of the way through the guaranteed update cycle. Seriously they either need to be pouring more content into the 2 year gap, have more content in the base game, or a much longer support period.

I mean, I think whether or not a season is good or not comes down to "did you get your old gear/new gear that you like in the update? Did your weapon get a new kit?" if they have the next season give even MORE kits it could really help prevent it from becoming stale, but in my opinion the stages are whats really krilling it for me. Only getting 2 new stages to spread over 3 months is really hard to keep the game feeling fresh, Brinewater and U'mami feel nearly identical to each other. So if you don't really like playing the new stages, you don't have much to keep you occupied. The balance patches are also really awful, I am a huge advocate for Big Swig roller but it only got a buff to object damage! Its absolutely ridiculous that the supposed "anti charger changes" dont even work properly, and that triple crab tank still exists despite TWO NEW specials being added as well. The biggest part of the new seasons in my opinion are the stages and balance changes, and so far they've been really poor. Flounder has been the only stage to actually be super fun to play on and its the best stage in Splatoon 3 right now, but the other 3 have been mediocre at best and downright bad at worst. And as for the balance patches, we literally transferred from a whole different game and we're STILL in the shooter meta, there's no need to explain why thats bad. Rest in pieces brella users, I feel terribly sorry for your loss

I came back after quitting for 2 months, and it's fucking AWESOME

A lot of the devs of competitive games have recently adopted this complete apprehension to nerf anyting, they're so scared of having the meta go stale, they'll happily standby as the game gets suffocated by whatever broken tools theyre ignoring. Like I understand where theyre coming from, but it's just as bad as totally pacifying the meta game. Game balance means you actually have to keep things in balance.

Dude I wish they added more splatanas in the fresh update, maybe they might add more of them in the next update.

I’ve got my fingers crossed for the dlc

I think its almost there in regards to the season, I feel a bit meh with it because the class i play has only had 1 new weapon so far (zimi), so it does feel fairly bare bones to me unless i wanted to spend the time to learn a new class like roller or long range shooter. I also thought they would release 3 new mains with this update (being a slosher, brush & splatling) since they did so for the original mains. But i am happy with the 2 new specials and Im excited to see the chumps on a heavy or hydra!

Honestly the only way to deal with Splash being so dominant is nerfing both the main and special into the ground. For the main weapon: 1) 250p Crab 2) Ink efficiency nerfed to Grizzco Slosher level 3) Fully upgraded Hero Shot level shot RNG For the special: 1) Reduce HP from 500HP to 100HP so that shredding crab also splats the rider 2) Nerf range from E-liter range to Squiffer range 3) Nerf to DPS, turret mode to a 5 or 6 shot and burst mode to a 3 or 4 shot. 4) Remove armor from ball mode 5) Increase the rider hitbox to cover the entire crab so the rider also takes damage while the crab is being shot. 6) Keep the anti-Crab buffs from previous patches in place so that popping a crab is basically an instant splat. 7) Mark the Crab user on the screen with an icon like the Rainmaker carrier or Power Clam holder.

I am also disappointed that stringers, dualies, and splatanas didnt get their own emotes in the style of Splatoon 1. But for the Splatoon 2 emotes, I think it would be a really cool move if nintendo released 4 separate sets of weapon emotes: inkling boy, inkling girl, octo boy, and octo girl. We'd have access to all variations and it should be quite easy to do.

I think if they added more with mid season patches like with new kits and quality of life features, it would be perfect

I agree with a lot of the the thing said, especially the kit changes. Stringer was THE first weapon i mained and got the badge for within like a month or two of consistent playing. Having not received any other stringer kits in over six months is so underwhelming especially when we got so many shooters added in chill and fresh season. Moving on, catalog feels underwhelming, there was a bit more variation in the last catalog between what we got but most of the clothes are literal recolours of each other? like that’s great and all but at least some of the pages from last season had way different style changes etc

6:55 Did we even get the boy victory animations from Splatoon 1?

As a 96 Main I'm really glad with the 96 Deco and the N ZAP 89, but tbh we did get too many shooter kits. I don't know why Nintendo aren't adding new Dualie/Splatana kits yet (Where are my glooga decos? Although the kit now is still really good) And yeah, adding new weapons kits mid-season would be brilliant

1:13 I'm gonna be completely honest, I agree with Chara entirely here. Neo Splash is very redundant, but it honestly feels like a mercy decision to give the kit Triple Inkstrike. I say that because I think the devs don't want to give Splash Zipcaster. In my opinion, the idea of Splash with Zipcaster is kinda frightening

I totally agree that a mid season mini drop of kits would reduce a lot of the problems with this seasonal format. 3 months is just far too long between them adding new kits. Even just 3-4 kits halfway through the season would go a really long way to making it feel better. I'm also still really upset that L-3 D got hammer, and that hammer still barely works. Should have had kraken like in Splatoon 1

Expectations: Crab Nerf, Brellas being Useful, New Weapon classes Reality: Wahoo Pole Made thicker and 180 Ttek

>we are seeing tower cheese and power clam jump >attaches the same clip for the 900th time i honest to god think kraken is way overhyped, everyone is talking hypotheticals and nothing actually practical besides a few viral tweets have surfaced. Squid School's got the right idea tbh

5:31 bro called eeltail reef

I feel that they should do around 20 to 30 kits and have 4 of them be the shooters and the rest be for the forgotten class.

Well I have 96 will a wall which is basically all I wanted but it has kraken too? Absolute W

it feels like there’s way too many missed opportunities this update tbh. new specials! (but only on two kits each), new lobby! (but no news or minigames), map changes! (not a single inkable block), new kits! (6 shooters) like they’re individually not a big deal but it piles up

i can see why they didn't make new emotes for the new weapons; if the animations are fresh, then it's not nostalgic, which is the point of the emote. though they could've just mapped the existing emotes to the new classes. dualies gets the shooter animation, stringer gets the charger one, and splatanas and brellas get the brush/roller animation. or something like that also disappointing that the spaces auxiliary to inkopolis plaza didn't get reskinned to have more of a splatoon 1 personality along with the hub itself. like the ammo knights range (which already has a design), the inkopolis plaza lobby interior, the grizzco interior, and i guuuuuess the shoal

June can't come soon enough