My Honest Review Of Competitive Splatoon 3 

3:55 The subtle Tom scream. I can't handle the editing anymore. It's just too good

When I hear someone say that they're looking forward to splatoon 4 fixing this games problems it causes me so much pain because before that everyone was saying "it'll get better after side order". I am so tired of waiting for the game to get better later when it could be better now for so little effort

What annoys me the most about zooka is that before its buffs it had a really high skill expression. I remember watching top players get a crazy arc kill with it and everyone blowing up. It needed a buff, it wasn’t consistent at all, and a lot of weapons were unusable because they had it, but at least it was super hype. Now if someone would make that same shot everyone just collectively sighs.

12:06 As a casual and competitive player and enjoyer, it's really saddening to see some parts of the game in such a bad or mediocre state like many weapon kits and a lot of the maps. And yet despite this, I think I am more in love with this series/franchise than I've ever been because despite the flaws of each game, Splatoon 3 is still very fun to play occasionally and the creativeness of the community's casual and competitive scenes keeps this franchise shining bright no matter how dull some parts may get.

4:22 "Tacticooler cheats." Yeah that sums up the entire special up with no other details needed

anyone remember when pencil was a joke

5:00 What annoys me most is that the (assumed) justification for having endlag is BuT wHaT aBoUt ThE nOoBs, but then they buff the freaking radius to unnecessary amounts, something that low level players actually struggle with. Despite this, I have to have a time period where I am vulnerable but cannot do anything. Nintendo is genuinely braindead. Low level players literally can’t aim that fast, but they somehow think it’ll do more.

WHERE IS THE TRI-STRINGER META?!?!

look cooler meta may be getting of hand BUT IL TAKE THAT ANY DAY OVER 4 SHOTERS SPAMING RAY AND MISELLS EVERY 5 SECONDS WHILE HAVING ENDLESS BOMBS ALSO ITS TIME TO START BANNING THINGS(manly only one special per comp)

Man, I can't help but get sad every time I see that one footage of beta Eeltail

Watch, the devs are gonna drop a content extension and a HUGE drizzle season update and that adds like 20 kits and 4 maps all at the same time that are all kind of mid.

One thing this game’s competitive community made me realize is just how much competitive players care about the games they play. Splatoon 3 is my favourite game to play right now, and seeing so many ppl criticize it so much felt unfair. But I’ve come around to it, since these problems are there and hold the game back from being its best. I think the online community is too focused on the negative, but that’s also a problem for most of the gaming community and most of the internet these days. I do disagree with some common criticisms, but I understand that a lot of it comes out of love for the game and wanting it to reach its potential: which is pretty awesome.

Nintendo when another season comes around and they still dont come up with the ressources of a few mouse clicks and 4 braincells to bust out high quantities of quality kits: 🥵

7:58 Dapples hasn’t had a good kit EVER. It’s depressing that this poor main weapon has had five different kits, and has had all five be either bad, or outclassed by Tetras. Just give them Splat Bomb Inkjet or something. Give them something that’s good. For once in their life.

As a very casual player the game feels very nice (most of the time) i usually see lots of different kits used, never the same or any kind of meta. makes me glad to not be a pro player, from the perspective of a mostly bad casual like me, this game is tons of fun and theres no other shooter where i can slosh a bucket around or fling around a brush. If it feels too sweaty, I just play Salmon Run, if Salmon Run gets too tough, I load up Side Order. Always something fun to do, I'm very glad for a nice unique shooter like this, I know i'll have fond memories of the series in the future Meanwhile playing solo Siege, Apex or Cod casually makes you wanna unalive yourself

Maybe with the Switch 2’s internal delay from Q4 2024 to Q1 2025, Splatoon 3 can get one or two additional seasons to buy time for what’s shaping up to be a filler year for Nintendo. But I guess since one of the reasons for the delay was for Nintendo to give their developers more time to work on Switch 2 games, EPD 5 might be going full-steam-ahead with the next Animal Crossing right now to ensure that it’s ready for the Switch 2’s Year 1.

12:39 Great way to put it and exactly how I feel😭 I love this game; I just wish the people behind it would do more to support it and have it live to its full potential with how cool the story and gameplay are

Saddens me that we're potentially reaching the end of content. Would love for an extension.

For anywhere wondering the song that plays at 12:02 is Drayton's theme from the Pokemon Scarlet & Violet DLC: the indigo disk. I liked how the song was but couldnt find it with the name on the video and had to look within the Pkm Violet themes (and Sun/moon since it had a similar style to it) ^^

It feels like they actively decided not to live up to the potential. At this point they have to know the community wants more kits, better kits, and better maps and reworks. They have perfect versions of maps from splatoon 1, and perfect versions of scorch and eeltail, and probably a better version of umami (the picture they showed in the direct has much more terrain in general). They can easily do 3rd kits, it's just a texture and parameter change. But no, they ignore the community and decide to do their own ass backwards logic. They can easily copy and paste the better versions of maps into the game (they're a competent dev team, they have the old builds on hand). Oh and it doesn't just effect competetive. I can't play turf without feeling like I have no options. Every weapon feels the damn same. I want to theory craft and find some cool playstyle in solo queue but I can't. All I can do is continuously spring forward with quick respawn if I want to win. Its gotten to the point where I can't even play my favorite weapons in TURF. I have to play shot or squeezer just to feel like I can do something. Can't play dualie squelchers like I want because they're too damn slow and do too little damage and is too inconsistent to even think about going to the front line, and support doesn't work in this game. The maps feel cramped and have little choice even when I avoid maps I don't like. I miss splatoon 1 where I could get lost on the maps, where every time I played I found something new on the maps. The maps were so much bigger. The specials had much more impact. Though there was a strict meta, I felt like I had options and could do something with my favorites. I could play vds and cds in S1 and actually impact the game while being supportive. I had those off angles I could play, I wasn't forced into one or two spots as a mid range and immediately get killed by a splatling or charger. A lot of the times I just don't want to play splatoon 3 because I feel braindead doing the same thing over and over and each match feeling like random chance whether I win or not. Hey, maybe it's a skill issue, maybe it's an issue with the game itself. I feel like part of this is a skill issue, but feeling cramped and like I can't do fun playstyles I've seen too many times with other people to know it's not just me feeling that way.

i love the editing on this video!!! it's really interesting to see things from your perspective, thanks for making it

shoutout to Chi Shoals 💪 lots of strong players there and they're all really cool lol, thank you for putting footage of those local LANs in at the end

For a game supposedly themed around chaos, it certainly doesn't let you do whatever you want. You either bring tacticooler or you're losing. Cooler just generates 4 more players on reserve and buffs the already existing players. And for goodness knows what reason, N-Zap was buffed to 30 damage as the supposedly support weapon.

The fact is the jet shots direct when it's Parry by it self it's satisfying

Honestly, I think a competitive mod for this game will come out eventually, and that'll probably be what the comp scene goes to

I've always appreciated the emphasis that 'this is from a competitive standpoint. . .anything is viable as a casual player looking to have fun' Casual play needs to understand there are reasons you don't see a silver areospray in competitive, or a Nova. You are fully welcome to have fun with that weapon and yes, you absolutely can bring it to SoloQ and have fun. The competitive side though is sitting down and basically playing chess, what counters what, what maps are fairly equal and not drastically one sided. While I will forever gripe about the shift to only zones. . .I do understand it. I'm grateful the league I play in keeps all map, and we have a pretty diverse map pool. . .but even our officials have maps/modes they won't put us through.

still living in my torp/inkjet custom explo fantasy

There’s just one problem I have: when you first started massively endorsing zones only tournaments, I immediately thought it sounded brilliant, like, this is what I’ve been saying so long! And then one day I finally watched one such tournament you were… can’t remember which, but either commentating or in, and… it was boring, I got bored surprisingly quick, and I finally understood why more people weren’t being open to it like I was- it’s just no good from the spectators’ view. I need variety in the modes or no matter how sick the plays, it just won’t be interesting. Just thought ya might wanna hear that in case there’s anything you can think of to work on from it.

Seeing the trailer map design hurts

8:02 Personally, I liked Dapple Dualies Nouveau in Splat2n to. My main until Clear Dapples came out. But I still like playing Nouveau.

Looks like even Chara is starting to reach his level of tolerance with this game

👀 GOAT Editing

To me, with balance patches (and really content in general, but that's a whole other video) I feel like we've gotten about what we should have gotten in a single year spread out across almost two. So few actual impactful changes are made every season, and while smaller patches are fine, they rarely address actual issues, either with current meta weapons or poorly balanced/designed weapons, subs, or specials more than once every 2-3 patches. Gloogas is a good example, it's finally gotten buffed up and is better than ever, but it took what, a year and a half for it to get to this point? And some weapons that are entirely undeserving of continued nerfs (Machine at the start of the game, now Stamper and Trislosher) are/were getting nerfed multiple times after they had already fallen off, just beating them into the ground even though they were already in fine spots after the first nerf or two. It's so confusing, when all they'd really need to do is add a patch every month, and already the pace for impactful changes has doubled, and the meta wouldn't have stalled so many times.

This next balance patch will basically tell us if they're done or not. If it's a baby patch with like... 2 changes, then yeah - that's it. If not then uhhhh have fun possibly needing to make a followup I guess-

I have just started to get into games where the comp scene is more supported, meta and more tournaments. It’s a shame that someone had to make a third party competitive queuing system, and that Nintendo couldn’t do it themselves.

I honestly think zooka is close to being as big of a problem as tacticooler, it practically invalidates some of the other specials on top of coming out ridiculously fast and just overall not being very fun to play against. It’s not a problem that it’s good, but it shouldn’t be THIS good. Now obviously cooler is way more influential, and isn’t really comparable to zooka in any way, but I think zooka is almost as essential in this meta as cooler which probably should not happen

Getting into real competitive splatoon battles are really hard to compete

My only issue with S3 is just the maps, if they were good, the game would be so hard to put down

i wasnt expecting the bayo music lol

I love this game for what it does right, in a similar way to how i feel about New Super Mario Bros 2 and Kirby Star Allies, except much more so. However, stretching the content and patches across two years is definitely too much. Fortunately, considering the last two games other than S3 that had free updates were Mario Strikers Battle League and Nintendo Switch Sports, and seeing how 2023 turned out with every single game releasing complete at launch, i dont think Nintendo will ever do this sort of thing again.

Splatoon 3 truly is our Potential Man of the franchise.

Love ur stuff

I’m not competitive myself, but it hurts to see such great potential be sat on. And even on a casual level, some of this stuff affects us too. Like the poor kit design makes me really hesitant to try new weapons. And limits what new possibilities I could have with the weapons I actually like. Side Note: I feel bad for any Hydra mains in the chat. Y’all STILL haven’t gotten your second kit!

This is a video only about competitive Splatoon 3, but to be honest, the speed and aggression of the competitive side is always present in SoloQ. The more competitive a player/team is, the more aggressive they play. And as backline player, I hate the most of the kits we got, because sometime you can not do anything to stop them. I think a couple of times about to stop playing Splatoon because of that or I must stop using my favourite weapons, but that is not a option for me.

Balancing is def the game's weakest suit tbh. Rapid deco is still 210p and we're not even in inkjet meta anymore.

This guy my fav content creator

Y’all I know that chara says a lot of negative things, but at the end of the game, just like with 2, there will be a video longer than any before about all the good things about splatoon 3.

Hopefully the modders pull up a community patch that could fix alot of the games current really easy to fix issues

So not totally related but I had some ideas for Reefslider buffs: 1. You can now hold the Reefslider, by holding ZR you will hold your slider and you can, somewhat slowly, change the direction you're facing, you are not invincible while you hold and can still get splatted. 2. Reefslider now goes further and is slightly faster in moving. 3. Reefslider's travel path can now be curved, by holding left or right while sliding, it's not a huge curve like 40 degrees at most but it would allow more flexibility. 4. Reefslider's explosion now destroys bombs, I don't know why it doesn't currently, it feels more like an oversight than deliberate design but whatever. 5. Drop Roller now works with Reefslider, the Drop Roller roll interrupts the endlag and allows for quicker movement after sliding (Drop Roller should also work with Triple Splashdown imo).

we shouldnt even be talking about splatoon 4. splatoon 3 came out less than 2 years ago. i really, really dont want splatoon to become a series where new games are released all the time with minimal changes, being essentially 60 dollar dlc for minor quality of life things like skipping the news.

I won’t defend vac as a good competitive special I will just say baiting stamper users by popping the vac into a trap is such satisfying. And shooting the vac on the zipcaster zipping is also peak skill

Prochara what’s your opinion of the splattershot (the original one)

I always thought "it's fine if a good weapon doesn't get a bomb because that way it's balanced" but honestly at that point I'm convinced ALL weapons should get broken kits (while keeping kit variety) that way it would force Nintendo to balance the main weapons. And also having a nerf/buff that immediately gets reverted a week in is better than a weapon forever be doomed with a bad kit because "balance" (fleeing nerf/buff is always better than a forever one)

Range and stamper are good so I'm happy

Bro actually mentioned dapples. Im happy now. It really is sad how badly the kits have been neglected. Like, do they just not know what to put on it?

They went way into the support aspect for Dapple Dualies.

It definitely needs more Bamboozler

Zones only enables Pencil, like picking always PS2 in Smash enables Steve to both camp tf out of you can gain diamond so quickly. Besides so many weapons cannot paint for their lives in a painting game, still don't know why people say it's the best mode since while it does have good maps it encourages the most camping in the game.

I’ve started playing a lot less as time went on since I’ve started to see these issues entering 6.0. It’s actually why I wanted to try modding balance and kits in the first place. I love this game to death but I feel like the issues in this entry are the most inexcusable here in comparison to the other two which had near unfixable fundamental flaws.

I don't know but this is so funny 0:56 😂 Ink Jet is higher skill expression than crab tank? I'm good at ink jet but incredibly sucks in crab tank 😢

Video 49 of commenting on Chara videos till brella is good

It’s impossible the update cycle ends in Sizzle 24 There is no way we are getting only two kits for Splatoon 3 SPLATOON 3 🗣🗣🗣 Imo it would be nice I fr everyone had a third kit, good or bad , I don’t care

I was one of those people who thought you hated the game lol but I really agree with you ans understand your point now Yes it is the best splatoon game but it aint living up to what it could be, and these last patches make it more apparent than ever

It's sad to see jet out of of the most used specials at 6:22 Jet is so cool, they really did it dirty 😔

Splatoon 3’s biggest flaw imo, is that it’s long felt like the devs have been playing it very safe. It didn’t uproot the special roster like Splatoon 2 did, instead constructing its list of specials mostly out of Splatoon 2 specials and remixed versions of Splatoon 1 specials. Maps were heavily simplified and streamlined, especially returning locales like Hammerhead Bridge. Balance changes are few, far between, and largely extremely minor because the balance team doesn’t want to rock the boat. Save for a few weapons like the Splash-O-Matic and the Splatana Stamper, weapons have been consistently given extremely conservative kits with one strong option and one weak option; It almost feels like they’re scared of the impact most weapons might have on the game if they were given strong sub and special options. This applies to the singleplayer as well, Return of the Mammalians plays *very* safely, mostly just retreading character dynamics from Splatoon 1 and recycling the majority of the gameplay and plot beats straight from Octo Expansion. Side Order is the only part of the game that feels like it had the courage to be its own thing, but even that ends up feeling constricted by the fact it reuses the mind control plot point for the third time now and the fact that it really kept itself tied back to the goofy tone of the base game in ways that Octo Expansion hadn’t.

You know... I think that was a bit of my issue from whwre I'm at. I'm not dropping my Brella. Cause I know I can work with it, even if it ain't top tier. I'm using a more mobility-focused build for it rn, and some utility.

Will not tolerate the dapples' kit slander, it's a favorite of mine (nah good vid I'll tolerate it)

I feel like pencils main problem is its range and MAYBE its charge time, I think if you gave it (and squiffer) a reduction in range and/or charge time, you would see a lot less people using it. Not significant reductions mind you, but just enough to make it feel more fair and deserved when you get kos And yes, killsweaters are a massive detriment to the game, and it seems like the meta is focused around high ko counts and near-instant ttk. I understand why it's a thing, and yeah it can be fun for the killsweaters, but... Idk it doesn't feel like splatoon when you play it that way.

Hey chara is stamper qr still good in comp?

i’d take cooler meta over ink armor ANY DAY

7:29 ONE PIECE?!?!!!?!!! 🤯🤯🤯

As someone who plays in competitive splatoon, knowing snipewriter is the meta, how powerful would a team of four pencils be? I know on mincemeat the weapon can cap splatzones without even leaving its spawn

Bad news. Nintendo officially announced that Splatoon 3 will no longer receive content updates from this day forward. I SLAP FLOOR

another banger vid

One must imagine the competitive gamer is happy. If it's not fun, why bother? Something something something dark side. Also asparagus makes your pee smell really bad.

having been in comp for around 7 months now ive gotten more and more annoyed with the state of the game as of recently. its really frustrating to know that its really unlikely that things will change with pencil being a passive master of all backline, and zooka being ran on every comp, sometimes two or three at a time. i wish there was more thought put into balance changes, or more time given to them, whether by a content extension or by ditching seasons as an update structure. at this point i feel like my best option is just to wait for splatoon 4.

I’m enlightened

Love what you do chara

I still hate the fact they gave Neo Splash almost the same linear kit they gave the Tenatek Shot. Literally do not understand why they did that.

All this time, i thought slider destroyed bombs?

they should just release more main/sub/special weapons and then the players themselves pick what they are using before the battle

I think Splatoon 3 "died" so that Splatoon 4 can live. I think that's what they're going for, right? Right?

I would like to mention that if Wiper deco had gotten Kraken instead of MISSILES we could've had better S1 octobrush. I would also like to mention that we got MISSILES in splatoon 3. I would also like to mention that due to MISSILES being the icon for special power up it is highly likely it will make a return in splatoon 4. for the love of fuck please change the special power up icon to something that isn't MISSILES so we can get rid of it.

HELLO MISTER PROCHARA WHAT IS YOUR RANK?

content extension. please nintendo i'll do anything

I imagine how cool the game would’ve been if Slider was a good special Think about it, if it was a good special, then Dapples would have a good kit, Tetra would have a full kit that works, Dread would be picked more bc its kit would be viable, and even maybe DFlux would have a niche because Slider is honestly not as horrible as I thought it was on it, it just needs, again, to be a good special Just by Dread being viable, it would’ve opened up the game so much and it’s sad that we never got to see it happen because the devs refused to adjust the *one* thing it needed

Devs be like: what was that? Snipewriter pushes all weapons of 2 roles out of the meta? Better nerf ballpoint

6:26 Not a single jet???

hydra still has no second kit. having to wait two years for another kit is just pitiful. the devs could change way more than they do

I’d rather have this meta than a meta where you just spam aoe and not have to have skill to win 😂😂😂

I really hope the last balance patch we get is good with good stuff so at least end off splatoon 3 in a least one good way. PLEASE NINTENDO!

ah, i see. ITS ALL THE DEVS’ FAULT

The thing I hate the most about this game isn't really the map design or the mode design (although Zones is my least favorite mode by far and is in desperate need of an overhaul) but the kit design. Excluding kit distribution and timing, Range Blaster has been stuck with its worst possible bomb and a horrendous special for almost two years. Midlines especially have had it exceedingly rough because Slosher's entire class shits on the identity of Midline as a role right now. It's basically why I've stopped playing comp entirely outside of friendly scrims. They way I want to play the game isn't viable, so the game can't be fun for me. People get upset that I don't adapt, but I don't want to adapt if the game won't be fun anymore as a result, bending over backwards to achieve more.

S rank is so competitive and im a casual. Well guess I gotta get used to it :/

KRAKEN CHEESE YAYYYYY

7:25 "one piece"

It had to be the ACNH devs to ruin this sequel lol

People keep saying content is ending, they only ever said that we'd be done with new Catalogs after 2 years, they just off handedly mentioned weapons would release around the same time. Rewatch the original direct

my splatoon 3 DREAM (copium) is that sizzle season 24' just gives every single weapon a 3rd kit. please

Let's not talk about the fact that the game itself and problems such as map design and weapon configuration are true, but after observing the European and American competitive circles for nearly three years, I want to say that I am really annoyed by many people (many refers to 99% of competitive players, I am not exaggerating). They rarely really think about it and really spend time trying weapons and tactics, and then they say that the environment is monotonous and there are too few optional weapons. They say that XX special weapons and XX weapons should be banned in the game every now and then (this will not solve the problem at all because banning the mainstream of the current environment will make another faction become the environment, such as Europeans and Americans now clamoring for a ban trizooka, but once the trizooka is gone, the crab will walk sideways, and at this time more than a year ago, they were shouting to ban the crab)