Salmon Run Is BORING? Reviewing YOUR Hot Takes 

Hot take: Salmon is a WAY better beginner mode than Turf War. It teaches the importance of movement, micromanagement of ink, game sense and learning to use a variety of weapons. Especially in Splatoon 3 where you're intended to play a variety of weapons for licenses, it's WAY better for showing the ropes.

May those who think Salmon run is Boring get an eternal Glowflies

My hot take: Tableturf Lvl 999 was unnecessary. There’s no point in grinding past lvl 50 Edit: ok ok, I get it. This isn’t a hot take. Lots of people agree.

Hot take: the locker sys in splatoon is underutilized

Honestly one thing I think is overlooked in making the experience less fun for casuals is how little inkable walls there are! Stuff like that is what makes this series so unique and gets rid of fun ways to move around for casuals and competitive players alike

I don’t have any hot takes, but as a member of Team Chaos my hottest take is “Give us THE most unbalanced, wild maps ever.” I’m talking a giant cylinder that’s rotating the whole match, a mini-golf course that gives you temporary buffs for completing putts, go FULL in on the chaos. So yeah I want Shifty Station-style maps in the main rotation.

Love the use of a Flyfish as a censors for bad words. Its very fitting for that particular boss salmonid.

I still find it weird that the main thing you earn from playing Salmon Run are Ability Chunks and yet you cannot use Ability Chunks IN Salmon Run despite us now being able to have multiple work suits

I consistently have this experience where my random teammates in Salmon Run barely fire their weapons or attempt to clear out lesser salmonids, they just single-mindedly rush for any eggs they see and usually get splatted in the process. That playstyle is confusing to me, because like, it's a horde battle mode. It lets you farm hit markers on slow, predictable targets to get free brain chemicals. Please fire your weapon at the fish, I promise it's more fun than dying on a big shot cannon for the 17th time in a row.

can we get a big ass stage like piranha pit? thats all i want. and dont make it a map where its a bunch of squares put together.

Salmon Run's gonna get better. Did you guys see that we're possibly getting 3 new modes to it? They actually have good differences to them against the other already-made Salmon Run modes, too!

It seems like the dev team behind Splatoon has a huge problem with not wanting to try anything new for their games

It’s not that Salmon Run isn’t that fun, it’s just that it’s not fun enough to the point where I’d ever consider playing it over normal battles.

I wish that we had unlocked a fuzzy hairstyle skin for beating the story mode.

i feel like the second worst part of this game (first of course being the stages) is that so many of the kits we get with each new season are really, REALLY boring. it wouldn’t exactly fix the little amount of kits we’re getting being annoying but it would certainly offer some consolation if we got good, FUN kits

Hot take: Having modes and 2 maps being locked into rotations is not well implemented in my opinion, especially for the third game in the series. The rotation system really doesn't work when every stage feels like a hallway. The devs should've done what MK8D did and have players vote on what stage to play on. I also think this could work as getting feedback on what stages are popular so they could (hopefully) rework the least popular stages.

Salmon Run is definitely still my favorite mode. I just wish we got prizes more fitting for SR instead of PVP (ability chunks are completely useless!). Also feels bad that when it comes to earning catalog points, winning a 3 or 4 round game of Salmon Run almost feels on par with losing a casual turf war. I play every rotation of SR at least up to the super bonus (maybe 4 or 5 games every couple of days) and I'm still not finished with my catalog this season.

Salmon run itself is getting a bit stale but it doesn’t stop me from scale grinding, also i agree about tornado being the most boring mode, more boring than mothership. if you get tornado on wave 1, it ironically a waste of time

Hot take: the spawn mechanic is not good and the bad spawn design is only amplifying how useless it is. It needs some major quality of life changes to not shuck

Here's my hot take as a top 5% big run player: Undertow spillway is permanently removed from rotation for a while, and then is rebuilt to be a lot more open, and released as a new salmon run map called 'underflow sewers' with the main gimmick being that you can enter pipes to get around the map faster.

Cool take: they need to stop abusing FOMO of the players to keep them around with limited time modes. In fact I actually believe making challenge modifiers, big runs and such more common would actually boost overall playtime on the game even if it will flatten peaks of player activity. Don't focus on adding 50 pieces of gear (yes customization is nice but it isn't too visible and the clothes aren't wildly different from one other), instead add a new ranked mode or something.

Extra Spicy Take: I actually don't mind most of the stages in Splatoon 3. While I do agree they are the weakest and need more flanks, I don't outright despise them like others in the fandom. I still have a good time playing on most of them.

Hot take I don’t think decay should have an effect on you if you play enough open matches. I think this because I like to not worry about my rank increasing and decreasing but at the same time I want to fight against people of my skill level without needing to do an obligated few series matches every season.

It would be so cool if we got a new species somehow in Side Order, maybe Cuttlelings or Salmonlings or even Inktolings since in the trailer there is a girl with Ocotling hair and no suction cups and inkling ears.

not sure if it counts, but *hot take:* the devs should make a summary for each weapon that you can view at any time on the Equip menu after listening to Sheldon/the twins for the first time. unless you have the patience to sit down and read, who's going to remember anything Sheldon said? the summary would say what the weapon can do, where it should be in the field, its role, and how well the Sub-weapon and Special synergize with it - how to play the weapon, basically. as it currently is, even after someone explained to me what the Tri-Stringer can do, i MOSTLY know on what it does. my only way of being sure is if the game told me. teaching me the controls is one thing... but the way Splatoon 3 teaches me how to use a weapon is not exaclty very effective.

Salmon Run is addicting to get money and gear especially using the Gacha Machine.

Hot take: League battles aren't that special. From the prespective of a player who plays alone almost ever and doesn't have enough splatoon friends to make a team, I don't get the mode. I did't miss them in splatoon 3

I love Salmon Run, and I'll play it over any other made any day! It will always stay fun, and I will try to become good enough where I can easily carry three other freelancers up to high EVP. (I basically only play freelance btw.)

If we're gonna have to keep the apocalyptic aesthetic for 3 we gotta grab the setting directors for Mario Strikers Charged. Every stage, ESPECIALLY crystal canyon just looks terrifying to be in

Ngl, though. We need a mode where it's infinite time and waves of salmonids. Not like waves 1, 2, and 3 for 100 seconds each, but one wave with infinite time, and salmonids don't stop coming. You just have to go and get a personal highscore until your whole team is wiped out.

5:52 yeah, that player with the tri slosher in the profile pic clearly meant tri stringer when he talked about buffing the range, yes yes. 👌 😂

Salmon Run is the only thing I play when I boot up this game. Haven’t touched battles since December.

I love the triple deluxe music that he throws in here. It was my first kirby game so I have a lot of nostalgia for it.

X should just be how all of ranked works from the start. A properly working rating system shouldn't be something players have to unlock, and not dividing the queues would benefit everyone at all levels because matchmaking could be a lot tighter.

3:33 ''splatfest"

I rly agree with the settings, I really really want them to make one that is based off of calimari county where mid is a barn that you can go in and on as well as tractors or other things

7:49 I kinda agree that shooters are too easy to use for what they can achieve. They might be easy to play and be good but in the end mastering a difficult weapon should give you a good advantage as a reward and it sometimes feels like this is not the case - pick splattershot, ez win. It's also very boring to fight shooters due to many of their properties which just make it harder for weapons of other classes. The roller + brush challenge showed me this again. This game becomes really fun as soon as there's no shooter in the lobby. But with what it is now, you usually have at least 1 or 2 in every game and that gets boring.

I love that you used the original twitter logo XD

Are us casual players missing out on private battles? I don’t really see the appeal unless you’re looking into competitive and need it for scrims and tournaments.

I’d love a buff to tri stringer’s range. And a paint buff for the full charge shots.

I disagree with the game being not fun for casuals. I only play the game alone, don't have many friends that play it much less own it. But I have a blast every time I pick up Splatoon. There's gonna be over 100 weapons/kits to pick from when Drizzle Season drops. There's so much cool and unique stuff to be discovered in every weapon, and that provides more than enough replay-ability and fun.

Hot take: Ink Storm is one of the best specials in the game and should be put on Glooga

Im still upset at how expensive the returning Spoon 2 Grizzco gear being so expensive Ill never understand who thought making this stuff cost so many scales, only to also have said scales take forever to collect (Kings can take a while to encounter, you can only get up to like 10 or so scales per king, AND have silvers and especially golds have ludicrously low rates) was a good idea

Salmon Run and Story Mode are the only modes I consistently have fun with. Turf and ranked are either consistently frustrating or mind numbingly boring.

For the part about hero weapons, I think they will be added in, maybe after side order, because there is at least two different banners that are grayscale, and they have a bunch of weapons just pictured on them, and you can see several of the hero weapons on them.

Tbh I’m shocked that so many people find Salmon Run to be boring or generally not appealing, when I actually enjoy it more than Turf War. I’ve always liked PvE modes so maybe that’s it, but it’s just so chaotic and fun!!

I honestly forget that splatoon 3 is supposed to have a chaos theme. The game feels like it's just as industrial and functioning as any previous game's worlds.

I'm definitely missing something here. Is Judd not a mammal anymore due to being immortal or is there details that I missed out on?

Glowflies is unfair, when you have to literally cheese the round, then it's actually poorly design it still needs a tweak

*I expect most people to not agree with me and call me stupid for this take, but I guess that's what makes it a hot take* Hot Take: I honestly think that nintendo should add custom stages instead of custom kits. I think that custom kits could theoridicly break the balance of the game (just imagine quad *insert best gun the game* + fizzy or torpedo + missile, and its 180p, suddenly a bad thing) and also in a way it takes away content from future updates, like why would nintendo add more kits if people can just make them themselves? Custom stages on the other hand always add more content. I'd imagine what nintendo could do is like every month they would announce two custom stages to go into a seperate rotation (this would incentivise people to actually make the best maps possible so that they get chosen) and that could mean that the official maps could be the "premium stages" (well, their stages kinda such right now so...yeah, just pretend that when I say "premium" they are actually good stages) and with that possibly adding the official stage background as something that can be chosem when making a stage.

My big Salmon Run problem is that it gives NO Catalog points! Winning one full wave of Salmon Run gives you less points than losing turf war. A full shift of three waves of Salmon Run is longer than a ranked match and you get HORRIBLE Catalog points! And most of the time you'll end up losing in the third wave because randos suck and it's impossible to get a proper full Salmon Run group together so you'll end up getting EVEN less points than previously mentioned! I only play Salmon Run during the special events or when I'm extremely sick of the other modes because otherwise the Catalog would never level up. Salmon Run should give MORE points than Turf War! (And probably less than Ranked, be in mid).

Bro these takes were cold as dry ice

Hot take: I would rather only have no third kits if it ment we got a new ranked mode.

When it comes to Dualies, here is my general thoughts: Splat Dualies need their ink jet/curling kit again Dapples need a buff to their roll, make it not have much end lag, and furthermore, make it go a bit further, it's an ambush weapon with a tiny circle of influence to ambush in. Oh and make it so they paint where they dodgeroll, that way the create terrain for themselves when they engage a fight in the way they want to. Kraken kit for a 3rd kit on tetras would be amazing for how it wants to play, that or wave breaker/chumps for a quick ink refill and a spot to start taking fights at advantage. Dualie Squelchers just need their ink consumption nerfs from 2 to be undone, maybe also undo the accuracy nerf from 2 as well. They had a lesser version of the Sloshing Machine issue where they got god kits and got hit hard after it. And for Gloogas, they are already so inaccurate and slow firing before a dodgeroll, they don't need to be a 3 shot kill, and after a dodgeroll, they should be doing a lot more than good accuracy at slightly longer than 52 range, I'd say they should get a solid range boost so they are more mid to backline dualies that play a role similar to the 96. Atm they have to play so risky for such little reward.

Salmon Run is boring? Freelancers make it hectic and you never know what to expect when you start a shift

Ah, yes, Gus's tweet / x post making ProChara think that Tri is Tri-Stringer instead of Tri-Slosher 🤭

Not a hot take, but something that I thought about before Splatoon 3’s release was the idea of incorporating water hazards into the story mode. While I don’t remember much, two things I thought would’ve been cool were: 1. A level with waterfalls that you drain using the drums that move platforms, then inking the waterfall and climbing up it before water starts to run through it again. 2. Having certain Octarians (standard octotroopers & Elite Octolings, specifically with chargers) that shoot water that have less range and speed than with ink, but immediately one shot the player.

I agree that .52 is a selfish weapon. As a recent .52 main, it's such a fun weapon tho and I wish was slightly more praised rather than shoved off the ledge. I dropped splash bc i couldn't play it slayer wise as it didn't work for me, and shot is something I'd rather not do, so I chose gal which was a good choice. I just wish it was praised a tiny bit more rather than most saying it's OP/ or skillless. Not saying I want it to be meta, but just used a bit more.

Hot take: every weapon should gets its own unique buff including specials and subs, this should serve as maybe a fun quality of life change or something as drastic as giving glooga a third dodge roll or undercover being ultra light weight aka 4 passive subs of swim/run speed, this should obviously effect weaker weapons more then already existing top tiers like BP or zap but I feel as if this is necessary to breath some life into the game while also making it more fun for people who enjoy weapons that are on the weaker side

5:52 I am pretty sure Gus means tri-slosher XD

I'll give my hot take, even if it is a bit negative: The seasons system was a terrible idea since they don't change nearly enough. The mid-season wait times for anything makes those months really stale and whenever a new season does come out it's only fresh for, like, 3 days before it becomes stale again. They really need to release content at a faster pace and a year into the game it feels like we've gotten a really disappointing amount of new content. They need to either really up the amount of content per season, since each season feels exactly the same as the last. That, or actually have mid-season updates that add any kind of content whatsoever, even if it's just a mid-way drop of weapon kits because they're barely any effort to make and we still don't have nearly enough. This, combined with other ways that make me extremely question if they know how to update the game (Only new modes being events that you'll barely get to play and don't feel special at all, stages being, well, you know, cashgrabby DLC (might change with side order but unless it blows me away I'm not getting it), and while this is minor promoting extremely minor features as big additions (looking at you anything-to-do-with-gear)) are why I _barely_ play this game anymore, and only when people ask me to play with them do I play. I don't even care about fests and big run anymore because the game's gotten so stale, and I love both of those events a lot.

I can agree with that last point in the single player. I completed the catalog a few weeks ago and basically haven’t touched the game, not just to give me a breather, but because pushing for high ranks isn’t always fun, and Salmon run has gotten pretty stale. Trying to get time to play with friends is also difficult so yeah.

I think salmon run could have a mode without time and you just have to get eggs. Maybe every 5 min you get a king salmon

5:28 Gus' comment about "no buff to tri's range" refers to tri-slosher I think. Gus is a bucket player and is tying a lack of buffs (which aren't needed since it's already strong) to a lack in game quality. Basically, isa joke lol. Kinda funny to see Chara interpret that as tri-stringer :p

Chump should replace missiles outright

3:51 ehm griller wave still exists ehm

Thanks to the editor for putting the twitter bird instead of that horrible x

Hot take: there should be a hlm game mode that you can unlock once you’ve already gotten hlm on the stage (spawning grounds, hydroplant, etc. Resetting it back to evp 40 and then grinding for 6+ hours to get back to hlm is detrimental. Also ultra stamp should be in sr

5:49 I watch him on yt he's a tri slosher main, he meant to buff tri slosher's range. Also look at his pfp it's him holding tri slosher.

Story mode was good and y'all are just mad that Grizz wasn't your tumblr-sexy-man inkling OC whose obsessed with humans, the mammal idea was implemented fine with the obvious implication that he was no longer sane and his plan would be world ending rather than start a new era of mammals.

Roasting Gus like that was pure gold 😭

5:51 i think gus meant buff tri sloshers range since he is a bucket guy

Hot take: splatoon will become irrelevant in the next year if they keep updating the game the way they are now. They need to address unstable networks (which is really down to how nintendo switch), no new mode, and making customizing gear less grindy. I have so many sets of gear I want to make and i’ve only made one ;-;

Hot Take: they should make it so that you can have an ink tank like you do in story mode with little bud in it, you just can't use him as a sub because that would be overpowered

Hot take: salmon is really the only reason I play splatoon anymore as ranked and turf war are so repetitive

i dont see alot of players talking about this (for the salmon run getting stale) im an overfisher and i usually play salmon run and well overfish but the music has become so repetitive that it actually gave me a headache and i had to use game audio so much less salmon run NEEDS new music music adds so much to the atmosphere of a game and with the chaotic and destructive theme of the salmonids they have so much potential for more music especially on extra wave with the king (btw new king, its been a year and we only got two. cmon nintendo)

I was upset that Grizz wasn't a literal photograph of a bear.

Hot Take: Tableturf is getting spoonfeeded and it feels super underrated

Hot take: the community acts like they're starving for content when they're really not. Meanwhile communities who are actually starving (Team Fortress, Titanfall, etc.) would kill for the current flow the S3 content.

They need a mode for players who want to pow wow with their comrades and opponents instead on inking. It's mildly annoying when your team is getting their heads blown off in a Turf War partly because your teammate is playing footsies with members of the opposing team.

To make chaos in Splatoon 3 stages, here's a few ideas: Splatoon stage where layout completely changes randomly every minute (something like mahi but more extreme), a stage where alpha and bravo sides completely different (like that one stage in Splatoon 1), and finally a map with A TON OF INKABLE WALLS AND SQUID SURGE POTENTIAL

I think if we get splatoon 2 enperries we're going to see that match with the heavy edit and become the base for meta comps.

a cool chaotic map could be a dump where all the old Shifty Station gimmicks went imagine stuff like angled ink geysers, broken flooders and squee-gs, and so on

8:21 Yeah as a casual/solo queue player once I got to the rank I wanted I’ve had no real incentive to keep playing other than to try the new weapons and maps (the cool challenges were a good mix up). Feels like the next step would be to try finding a team to play more competitively

My hot take is that chargers are worthless. Every game I see a charger in... whichever team has the charger or more of them, loses, and the result ends in them not getting more than 4 kills and 400p at best. I refuse to believe the weapon is strong if THIS many people prove themselves so incompetent with 'em

Hearing old odyssey near the end awakened my nonstalgia omg😢

Hot take - Marooner's is the worst stage in Next Wave due to the ship being entirely unpaintable, and escape options from Salmonids compared to other maps feels like an excessive choke. And if you can't kill the bosses fast enough, the game dreadfully lags in response, despite stating numerous times in patch notes that it's "fixed." Mid tide has so few egg launch options while dealing with 9 possible spawn points for stingers, and getting to said stingers just becomes a literal pain. The fans at times don't help, but instead harm the overall team.

Having a whole class be put down in the meta is very bad, I dont think making shooters unvaiable is the right way, just make shooters that help the team good, just like every other weapon

Hot take: Walleye Warehouse > every other map

Hot take: Reefslider is a great crab counter. If you slide through the crab, you can kill it. Or at the very least pop Reefslider behind crab to dispatch it. Oh, I should mention this is coming from someone who plays stuff like Aerospray MG and Napples.

Here’s a hot take: I don’t want this game to be main stream. Yeah it may sound like gate keeping. But when things get mainstream, is when people who don’t care about the game start to come in just because it’s popular now. And they make the whole experience worse for the game and the communities perception. Especially when kids and teens start playing. Splatoon is fine with its little community. I’d love to see it grow. But NEVER mainstream. It’s not as good as it sounds.

About The Hero Mode Takes: 1. I Don't Really Have A Problem With Having Only One Hero Mode Weapon, But ANOTHER Splattershot Reskin???? (And Judging By One Of The Artworks We See In The Side Order Trailer, That Trend Is Gonna Continue...) Why Not Do Something Like A Hero Splatana Instead? 2. The Thing With Mr. Grizz Is That They Still Could've Easily Done Mammal Enemies. The Large Globs Of Fuzzy Ooze Appear To Be Alive, Even If Not Complex. So They Could've Easily Just Had Him Make An Army Of Fake Ooze Mammals Instead Of Kidnapping All The Octarians Somehow. (Wait, How Did He Even Know Where To Find Them?) 3. Yeah... Hero Mode REEKS Of Missed Potential. A Lot Of The Ideas Are Cool On Their Own (Exploring Human Ruins, Octavio Redemption, Mammals Returning Ect.) But Were Either Mishandled, Or Simply Weren't Given Enough Time To Shine Because Of Everything Else. Also It's A Personal Theory Of Mine That They Were Initially Planning To Do A Hero Mode Related To The Salmonids, With How Mr. Grizz Is The Villain And We Have A Smallfry Best Friend. But Because They Couldn't Come Up With A Replacement For Salmon Run In Time, They Decided To Dial Thing Back In Hero Mode As To Not Make Playing SR After Finishing Hero Mode Feel Even Weirder Than It Already Does.

Hot Take: .52 Gal is the most overtuned weapon in splatoon at the moment, thing is also not conducive with being healthy for comps, it's a super selfish weapon. At least it doesn't have wall and booyah, but it should be a worse main weapon. I'd personally hit it in the fire rate as I feel it's a hair too fast firing.

Table turf should've been a spin off and should have more type of game modes

Would be nice to see some weapons in the future having kraken since I barely used that special and it looks fun, though I don't know how is kraken currently in right now like is it broken, too op or something

What I would've done for rotm is to go a little harder on the Lifehold reference and make chimera enemies, not just octos gaining fuzz but gaining features of various animals

Hot Take: Salmon Run is the most stress inducing game mode I’ve ever played… Also yes, I do agree that Story Mode had so much missed potential! My complaint is the Enemies. When I first got the game I was imagining Mr Grizz going all Mad Scientist mode! Using the DNA of the animals that was on the ship he was also on to create more powerful versions of said animals. (When that didn’t happen I added that concept into an OC because it just sounded way too cool to be left out. And by that I mean like Rise Of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and their antagonist.)

Here's a hot take from me, but it's more of a "personal preference" than a problem I see with the game. "I had more fun playing Splatoon 1+2 online modes."

2:32 It is depressing how true this is...

Hot take: I'm fine with x tank being merged with series, but making it only available after S+10 makes it pretty much unreachable for lots of players. I really like x battle's ranking system but I'm not going to grind ten ranks to get there.