Splatoon 3 | We tried the main game modes.
A sequel that left us perplexed when it was announced, as it was not clear what Nintendo could add to a second chapter who, net of some obviously anachronistic choices, enjoyed, and still enjoys, excellent health. Any doubts, however, cleared up at the exact moment in which it was explained to us how Splatoon 3 is a project designed to improve, and refine, the previous chapter in every respect and it was enough for us to try it for a couple of minutes to understand how much work until Nintendo has done in recent years.
Actually, by looking more carefully we can understand how, in order to make Splatville more alive, the developers have resorted to a reduction of the framerate, exclusively in the game hub, and to a scaling of the latter on the distance. By taking advantage of this simple "trick" the Splatoon hub is able to show itself much more full-bodied in terms of details on the screen.
This is nothing that affects the final experience, net of a slight disorientation when you it goes from the granite 60fps present in all game modes to the 30fps of Splatville, but rather a stratagem that has allowed to make the Splatoon 3 hub more alive, as well as fill it with things to do. At every corner there is someone intent on selling us new clothes, a lot of elements turn out to be interactive and, as usual, by heading inside one of the buildings, or positioning yourself on a manhole, you can access one of the different ways of game proposals.
Alterna presents itself as the classic World Map, freely explorable net of freeing the various areas that make it up from a peculiar "hairy slime" that prevents access . To get rid of the purple jelly, you can use the tender Salmonello (literally a baby salmon) which, taking advantage of the energy infused by the eggs that we will collect in the various game levels, will hit the weak points of the hairy slime destroying it in a few moments. br>
Before dedicating ourselves to cleaning Alterna, we ventured through three levels of the Splatoon 3 campaign, facing a compelling mix of platforming, third-person shooting, environmental puzzles and exploration. The three missions we tried all turned out to be different in structure. In the first we found ourselves exploring an area in search of three keys that would allow us to exit the level. To do this we had to solve some environmental puzzles, using our paint gun, and exploit some of the innate abilities of our Inkling.
As a first taste, the triptych of missions of the Splatoon 3 campaign that we were able to try, convinced us both for variety and level design, obviously leaving us the curiosity to find out if Nintendo has evolved this aspect properly by offering a long-lasting campaign that can bring even those players who are not inclined to mainly multiplayer experiences closer.
Undoubtedly exploring Alterna at the end of the three missions was very intriguing, the map is full of secrets , of environmental enigmas, of complex crevices to reach and collectibles of various kinds and, in the few minutes at our disposal, it seemed to us to offer a very free approach to player, allowing him to decide which portions of the area to clear the hairy ooze, without driving him excessively.
At the end of our brief test of the campaign in Splatoon 3, we moved on to the "Mollusca Scrum", engaging in three battles 4 vs 4 in the purest spirit of the series. Without getting too lost wandering around Splatville, we went through the convenient "in game" menu to head to the Branco, the hub designed to access the various multiplayer modes. With great pleasure we were able to see how Splatoon 3 has evolved in terms of matchmaking, finally allowing quick access to games created by friends and making the whole procedure of team creation, and selection of the mode, easy and fast.
Excluding the new weapons shown to us during the test (squid and blade wiper), the rules of the Mollusca Scrum remain the same as always: two teams of four players have three minutes to smear as much territory as possible, while they will hit each other to sound of jets of paint to slow down the respective work. In Splatoon 3 there are new techniques: the impinnata, which allows you to swim up the walls very quickly, and the screwdriver, which allows you to jump out of the ink by turning 180 °. The peculiarity of these two new evasive maneuvers, net of speeding up the game action, is the ability to make the player-controlled character temporarily invulnerable, during the couple of seconds in which it will shine after performing one of these two techniques. .
At the end of the Mischie Mollusche triptych, and confirmation that at the launch there will be 12 maps in which to fight with buckets of ink, it was the turn to try the novelties present in Salmon Run, the cooperative mode present in Splatoon 3. As in the previous chapter, in Salmon Run, a group of four players will have to eliminate the various waves of salmon, making sure to collect the required number of eggs and deposit them in the container placed in a random point of the map within the time runs out.
Salmon Run, also in this new version, proves to be a demanding challenge that requires a great deal of cooperation from the players and a constant com unication to be able to survive. In this new guise, players will encounter ferocious creatures called Great Salmonoids, including the new Lid and Gunboat, and sometimes even Colossalmonoid, a giant Salmonarch that can take out an entire team with a couple of attacks, will appear. In addition, the Big Run will take place every month, an event in which the Salmonoids invade the city inhabited by Inkling and Octoling.
On the Salmon Run front we have not noticed huge differences compared to the past, how much more a series of refinements and improvements designed to make it more varied in the proposed situations. After the slaughter of pan-armed salmon, our first taste of Splatoon 3 has come to an end leaving us with greater clarity on the nature of this project which, as we also mentioned at the beginning, is the culmination of a project born on a console unlucky in terms of sales, consolidated at the debut of the Nintendo Switch and now refined in every aspect to be able to satisfy the requests of its large community.
Undoubtedly Nintendo has managed to propose a sequel that does exactly what is expected: to offer a formula already tested, and globally appreciated, improving numerous aspects and proposing some evolutions that do not affect the winning elements but that, on the contrary, make it interesting even for those who do not know what an Inkling is. br>
