@Secret_Tunnel

I've gotten really into that tabletop turf battling game too. It's a great puzzler in this shooting game.

The big deal for us is how when you play Turf War in a party, everyone is always on the same team together rather than still randomly assigning teams as in 1 and 2, so now my SO and I can finally play Turf Wars together and make a mess as we should! Sure, we could still play the Ranked modes on a team in 2, but, we never liked those as much as good ol' Turf.

For those still wondering, you can now skip the news cast when you boot up the game.

Another welcome subtle change that I don't think has been mentioned yet: Bombs from teamies no longer make the same warning sound as ones from enemies. This helps make it easier to tell the difference when the bombs are not on the screen. I thought about how they shouldn't sound the same back in S1, so, nice to finally see this change.

Mop it up said:

For those still wondering, you can now skip the news cast when you boot up the game.

Here's a quick video showing just how quick things get since you can skip the news.



Mop it up said:

Another welcome subtle change that I don't think has been mentioned yet: Bombs from teamies no longer make the same warning sound as ones from enemies. This helps make it easier to tell the difference when the bombs are not on the screen. I thought about how they shouldn't sound the same back in S1, so, nice to finally see this change.

This is totally neat and I had not realized it. Thanks for sharing! I'm going to pay attention in future matches. Great to be able to know when you're safe or not.

I dunno what's going on, but I feel like I'm so much worse at this game compared to the first 2 Splatoons. Back in the day, my lifelong Halo experience led me to pretty consistently get kills without much trouble. Now every single kill feels like a huge struggle. These damn kids and their Fortnite. Now they're all better at shooters than me!

I'm starting to feel old. I can't keep up with these kids and their new video games. I woke up on my 26th Birthday with my first ever backache ;-;

@Hero_Of_Hyrule
Happy Birthday!

I finished story mode yesterday! Pretty fun. Started to get very repetitive, both aesthetically and mechanically, about halfway through, so I skipped all of Worlds 5 and 6 using my Smaug Pile of power eggs. I much preferred the shorter Octo Expansion style levels to the longer ones; it felt like many of the levels weren't very tightly designed around a single mechanic. Lots of just shooting Octarians over and over.

The plot was fun, and the final boss was great. Ending spoilers: I liked Grizz's characterization in the context of this story, but it felt different from how he talks in Salmon Run, and now that he's out of the picture, going back and playing Salmon Run feels pretty weird! People are speculating that Lil Judd runs Grizzco in the post-game, since he gets a little headset with a microphone after you beat Alterna? Strange. If this game is going to have a story mode, I wish it would just tell its genuinely interesting story in a direct way that doesn't require beating every bonus level and waiting years for DLC to get satisfying answers!

But hey, that's a lot of story analysis for a kids' game about talking squids. It's all in good fun.

I lose probably 90% of the games I play here! What's the deal? I was good at Splatoon 2!

Is it because I moved to a more western timezone and am thus now playing later at night, with a more skilled pool of older players?

It does matter who you're playing with. I picked up SW battlefront II again on the 4th and was doing possibly worse then any other player. then later on I would get 1st in the rankings commonly. and this was indeed due to the fact that all the pros left because I wasn't getting any more points then previously.

Just move to the Alaska.

I know I had over 1,000 hours in Splatoon 2, but I felt pretty godly back when that finished up. Even if I lost I'd still have done really well. Switching to Splatoon 3 was pretty starkly different and while I still feel I'm quite good, I do 'struggle' at times against certain teams in ways I hadn't dealt with on Splatoon 2 in a long time. So I have no idea what's in the kool-aid on this one.

Definitely different somehow.

That last Splatfest, and the special Triforce stage... just has me missing the Shifty Stations so much. I understand they wanted to do the Tricolor matches as a 3-gimmick but they could have totally done those as shifty stations or had those too because the uniqueness of a Shifty Station level is so distinct and it's sorely missed.

@Secret_Tunnel This is probably part of it, you may be matching with more Japanese players in your new time zone. Perhaps the matchmaking works differently in Splatoon 3, maybe it doesn't make much effort to try matching players it deems of a similar "rank," but who knows since its matchmaking process seems nebulous.

If you're specifically talking about the Turf War mode, 3 now allows people to play it in parties, so you may be stumbling upon opponent teams who are playing in groups and therefore more coordinated than a group of randos.

DrFinkelstein said:

That last Splatfest, and the special Triforce stage... just has me missing the Shifty Stations so much. I understand they wanted to do the Tricolor matches as a 3-gimmick but they could have totally done those as shifty stations or had those too because the uniqueness of a Shifty Station level is so distinct and it's sorely missed.

So much this! The Shifty Stations are the best ones in the whole series, I miss them too. And with this game embracing an "anarchy" theme it would make even more sense to have stages like them in this game, with their crazy and interesting gimmicks.

The Tri-color mode is fine and has its moments, but it's a different beast.

Mop it up said:

If you're specifically talking about the Turf War mode, 3 now allows people to play it in parties, so you may be stumbling upon opponent teams who are playing in groups and therefore more coordinated than a group of randos.

Ah, this must be it. There's definitely coordination going on!