Review: Splatoon 3 gives Nintendo’s weirdest world its safest sequel

videogameschronicle.com:

There is nothing quite like a down to the wire Turf War clash in Splatoon, and much of the magic dwells in the results screen.

After three minutes of fevered ink-splatting, an overhead map reveals the spread of the two team’s colours. Sometimes a clear victory is obvious: a sea of green bullying a pathetic blip of pink into a corner, say. But it’s rarely clear cut.

Outside of two bases smeared in home colours (unless one team’s done *horribly*) there are streaks, swirls and splatters. It could go either way.

Your brain does a broad calculation while the Switch computes it to a precise percentage point. That tiny window of will it/won’t it is as tense a moment as Nintendo has ever cooked up.

Yes, total annihilation can be fun. And Splatoon 3’s aggressive new specials – spanning crab tanks, kamikaze sharks and boost-dispensing mini fridges – allow organised teams to apply pressure better than ever before. (Side note: don’t buy into the cheerful kindness of Nintendo Treehouse staff on their regular streams – they were merciless death squads in our online tests.)

But the best drama is in the 49.9/50.1 colour split nail-biters, where the ebb and flow of your inked domain is felt every step of the way and the tiniest speck of territory makes all the difference. Sometimes the slightest change is enough.

Which seems to be the wider philosophy of Splatoon 3, a sequel that is surprisingly straight by Nintendo standards. Some detractors would say this is the way of things, that the company too often returns to the well of tired favourites. But even in the Mario sports games there’s always a hook to hang a new iteration on.

It’s golf, but also a sprint! It’s karting, but on the ceiling! It’s football, but with stat tweaking! This is