Genre: Third-Person Shooter
Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo

The engine may fundamentally date back to the Wii U, but the way the colorful ink splatters around and runs down vertical surfaces still does the trick. Unlike the somewhat darker-toned second game, this third entry goes back to the bright whites, light wooden and metal materials and themes from the first game. The science fiction-inspired single player area looks like it came out of a title like "Starfield"! The town hub area runs at a jarring, choppy-looking thirty frames per second-- but the actual gameplay rolls along at a flawless sixty.

The chirpy fish voices are back! But aside from that exclamation, there isn't much to say about the game's soundtrack, other than that is has more in common with the first release than the second: banging drums, pronounced bass lines, and lots of electric guitar. If anything, this third title's music is metal-inspired, with songs such as "Paintscraper" or "Triple Dip"-- but it also has its share of punk rock motifs. As always in these "Splatoon" releases, the sound effects here are a model to other desigers of how to convey what's happening without the player even needing to look!

Splatoon 3 plays just like the first two titles-- except that the level designs have diverged in quality. The multiplayer maps have gone backwards, and can be summarized with this image, specifically the one on the right: all of the creativity like the skate park, oil rig, and so forth have been eschewed in lieu of linear, single choke-point levels that all look and play alike. But on the single player side, a whole "uncover the overworld map" mechanic has been introduced, along with almost "Super Mario"-levels of creativity in terms of stage gimmicks. So this latest "Splatoon" release is a tale of two catches then.

Splatoon 3 is an excellent game. It returns to the aesthetic of the original title, bolts on a better-than-ever single player mode, retains all of the-- and adds many new, such as a card game-- features from the first two releases, along with all sorts of new weapons and special abilities. The knock on it is that it's starting to feel like a bit of a re-tread-- there's not much here for this game to be iconic in its own right, and that an inevitable fourth entry will need to shake the formula up a bit to rejuvinate the "freshness". All the same, one can't go wrong with Splatoon 3 for chaotic paintball action in a fun universe.