If anyone does get it though, I need people I can talk to about it without spoiling it for them!!

I'd definitely say that the game is LONG, probably longer than it needs to be. If you want to get it, I reccomend to play it over a longer span of time in smaller sessions. I clocked in around 45 or 50 hours* by the end of it.

*15 or so of those were because I literally fell asleep playing.

Looking past it though, amazing artstyle and animation! The game looks gorgeous on basically any frame, combat gets REALLY good in the midgame and bosses are lovely (I just wish there were more!!) Story was fun and legitimately shocked me a time or two, and characters you meet actually contribute!!

The pacing is rough early on and during end game, music can grow on you a lot if you get past the old games music (it is a new composer, so I'm hoping the next game finds its proper groove), and there's a whole bunch of nitpicks I could use that can get tedious.

I can't believe this happens two days after I finally commit to writing an SBlast guide, in shambles /j

Obviously not the style for everyone, just how I feel at the moment. It's probably the first time in Splatoon 3 I've had multiple weapons I'm comfortable playing with at once. Usually I'd more likely hit 4-Star on a weapon and basically drop it like I've done with many weapons before.

Nothing since 5.1.0 is just stupid, this thing is the bottom of the barrel and they still had the audacity to put it on weapons without doing a thing to it.

I see, never actually looked at that but pretty cool to know.

Had no idea this was a thing, gives me the vibes of discord channels with nearly unreadable fonts though.