This Splatoon 3 boss fight has an Easter egg from Super Mario Sunshine

Splatoon 3. The new shooter was launched Friday. Thanks to the boss fight, players can now experience horror at one of the lowest levels. Super Mario Sunshine.

Splatoon 3.You play the role of Inklings or Octolings (inspired by cephalopods) who shoot color ink from weapons and guns. Although the game’s online multiplayer is well-known, it also offers a single-player campaign where you can explore Alterna, an Arctic land. An Easter egg is found in one of the levels. Super Mario Sunshine.

[Ed. note: This post contains spoilers for one of the later boss fights in Splatoon 3’s single-player campaign.]

References the highest level Mario SunshineThis is the boss battle for Alterna’s sixth region in single-player campaigns. You will be fighting Big Man, Deep Cut’s giant manta-ray. The giant mantaray of Deep Cut disappears when you start the fight. You can see the light shadow from his gigantic body as it covers the ground with paint. The silhouette will become smaller as you spray paint on it. You can trigger the next stage by splitting them enough.

Image: Nintendo via Polygon

In reality, the fight refers to a level of nightmarishness from Mario Sunshine called “The Manta Storm” that takes place in the Sirena Beach area. In Super Mario SunshineMario’s task is to clear a goopy, paint-like substance from a resort beach. Splatoon requires that you paint every inch of the area. This is a fitting reference due to the similar gameplay of the two games.

In the level, Mario has to spray water on a giant shadow manta ray that’s covering the beach with paint. The manta Ray-shaped, threatening menace splits as he sprays water. It is the Splatoon developers aren’t event being subtle about the connection. The Mario SunshineLevel and Big Man fight use the exact same dual-tone trippy yellow-greenish-blue pattern.

Depending on how you’ve used the GameCube platformer, this reference could be either horrifying or charming. At the time, the Mario level garnered a reputation for being quite difficult, since you had to chase down so many manta rays on the beach, and is remembered as one of the most absurd levels in the game — so there’s a bit of a cruel irony to the reference.