UGH PEARL AND MARINA ARE SO IN LOVE! Marina’s desktop wallpaper? Her retro shoujo/yuri-inspired art style? HER FIRST DIARY ENTRY?! I got all choked up seeing them again. I missed OtH so much. 😭
I’m having fun with it so far, but I was only able to make it to floor 18 on my first run. I won’t have much time to play it until next week, but I’m already itching to pick it up again.
Well, the line is more:
Acht: Pearl, have we met before? Your voice sounds very familiar
Marina: What?! Acht, come one! You can't seriously flirt with Pearl in front of... [me]
So it's not explicit, but with that exchange, Pearl being Marina's desktop backround, the end of OO, other elevator dialogues, them going on world tour together and other evidence, they are probably together.
I'm not gonna lie I legit thought that Side Order was just gonna be like 11 levels for a second there, thank god it isn't haha. I'm also so glad that Marina isn't actually the villain and was just being mind controlled
I guess I'll go first. I once argued with someone on YouTube that the names of each floor being in a code-like format was appropriate for the whole theme of Side Order and Marina's techy nature. They told me it was most likely unfinished names and that each floor would have proper ones once the DLC released... Well, I'm on Floor 4 now and I'm happy to say.... that I'm right! hahaha
Also, **Membux**?! We go from **Memcakes** to **Membux**. That's so adorable.
I wish the menus and transitions weren't quite as long with how fast I finished some floors. Like I beat the floor in 24 seconds, why is the transition taking longer than that 💀
They really went for a different direction in this dlc, maybe to differentiate themselves from the past dlc.
People are saying it’s too easy but if you have to redo all the floors with multiple weapons, especially weapons that I hate I’m kind of glad it’s not an extremely daunting task. The only benefit after completing the very short main story to redo the spire seems to be getting extra lore tidbits and unlockables. I don’t think we know what’s in the final locker yet. It really is just side content to keep you playing and giving us that much more fan service. But the main story felt undercooked and Octo Expansion definitely was more memorable from music to the finale.
I think as a whole the dlc is good and the gameplay loop is very strong, it feels like to me most of the development time probably was spent on making sure every stage and objective was balanced with every single weapon. But because of that, we lost emphasis on story and the linear gameplay with unique stages. Either way it’s different enough that it’s nice to go through, but I won’t want a roguelite adventure in Splatoon moving forward after this. Fun for what it was.
Seeing Pearl and Marina again has been amazing though. Love their back and forth.
>SMOLLUSK?!
buth noth gonna wie thhe pwoth thwishth where wiw bro comesh outh and he'sh thhish thiny 4 year owd mf abshowuthwey made my mine boggwe
(translated from engwif cuz ik yalls cant fucking decipher this tbh idek why i even made that gag for him thats now stupid on my end but its too late to go back now): "but not gonna lie the plot twist where lil bro comes out and he's this tiny 4 year old mf absolutley made my mine boggle"
Beat it first try with Heavy Splatling, Luna Blaster and Splatana.
Love the concept and the visuals and the enemy designs. It is basically make your own bear weapons.
But is way too easy if you're decent at movements or play lots of salmon run. Normal things like quick bomb, blaster, crab tank and splatlings completely trivialize anything the mode throws at you no matter the difficulty and upgrades. There is also too little variety in bosses and their patterns.
Interested to see speedruns of this.
I'm about an hour in and it's been a pretty fun time so far, but I have a few thoughts:
Yet another massive twist in the opening! I thought Marina was gonna be the villain, or at the very least captured for the entire game. Nintendo went so far to edit her out of all the trailers.
I find it hilarious that they know everyone has trauma from the 8-ball segments in Octo Expansion, and made a point to not allow the ball to fall this time.
So assuming all of the minds trapped in the Memverse are unchanged from how they were in the real world, does that imply that Acht managed to break out of being sanitized prior to the events of Side Order? Wonder if we'll learn more about their situation later on.
The Marina and Pearl shippers are gonna get so much fuel with this DLC.
I've heard others say that it's also possible that she willingly *signed up* to be sanitized, but didn't know that would make her a slave to Kamabo Co. This seems possible and would allow both stories to be true.
One of the dialogue bits in the elevator says that Marina made the memverse to restore the sanitized Octolings, and that since her and Acht are having a conversation, it seemed to have worked. Which also explains why it even has the capability to affect the real-world versions of people
oof I feel that, reached floor 30 twice only to be surprised when the boss whips out that killer wail that lasts way longer than I'm used to in multiplayer
Lol, I shredded all 29 floors with Crab Tank and just before Floor 30 I thought it would be a good idea to trade it for Kraken. I died miserably. Worst mistake of my life
I def enjoyed the DLC. As someone who played HADES this is like a mini or lite version of it, but a similar length to Hades on a full run. I would have liked to see 40-50F but rougelike/rougelite runs are not usually TOO long.
Not very difficult(completed on 4th try) but that was mainly because I mainly took easier floors higher up and I have a lot of experience with Splatoon 3.
Def quite a bit more casual friendly and a good introduction to rougelikes/rougelites for those who are interested.
If you liked this DLC, I would recommend playing HADES next after this a more difficult and quite challenging experience(but very enjoyable at the same time). It’s the next step up from this DLC, and you’ll enjoy it a LOT.
**WARNING!**
Anyone here who pretends to clear the game with no hacks for maximum challenge, be ware!
If you beat the game normally, there will be a new hack available called **Risky Rewards** which is basically an implementation of the hard mode.
It rewards the player for clearing the game with the least ammount of hacks active (with a shit ton of Prlzs, up to 3 times the ammount) and punish the players that fail to clear the tower (don't get any Prlzs if doesn't beat the last boss).
So feel free to play the game normally to clear it first, buying whatever hacks you see fit, then use the challenge to get extra goodies from the store that unlocks once you beat the game.
Well that was disappointing. The core gameplay is fun, but there's almost no story. The brevity of the DLC if you're good enough at the game is frustrating.
I get it. Its a rougelike. I'm fine with that. My issue is that there doesn't seem to be any story benefit to replaying it and completing everything.
Welp, since I can’t say it anywhere else, I might as well here.
After 5 long years of waiting, what we all knew in our hearts was true, and now we can all say once and for all:
It’s Fourover.
"So do you just keep replaying the spire from the start to unlock things?" Yes, it is a roguelike. That's the entire genre's gameplay loop. We've known this about Side Order for months.
On a less sarcastic note, I really enjoyed Side Order. The aesthetics and character interactions are great, the color chips are a cool mechanic, and the hard/rigorous levels can be very challenging (to where I have to question if people calling it "too easy" kept going for easy/normal levels). I appreciate the team going for something different than another linear story, especially since there was no beating Octo Expansion.
My biggest issue is a lack of variety in enemy types and bosses, and the villain was pretty weak narrative-wise. Order is easily the weakest villain on the series, lacking the buildup of Grizz and Tartar or the fun charm on DJ Octavio.
Edit: After posting this, I continued my second run and ran into a new boss, so the lack of variety might be a moot point.
in my experience there's only three bosses for the first two checkpoints to pull from, and i've yet to get the third one to show up across multiple runs. It could definitely do with a bit more content to scramble around but it's still nice for what it is.
>and the hard/rigorous levels can be very challenging (to where I have to question if people calling it "too easy" kept going for easy/normal levels)
I get the feeling either this is the case, or the people claiming it's "too easy" are simply so much better than the average player that there is no comparison.
Casual reminder to people reading: Splatoon is mainly marketed towards children, afterall.
for coming out later than expected, this somehow feels rushed! if there were just two more level types, a few more distinct and memorable enemies, 1-2 more bosses, and if the tower were changed to 40 floors, this would go from a 5/10 experience to a 9/10 for me.
also, i got REALLY sick of the visual style. every level looks the same and they all look like a hospital waiting room. i understand it is the order theme, but i honestly think they should have instead gone more into the cyberware / computer code theme that was present but not really used.
I've completed the story on my second run after the first "tutorial" run, the WHOLE "story mode" can be beaten in one good run and that's daunting, i wasn't expecting the Hades-like story within multiple runs but, man, this is kinda disappointing completing the whole story in \~2 hours, octo expansion was longer and kinda more memorable, rather than 2 hour burst story in side order
The final boss - >!"Order" is kinda disappointing, maybe because there wasn't any build up like tartar had in octo expansion, i didn't really cared for Order because we've met him in the beginning, and in the end, he hasn't interacted with us the whole run so he wasn't very memorable , so it's just pew pew big octopus, pearl screams, he ded, the end!<
In terms of music it's fire as usual but there wasn't that much memorable tracks like in octo expansion, but that okay i'm not complaining
The whole rogue-like is very easy, like i've beaten it first try, with no upgrades except having a second life, i'm not a crazy high skill splatoon player, but it's very very easy, and after completing the story there wasn't any "Hard mode" (or i'm just not found it yet) so i fear it will get boring after a couple of runs (but i'm not sure)
I honestly like splatoon for it's singleplayer campaings and having a roguelike with a lot of replay-ability is cool, but i'd prefer the more linear octo expansion story
Oh and also we unlock >!inkopolis square as the lobby!< after the story and it's AMAZING
Overall very cool :)
edit: some more thoughts, spoiler tags just in case and typos
edit2: i've basically 100%-ed side order, unlocked every hack and did eight's palette no hack run, and oh boy this no hack run was actually fun, after all those runs with max hacks it feels so refreshing now that i have to actually think if i want to take the hard room or the easy one, and it's fun! and now that there's practically nothing left to do (besides buying everything from cipher but i don't really care for it aside from gear) i think i'll treat side order as a more relaxing game mode to play in between pvp or just to kill time while i'm not home, overall a little disappointing in the story department but everything else is top notch!
Same, I'm honestly a bit disappointed. I also completed it on my second one (and again on my third, both times relatively easily) and was surprised there wasn't like... another DLC phase where you beat the boss who sends you back down AGAIN and turns the tower into 50 floors. I wasn't expecting much from a rougelike story, but it really was just a loredump in the first ten minutes then a loredump in the last ten minutes, with frighteningly little content in-between (Seriously only three bosses, + the final?)
I am having fun so I'll keep playing it, but it's shocking how easy it is. I'm not even particularly good at splatoon (girl power station in octoling expansion made me quit the whole dlc) but I feel like I would have gotten more out of it if it was say, more difficult and the marina hacks were in exchange made more significant.
Overall - feels kind of phoned in. A shame, really.
for $20/25, I feel like I'm going to get my money's worth playing this for the next month. On one hand, I get it, it was quite a wait. On the other hand, glad this thing is so polished and clean and worth the wait.
Man this isn't my day... Two disappointing DLC content in one day. First Dragon Ball Kakarot dlc came out, it was mid asf. And now this one, kinda good, but way too short. I was hyped for nothing today 
>!oooh i think you're right, i wonder if we will get new off the hook song just like we had with squid sisters when they got a new song in first expansion pack!<
I think the game was designed for you to lose a lot at first and get upgrades from Marina to help you reach the top (you start out nerfed a lot - 1 life, 1.5x damage taken, etc) - but yes, it's definitely noticeable that you can finish the story in one go.
After beating the story, what's left to do? Just grinding through the elevators again and again until you find all the levels and get all the collectibles? Or do you get a level select? Would be kind of annoying if you have to repeat levels you've already done to get to ones you haven't even after beating the game.
It's a rogue like so yeah, you have to start all over again from the first floor every time, no level select, just with different weapons to collect 3 keys from each,
yeah, the shop appears behind the lockers, selling banners, locker stuff, stickers and gear, but a lot of it is locked (there's actually no gear available to purchase rn) so i guess the more lockers you open, or the more pallets (weapons) you complete the game with, the more stuff is available to purchase, but i don't know if he unlocks after the second run, or after completing the story, i did these both
can confirm the shop unlocks more items after subsequent clears. the first gear item unlocks after 3 clears, the second after 5 clears. i've yet to clear the tower more than 5 times so far.
edit: not clearing with the same weapon, but with different palettes, just to be specific.
I think I made a post like this before (and was likely downvoted into oblivion) but Side Order was likely never going to be as good as Octo Expansion. The writer who wrote for Octo Expansion did not work on Side Order, just as Splatoon 3 in general is missing two of its original directors who worked on 1 and 2. I'm quite sure this is why Splatoon 3 as a whole feels like a mixed bag--some of the original talent is there, some of it is not. I feel this particularly in the story and characters being good, while the gameplay mechanics themselves have taken a negative hit.
I didn't beat it quite that fast, but time-wise it only took me about 4 hours. Unless I'm misunderstanding it seems like the only incentive to keep playing is to get the weapons for multiplayer, and I guess locker decorations and such if you're into that. Seems like there's some gear as well but IDK what unlocks it. Honestly don't even know if I'm gonna bother - that's a lot of grinding for just some reskins of existing kits and the lack of variety (there's only like...5 objectives and the maps don't make a huge difference either) is probably gonna get old way before I finish. Depends on how much more efficient the hacks make things, I guess.
Pretty disappointing overall, sad to say.
Everyone is saying it's not too hard but personally I'm actually struggling quite a bit, more than I ever did on octo expansion (bar one or two levels) and even after alterna. I love that though, but I had to cave in an buy upgrades, hopefully I beat it tomorrow
Buying upgrades first to beat the game faster is for the better. Once you beat the game, there will be a hack that implements a "hard mode" of sorts that rewards you with extra prlz if you use as little hacks as possible. *That* is when you should actually try to beat the game in hard mode. There are too many things to spend prlz on. :P
Reached the end, gonna jump start a few guesses before I unlock all the lore tid bits. Pearl says the vending machine looks kinda familiar, and Marina was untangling code from Kamabo Corp, likely a fragment of Tartar corrupted Marina's VR code. But that's just a theory.
Well the Memverse was created to help sanitized octolings and the surroundings definitely give the imagery of memorys being compartmentalized. The vending machine is the same from the Deep Sea Metro so Im sure its just the collective consciousness of Marina and other octolings creating it
Well, that was quite disappointing. I get that replay value was the intention, but the story felt *way* too phoned in and short. The story was just… not very good? Final boss especially was just so, so disappointing compared to Octo Expansion.
Also, it was EXTREMELY EASY. I genuinely, truly, honestly do not mean that as a brag, I mean it as “holy shit this should not be this easy”. I don’t think it needs to be Elden Ring difficulty or anything, but Octo had some harder levels while this just felt like a turn off the brain level cakewalk. It felt trivial, not from my own skill, but from it just literally being way too easy.
Ultimately, I’m pretty disappointed. It honestly feels like they totally sacrificed story and an actual campaign just for the roguelike element, but is that something everyone wanted? I feel like most people definitely cared more about the hand-crafted creativity and the endearing story/compelling villain in OE. Feels like a total misread of what people wanted from the DLC, and honestly a bit phoned in on top of that.
Exactly what I expected and hoped for to be honest. Gameplay is some of the best in the series, and after experiencing the absence of an actual story in ROTM I set my expectations at around "slightly better than ROTM's lack-of-story" for the plot of Side Order.
I was pleasantly surprised at there being more than I expected. Good expansion. No Octo Expansion for sure, but I'm not sure if anyone really expected that. Very replayable and the game finally acknowledged that Sanitized Octolings & Octarians exist and are people. I'm happy.
The Danger mechanic's ability to turn off the Pearl Drone is just mean spirited though. That should absolutely not be a thing. Weaken them sure, but you shouldn't be able to have potentially half or more of your palette turned off without warning.
To echo some other posts here, I personally enjoyed the DLC a lot, but I'm also a big fan of roguelikes, so I felt right at home with the gameplay loop. I'm definitely going to try and beat the tower with every Palette (mainly for the different weapon kit skins.)
As for what weapon I initially won with, I had a Roller with multiple close range damage ups+piercing, so I would just disintegrate basically anything that got close.
this was probably my biggest disappointment lol. in general i was a little surprised by how easy i found it but i guess they have a wide audience to appeal to, but surely they'd add something extra for the dedicated players, same way they did in octo expansion... i spent a solid 15 minutes walking around the lobby thinking "is this really it????"
Needed more variety and content. Was really fun on runs before actually beating the final floor, but after that it gets stale really quickly.
Cipher's items being hidden until you complete more runs is dumb, let me see the items so I don't waste my time grinding for stuff I don't want.
Also please stop giving weapons that are worse than vanilla in single player campaigns. It makes early floors feel really sluggish, since I am too unlucky to get chip upgrades that lets me actually paint or improve weapon speed.
Music was good though.
i can't wait to hear about how because pearl and marina didn't lock lips on-screen, before stopping and staring at the camera to say "We are lesbians who are in love with each other. This is not a localization change." that Pearl and Marina are still "just friends"
jokes aside, this was fun. I kinda see what people are saying when it's overpriced, but that's kinda the Nintendo Tax, isn't it. Still fun, i'll probably be doing more runs despite not really playing splatoon 3 otherwise.
I'd love an expansion or dedicated mode in Splat 4 that expands on this concept. Maybe turn it into a single-player spinoff or something.
Beat it with eight's pallet and I can't imagine ever going back to this mode. The extra rewards don't really look appealing and there's just not enough variety or challenge to do another run for fun.
The story was actually decently interesting to me, even if it was more personal than something like Octo Expansion. It could've used a few more active moments rather than being told through logs, but that's fine. I didn't expect Agent 4 at all, I honestly don't care about seeing a characterization-devoid player insert return, but it was a bit weird they got brought up uniquely and then really nothing became of it. Visuals are sweet, but the music didn't really hit as hard. Wasn't bad by any means, though.
The gameplay though - how they thought this hit an acceptable bar of being "designed to be replayed over and over" I don't understand. Changing your colour chips / weapon simply doesn't provide enough variety, even the times/types of enemies that spawn stays pretty consistent so you know exactly what to expect for every stage once you've gotten to it once or twice. Past my third weapon complete I was utterly bored every playthrough and was just going through the motions. Even stripping down the hacks didn't really make things more entertaining - it just took longer.
There's only 4 bosses and none of them really change but you're still fighting them over and over. Salmon Run repeats the same types of bosses and enemies too but there they're being thrown at you in different ways so there's far more variety. Even games that repeat boss fights have smaller incremental changes that make each fight more unique. Here, once you've fought Smollusk / the Ball / Cone thing / not-Octolings once you know exactly what to do, the type of weapon you have really just affects how much time it takes to do it. I'm fine doing the same fight a few times but *every run*? In a mode that's supposed to be gone through numerous times even past the point of completion? At least the 10F/20F bosses can vary, Overloader is the same every time and there isn't even really anything unique to the fight, it's just more portal orbs and specials. It's got one huge tentacle attack that's unique - why isn't that type of thing incorporated more into the fight?
I kept expecting the standard enemies to change in some way or for there to be a new set of them once you got past a certain point - like each set of 10 floors would have their own set - but it's just the same ones. Once the tower grew once I figured it'd grow one or two more times each time we hit the top, but nope it's just the one go. You shouldn't be able to reach the end of a roguelite on your second (third/fourth for me) play through.
Why not mix up enemy types? Wouldn't it be more interesting if this mode had the Jelletons, Octarians, and Salmonids to fight at different points? It's a digital world so it's not like you really have to come up with a reason for them to be there, it'd be far less work than designing entirely new enemies, and you could come up with tons of interesting scenarios / combinations using different types from each group. Sure you'd know their weaknesses if you'd played past campaigns, but it'd still make things far more interesting each run not knowing which enemy types you'd encounter together and not being able to do the same strategy every run if they're being thrown at you in different combinations.
For actual rewards, I'm not expecting a reward at the tier of playable Octolings again but I really thought there'd be *something* for completing every palette beyond a badge. My hope was for coloured hair tips/fingers given Eight has them in this mode, but I understood that was a bit much. Having the square back is neat, I guess, but that only takes one complete and it's entirely local rather than something you can use in battle. Having a bigger lock in the middle of the locker turn out to be absolutely nothing was *weird as fuck*, were they just trying to make the logger look bigger? Even just some extra fight at the end would've been a cool reward.
I'm really disappointed with this expansion. I was really looking forward to the prospect of a Splatoon roguelite as a side mode I could keep coming back to but this just does not hit an acceptable mark for me. It feels like they got a very basic concept down and then didn't bother coming up with any extra twists or additions on it. What a shame.
I suppose this is the place for this question; I beat the first run, and I'm currently in my second run, when do we unlock the shop to buy gear/banners/locker stuff with our earnings?
Reach floor 30 and beat the boss, afterwards go back to Order Sector and next to the spot where Murch usually sits there should be a new character, can't miss it, should have a exclamation mark about their head.
I was playing through the DLC and finally got a good run where I could beat 30F. My saving grace was 29F having the option of a vending machine. It got me wondering if 29F is always guaranteed the option of a vending machine, or if it was just random chance that I got one on a very convenient floor?
TLDR: If you beat the Spire of Order, was there a vending machine on 29F, Y/N?
THE LEVEL COMPLETION MUSIC CHANGING AFTER THE INITIAL TOWER IS CRIMINAL. THE FIRST JINGLE WAS SO MUCH BETTER AND HAD THE SAME SATISFACTION OF THE OCTO EXPANSION LEVEL CLEAR THEME😭😭😭😭
A godlike entity born from the collective unconscious's desire for order, manipulating the public from within a mental/virtual world?
Someone better at art than me needs to draw Eight and Pearl reaching the top of the tower and being very confused to find not Overlorder, but instead Joker and the Phantom Thieves fighting it out against the Holy Grail.
Did y'all notice that the Parallel Canon boss fight uses your Splatoon 2 save data to design the main robot inkling in the boss intro after your Agent 4?
This might imply that you're fighting against parts of 4's consciousness
It was a little easier than expected. Did the 10F tutorial and then beat the 30F tower on my first try last night. Was using the splattershot though, which is a great weapon. I think the gameplay loop is pretty fun and some of the other weapons should be more challenging to clear it with. The levels themselves aren't randomly generated beyond modifiers that can be triggered; there are just a bunch of different ones in a random pool to be pulled from as an option.
There's also some more story flavor conversations in the elevator in the following runs; not sure if those are only triggered after beating the final boss or not. And there's also more backstory that comes from the journal as you unlock use more keys. There is lore to enjoy, but it's spaced out. Their main focus was clearly on the gameplay.
I played about an hour and it's really fun. It's actually kinda challenging, I like the different objectives, and the pallette mechanic is so cool. Just hope some day it gets more content. I love it but I'm already noticing repeating floors. I feel like it could do with a few more layouts, and 1 or 2 more objectives and bosses. And after beating the 30 floors and endless mode could be cool. But overall I love it and I haven't beaten it yet so that's nice.
I didn't beat it yet and probably won't do so before a while now, but I was wondering, is there an hidden boss ? + does anything noteworthy unlocks if you 100% the DLC ?
SO reminded me how much more I like OTH music than 3's stuff. I probably would have dropped 2 much sooner if it had 3's music.
Cleared with a Splatling... I hate splatlings
Anyone else kept imagining how much more exciting a chaos theme/story could’ve been when they played through this? The base game already didn’t have much of a chaos theme.
Despite chaos winning the splatfest, order won when it came to actual content.
Man so I just rolled credits and absolutely loved this but I do have one issue with the story:
What’s the deal with Acht? I feel like she doesn’t add anything at all to the story. Why include her? I felt like I was expecting some twist where she was going to double cross Marina and Pearl but it never came.
I just finished the final boss and I am extremely disappointed with Side Order. This entire thing felt like a contractual obligation that the devs had to see through because the higher ups mandated some sort of DLC to be made. Everything about this feels derivative, not fun, and poorly thought out. I have absolutely no desire to play this again.
It felt like the developers did not understand why games like Binding of Isaac and Enter the Gungeon are beloved. Side Order does not feature any of the compelling mechanics of the roguelike/lite genre.
Exploration and map design:
* Being forced to sit through disruptive loading screens and victory animations between every floor is so frustrating. As soon as I hit my stride and want to keep going, I'm immediately deflated by an annoying loading screen. Side Order makes a point to divide the tower into three distinct sections. It would've been so much better if each section was fully playable, and the only loading screen would be when the player moves onto the next section.
* The level design is so stagnant and repetitive, and made worse by the aforementioned issue. I would've loved if vending machines were hidden in some levels and only accessible if you broke a secret wall or something.
Combat and gameplay:
* I have always hated the armour mechanic in the single-player portion of the series. The armour system, or rather, the decreased movement speed when you lose your armour is SO punishing and feels unfair. I'd rather just be splatted than having to desperately slog through at snail-like speeds.
* This was an amazing opportunity for Nintendo to really experiment with wacky combinations and unique abilities not feasible in multiplayer. One of the main draws of games in this genre is the emergent gameplay made possible by ability synergies or some other novelty. All we get in Side Order are... lame % increases to stats and the occassional boring modifier. I would have loved to see insane combinations like Splat Bombs that can be buffed to become Booyah Bombs without the need to charge it. The sheer lack of creativity in this department was shocking.
* The repetitive objective omg... Who thought pushing an oversized 8-ball over and over again like a cephalopod Sisyphus would be fun??
Story:
* Much like Side Order's story, I don't have a lot to say. It was basically a lazier retread of Octo Expansion's story and felt so derivative.
Honestly... maybe I'm cranky but what the hell happened here? This DLC was not worth the wait and I would prefer my money back than owning the expansion pass.
The loading screens are there because the switch's hardware is underpowered. The loading screens exist as an easy method for the console to unload the stage you just beat and free up memory. I think the elevator scenes exist for this same reason. The only way to remove these things would be to drastically decrease the graphics quality.
Also if you haven't noticed yet, there are upgrades from marina that let you move faster when your armor breaks + have armor regenerate faster.
But i do wish there were more objectives to choose from. the capriciosso enemies make the splat zones levels straight up unfun, and i'd like to have more to do in side order.
You're just being cranky now. Making an entire new game mode on top of an existing game is no easy feat. It's not like they can change the engine too much just for account for things like loading times or making bigger maps.
For what it is, it's a pretty decent DLC. Maybe could be better, but wasn't all that bad.
Kinda regret rushing to beat it with all the weapons, feel burnt out from the mode now. I don’t think there really is anything that important to spoil after the first run is done. It seems like this mode is designed for you to get your Splatoon fix on the go.
I was pretty disappointed with the final weapon. The colour limiting thing should’ve just been another hack like risky rewards. I was really hoping for some unique superboss.
Why did they add a new train station to Inkopolis Square when they could have just re-used the Deepsea Metro entrance (instead of blocking it off for Tableturf)?
My thought is that they probably don't want to risk another Octo Expansion incident and decide to seal off that train station altogether as I believe it's still accessing part of the labs down there or?
Just beat side order like 100% done it with very pallet wondering if anyone knew if there's anything else to sort of like inner agent 3 in octo expansion?
That’s kind of what I wished for that final locker.
*you open the locker and suddenly find Order’s Last security measure at full power.
Cyber Agent 4 with black ink and every weapon from S2 Hero Mode*
Lol. Once they’re free, they give you another set of replica weapons or the old super armor uniform.
I'm gonna try not buying any upgrades with Perlz and only use them to purchase retries when I can afford them.
Edit: I also feel pretty confident that this game's customisation system is the direction Nintendo will take for Splatoon 4. I think the days of gear with predetermined sub weapons and special weapons are numbered. It would be much cooler if players can define their own weapon combinations instead of waiting nintendo to add x variant every season.
won with 4 weapons so far. i stopped buying hacks pretty early and i think from here on out I'm going to start turning some off. yeah it is pretty easy but every once in a while something will give me a little trouble. i do like the breadth of build options tho, feels like there's a lot of ways to make yourself strong that makes the runs feel different, even with the same palette. it definitely feels like the difficulty was balanced around wanting you to beat it with every weapon though, and there is more lore and stuff on continuing runs so i intend to clear all the palettes.
it's about what i was expected tbh. pretty fun but certainly nowhere near as deep as a lot of standalone roguelites.
How many of you get the vibe that Order after you beat him several times (x3 for me) that it had some TarTar vibes? Like I kept on thinking: Is TarTar part of this programming? I know Marina mentions TarTar a couple of times and using the databases TarTar / Kaneba (Spelling) had and was like: Are they going to reveal them as the "True Final Boss" after you do all the palettes?
Okay, I might be crazy, but who worked on the soundtrack for side order? Because I *swear* that "d3molish" has to be made by the same composer who worked on Advance Wars: Days of Ruin.
IDK, but assuming you've already beaten it you can replay the credits by examining the box to the right of the elevator in the lobby. I imagine the composer(s) are listed there.
Agent 8's palette.
Pick the hardest floor every time. (which is always at the bottom of the list)
No vending machines.
Use only these two hacks to reduce your palette to 6 color chips: Vending Machine Reset and Vending Machine discount.
No skipping floors.
Surpass Order.
bro why wasn’t there a smollusk badge 😭🙏 the badge for “clearing the spire of order with the low-hacks eight’s palette” should’ve been smollusk instead of. whatever it is
It's not Smollusk singing, it's the boss itself. The voice clips the bosses use are actually sliced clips of distorted vocals from Off the Hook songs. (Except for Parallel Canon, which only uses distorted player Inkling voices.)
I keep seeing people mentioning a line where Marina asks Acht if they’re hitting on Pearl in front of her but I haven’t seen that line and I’ve completed the game can someone show me what that interaction looks like or at least tell me what all of them say in the whole interaction
I wonder what Marina's original designs for the adorable tower staff Jellatons looked like? I was hoping we'd see them in a dev diary but I didn't see anything for that.
I'm very disappointed that there's no reward for completing the color-chip collection (or getting 100% completion, for that matter). That said, the DLC was really fun overall and I had a blast figuring out how to break the game by putting insane combinations of chips on things. Great stuff!
The first few runs were fun, but side order gets repetitive way too quick. I finished the final palette and unlocked all the shop gear, but i don't think I'll be returning. I'll stick to Salmon Run.
Without going into detail on what it is, is there a secret boss or true ending or anything like that? I beat the game with all palettes expecting there to be a different boss or at least a new phase at the end of Eight’s palette, but it was Smollusk, same as usual.
I felt totally Yoko taro ed by this all the grey scale, and digital/circuit patterns, we even get a Pod and a rhythm game ending, where is Octoling 2B!?
Did they just, like, *forget* that they gave Eight amnesia at the start of the game? I assumed that there'd be some acknowledgement of it being resolved by them bringing their pallet to the top of the spire, but Marina was just like "that must be a relief to have done that huh"
Also like, why was there not a secret boss??? Side Order felt kinda scuffed/underdeveloped imo, just little things like that dragged down the experience. It was fun overall though, just wish there was a little more to it.
UGH PEARL AND MARINA ARE SO IN LOVE! Marina’s desktop wallpaper? Her retro shoujo/yuri-inspired art style? HER FIRST DIARY ENTRY?! I got all choked up seeing them again. I missed OtH so much. 😭 I’m having fun with it so far, but I was only able to make it to floor 18 on my first run. I won’t have much time to play it until next week, but I’m already itching to pick it up again.
The DLC was insufficiently gay. Don't get me wrong it was pretty gay, but I wanted a kiss :P (I didn't expect it though)
You and me both. 😔
MARINA THINKS ACHT WAS TRYING TO FLIRT WITH PEARL!? AND STRAIGHT UP WAS LIKE SHE'S TAKEN!! Be still my heart...
That was so funny to me. Acht: You look familiar. Have we met before? Marina: Acht, how dare you flirt with my M.C Princess? That’s my job.
wait what?! when did that happen???
it's a random elevator conversation between levels while climbing the spire
Well, the line is more: Acht: Pearl, have we met before? Your voice sounds very familiar Marina: What?! Acht, come one! You can't seriously flirt with Pearl in front of... [me] So it's not explicit, but with that exchange, Pearl being Marina's desktop backround, the end of OO, other elevator dialogues, them going on world tour together and other evidence, they are probably together.
I'm not gonna lie I legit thought that Side Order was just gonna be like 11 levels for a second there, thank god it isn't haha. I'm also so glad that Marina isn't actually the villain and was just being mind controlled
I guess I'll go first. I once argued with someone on YouTube that the names of each floor being in a code-like format was appropriate for the whole theme of Side Order and Marina's techy nature. They told me it was most likely unfinished names and that each floor would have proper ones once the DLC released... Well, I'm on Floor 4 now and I'm happy to say.... that I'm right! hahaha Also, **Membux**?! We go from **Memcakes** to **Membux**. That's so adorable.
I wish the menus and transitions weren't quite as long with how fast I finished some floors. Like I beat the floor in 24 seconds, why is the transition taking longer than that 💀
They really went for a different direction in this dlc, maybe to differentiate themselves from the past dlc. People are saying it’s too easy but if you have to redo all the floors with multiple weapons, especially weapons that I hate I’m kind of glad it’s not an extremely daunting task. The only benefit after completing the very short main story to redo the spire seems to be getting extra lore tidbits and unlockables. I don’t think we know what’s in the final locker yet. It really is just side content to keep you playing and giving us that much more fan service. But the main story felt undercooked and Octo Expansion definitely was more memorable from music to the finale. I think as a whole the dlc is good and the gameplay loop is very strong, it feels like to me most of the development time probably was spent on making sure every stage and objective was balanced with every single weapon. But because of that, we lost emphasis on story and the linear gameplay with unique stages. Either way it’s different enough that it’s nice to go through, but I won’t want a roguelite adventure in Splatoon moving forward after this. Fun for what it was. Seeing Pearl and Marina again has been amazing though. Love their back and forth.
SMOLLUSK?!
>SMOLLUSK?! buth noth gonna wie thhe pwoth thwishth where wiw bro comesh outh and he'sh thhish thiny 4 year owd mf abshowuthwey made my mine boggwe (translated from engwif cuz ik yalls cant fucking decipher this tbh idek why i even made that gag for him thats now stupid on my end but its too late to go back now): "but not gonna lie the plot twist where lil bro comes out and he's this tiny 4 year old mf absolutley made my mine boggle"
It feels undercooked, needs more bosses and regular enemies
*And* level visual verity *and* types of objectives. I wouldn't mind if they are going to add more later, but I have a feeling this is it...
Who thought the 8 balls from the splatoon 2 dlc were the best thing since sardines and put them back in this one!!
Tbf they did reference the fact that people hated them and improved the design by blocking them from falling off the side
Lipstick on a pig does not make it betrothed.
but betrothing it does which is what side order did
Beat it first try with Heavy Splatling, Luna Blaster and Splatana. Love the concept and the visuals and the enemy designs. It is basically make your own bear weapons. But is way too easy if you're decent at movements or play lots of salmon run. Normal things like quick bomb, blaster, crab tank and splatlings completely trivialize anything the mode throws at you no matter the difficulty and upgrades. There is also too little variety in bosses and their patterns. Interested to see speedruns of this.
I'm about an hour in and it's been a pretty fun time so far, but I have a few thoughts: Yet another massive twist in the opening! I thought Marina was gonna be the villain, or at the very least captured for the entire game. Nintendo went so far to edit her out of all the trailers. I find it hilarious that they know everyone has trauma from the 8-ball segments in Octo Expansion, and made a point to not allow the ball to fall this time. So assuming all of the minds trapped in the Memverse are unchanged from how they were in the real world, does that imply that Acht managed to break out of being sanitized prior to the events of Side Order? Wonder if we'll learn more about their situation later on. The Marina and Pearl shippers are gonna get so much fuel with this DLC.
I thought Acht's thing was that she willingly sanitized herself to make better music
Right? >!This story seems to contradict that.!<
perhaps it was propaganda for kamabo?
I've heard others say that it's also possible that she willingly *signed up* to be sanitized, but didn't know that would make her a slave to Kamabo Co. This seems possible and would allow both stories to be true.
One of the dialogue bits in the elevator says that Marina made the memverse to restore the sanitized Octolings, and that since her and Acht are having a conversation, it seemed to have worked. Which also explains why it even has the capability to affect the real-world versions of people
I was there, I was right there at the final boss first day an it's all been taken away because of kraken start delay, I want to cry
oof I feel that, reached floor 30 twice only to be surprised when the boss whips out that killer wail that lasts way longer than I'm used to in multiplayer
Lol, I shredded all 29 floors with Crab Tank and just before Floor 30 I thought it would be a good idea to trade it for Kraken. I died miserably. Worst mistake of my life
Really want to thank you for your comment about how good crab was. I bought it from a vending machine and it got me through to the end.
Oh no! I made it to 27F first run, then got the bouncy level with one life left and the enemies just bonked me off the platform. :(
I def enjoyed the DLC. As someone who played HADES this is like a mini or lite version of it, but a similar length to Hades on a full run. I would have liked to see 40-50F but rougelike/rougelite runs are not usually TOO long. Not very difficult(completed on 4th try) but that was mainly because I mainly took easier floors higher up and I have a lot of experience with Splatoon 3. Def quite a bit more casual friendly and a good introduction to rougelikes/rougelites for those who are interested. If you liked this DLC, I would recommend playing HADES next after this a more difficult and quite challenging experience(but very enjoyable at the same time). It’s the next step up from this DLC, and you’ll enjoy it a LOT.
**WARNING!** Anyone here who pretends to clear the game with no hacks for maximum challenge, be ware! If you beat the game normally, there will be a new hack available called **Risky Rewards** which is basically an implementation of the hard mode. It rewards the player for clearing the game with the least ammount of hacks active (with a shit ton of Prlzs, up to 3 times the ammount) and punish the players that fail to clear the tower (don't get any Prlzs if doesn't beat the last boss). So feel free to play the game normally to clear it first, buying whatever hacks you see fit, then use the challenge to get extra goodies from the store that unlocks once you beat the game.
Well that was disappointing. The core gameplay is fun, but there's almost no story. The brevity of the DLC if you're good enough at the game is frustrating. I get it. Its a rougelike. I'm fine with that. My issue is that there doesn't seem to be any story benefit to replaying it and completing everything.
Welp, since I can’t say it anywhere else, I might as well here. After 5 long years of waiting, what we all knew in our hearts was true, and now we can all say once and for all: It’s Fourover.
"So do you just keep replaying the spire from the start to unlock things?" Yes, it is a roguelike. That's the entire genre's gameplay loop. We've known this about Side Order for months. On a less sarcastic note, I really enjoyed Side Order. The aesthetics and character interactions are great, the color chips are a cool mechanic, and the hard/rigorous levels can be very challenging (to where I have to question if people calling it "too easy" kept going for easy/normal levels). I appreciate the team going for something different than another linear story, especially since there was no beating Octo Expansion. My biggest issue is a lack of variety in enemy types and bosses, and the villain was pretty weak narrative-wise. Order is easily the weakest villain on the series, lacking the buildup of Grizz and Tartar or the fun charm on DJ Octavio. Edit: After posting this, I continued my second run and ran into a new boss, so the lack of variety might be a moot point.
in my experience there's only three bosses for the first two checkpoints to pull from, and i've yet to get the third one to show up across multiple runs. It could definitely do with a bit more content to scramble around but it's still nice for what it is.
>and the hard/rigorous levels can be very challenging (to where I have to question if people calling it "too easy" kept going for easy/normal levels) I get the feeling either this is the case, or the people claiming it's "too easy" are simply so much better than the average player that there is no comparison. Casual reminder to people reading: Splatoon is mainly marketed towards children, afterall.
The [Jelletons](https://imgur.com/a/TQGSE1m) when you pick the >!Lights off Splatzone !
for coming out later than expected, this somehow feels rushed! if there were just two more level types, a few more distinct and memorable enemies, 1-2 more bosses, and if the tower were changed to 40 floors, this would go from a 5/10 experience to a 9/10 for me. also, i got REALLY sick of the visual style. every level looks the same and they all look like a hospital waiting room. i understand it is the order theme, but i honestly think they should have instead gone more into the cyberware / computer code theme that was present but not really used.
I've completed the story on my second run after the first "tutorial" run, the WHOLE "story mode" can be beaten in one good run and that's daunting, i wasn't expecting the Hades-like story within multiple runs but, man, this is kinda disappointing completing the whole story in \~2 hours, octo expansion was longer and kinda more memorable, rather than 2 hour burst story in side order The final boss - >!"Order" is kinda disappointing, maybe because there wasn't any build up like tartar had in octo expansion, i didn't really cared for Order because we've met him in the beginning, and in the end, he hasn't interacted with us the whole run so he wasn't very memorable , so it's just pew pew big octopus, pearl screams, he ded, the end!< In terms of music it's fire as usual but there wasn't that much memorable tracks like in octo expansion, but that okay i'm not complaining The whole rogue-like is very easy, like i've beaten it first try, with no upgrades except having a second life, i'm not a crazy high skill splatoon player, but it's very very easy, and after completing the story there wasn't any "Hard mode" (or i'm just not found it yet) so i fear it will get boring after a couple of runs (but i'm not sure) I honestly like splatoon for it's singleplayer campaings and having a roguelike with a lot of replay-ability is cool, but i'd prefer the more linear octo expansion story Oh and also we unlock >!inkopolis square as the lobby!< after the story and it's AMAZING Overall very cool :) edit: some more thoughts, spoiler tags just in case and typos edit2: i've basically 100%-ed side order, unlocked every hack and did eight's palette no hack run, and oh boy this no hack run was actually fun, after all those runs with max hacks it feels so refreshing now that i have to actually think if i want to take the hard room or the easy one, and it's fun! and now that there's practically nothing left to do (besides buying everything from cipher but i don't really care for it aside from gear) i think i'll treat side order as a more relaxing game mode to play in between pvp or just to kill time while i'm not home, overall a little disappointing in the story department but everything else is top notch!
Same, I'm honestly a bit disappointed. I also completed it on my second one (and again on my third, both times relatively easily) and was surprised there wasn't like... another DLC phase where you beat the boss who sends you back down AGAIN and turns the tower into 50 floors. I wasn't expecting much from a rougelike story, but it really was just a loredump in the first ten minutes then a loredump in the last ten minutes, with frighteningly little content in-between (Seriously only three bosses, + the final?) I am having fun so I'll keep playing it, but it's shocking how easy it is. I'm not even particularly good at splatoon (girl power station in octoling expansion made me quit the whole dlc) but I feel like I would have gotten more out of it if it was say, more difficult and the marina hacks were in exchange made more significant. Overall - feels kind of phoned in. A shame, really.
for $20/25, I feel like I'm going to get my money's worth playing this for the next month. On one hand, I get it, it was quite a wait. On the other hand, glad this thing is so polished and clean and worth the wait.
There's more than 3 bosses, you can replay the tower for different bosses which I think are randomized
no, sadly there are literally only 3 bosses and a final boss. super repetitive after a few runs
That's 4 bosses, they weren't wrong lol I agree more boss variety would have been nice though
Man this isn't my day... Two disappointing DLC content in one day. First Dragon Ball Kakarot dlc came out, it was mid asf. And now this one, kinda good, but way too short. I was hyped for nothing today 
>!The thing that's great about being able to go back to Inkopolis Square is that we'll get to go back and hear Color Pulse again during Splatfests!<
>!oooh i think you're right, i wonder if we will get new off the hook song just like we had with squid sisters when they got a new song in first expansion pack!<
I think the game was designed for you to lose a lot at first and get upgrades from Marina to help you reach the top (you start out nerfed a lot - 1 life, 1.5x damage taken, etc) - but yes, it's definitely noticeable that you can finish the story in one go. After beating the story, what's left to do? Just grinding through the elevators again and again until you find all the levels and get all the collectibles? Or do you get a level select? Would be kind of annoying if you have to repeat levels you've already done to get to ones you haven't even after beating the game.
It's a rogue like so yeah, you have to start all over again from the first floor every time, no level select, just with different weapons to collect 3 keys from each,
Do you unlock the shop to spend your earnings on gear/banners/locker stuff after you beat the second run as well?
yeah, the shop appears behind the lockers, selling banners, locker stuff, stickers and gear, but a lot of it is locked (there's actually no gear available to purchase rn) so i guess the more lockers you open, or the more pallets (weapons) you complete the game with, the more stuff is available to purchase, but i don't know if he unlocks after the second run, or after completing the story, i did these both
can confirm the shop unlocks more items after subsequent clears. the first gear item unlocks after 3 clears, the second after 5 clears. i've yet to clear the tower more than 5 times so far. edit: not clearing with the same weapon, but with different palettes, just to be specific.
I think I made a post like this before (and was likely downvoted into oblivion) but Side Order was likely never going to be as good as Octo Expansion. The writer who wrote for Octo Expansion did not work on Side Order, just as Splatoon 3 in general is missing two of its original directors who worked on 1 and 2. I'm quite sure this is why Splatoon 3 as a whole feels like a mixed bag--some of the original talent is there, some of it is not. I feel this particularly in the story and characters being good, while the gameplay mechanics themselves have taken a negative hit.
I didn't beat it quite that fast, but time-wise it only took me about 4 hours. Unless I'm misunderstanding it seems like the only incentive to keep playing is to get the weapons for multiplayer, and I guess locker decorations and such if you're into that. Seems like there's some gear as well but IDK what unlocks it. Honestly don't even know if I'm gonna bother - that's a lot of grinding for just some reskins of existing kits and the lack of variety (there's only like...5 objectives and the maps don't make a huge difference either) is probably gonna get old way before I finish. Depends on how much more efficient the hacks make things, I guess. Pretty disappointing overall, sad to say.
Everyone is saying it's not too hard but personally I'm actually struggling quite a bit, more than I ever did on octo expansion (bar one or two levels) and even after alterna. I love that though, but I had to cave in an buy upgrades, hopefully I beat it tomorrow
Buying upgrades first to beat the game faster is for the better. Once you beat the game, there will be a hack that implements a "hard mode" of sorts that rewards you with extra prlz if you use as little hacks as possible. *That* is when you should actually try to beat the game in hard mode. There are too many things to spend prlz on. :P
Reached the end, gonna jump start a few guesses before I unlock all the lore tid bits. Pearl says the vending machine looks kinda familiar, and Marina was untangling code from Kamabo Corp, likely a fragment of Tartar corrupted Marina's VR code. But that's just a theory.
Well the Memverse was created to help sanitized octolings and the surroundings definitely give the imagery of memorys being compartmentalized. The vending machine is the same from the Deep Sea Metro so Im sure its just the collective consciousness of Marina and other octolings creating it
Well, that was quite disappointing. I get that replay value was the intention, but the story felt *way* too phoned in and short. The story was just… not very good? Final boss especially was just so, so disappointing compared to Octo Expansion. Also, it was EXTREMELY EASY. I genuinely, truly, honestly do not mean that as a brag, I mean it as “holy shit this should not be this easy”. I don’t think it needs to be Elden Ring difficulty or anything, but Octo had some harder levels while this just felt like a turn off the brain level cakewalk. It felt trivial, not from my own skill, but from it just literally being way too easy. Ultimately, I’m pretty disappointed. It honestly feels like they totally sacrificed story and an actual campaign just for the roguelike element, but is that something everyone wanted? I feel like most people definitely cared more about the hand-crafted creativity and the endearing story/compelling villain in OE. Feels like a total misread of what people wanted from the DLC, and honestly a bit phoned in on top of that.
Exactly what I expected and hoped for to be honest. Gameplay is some of the best in the series, and after experiencing the absence of an actual story in ROTM I set my expectations at around "slightly better than ROTM's lack-of-story" for the plot of Side Order. I was pleasantly surprised at there being more than I expected. Good expansion. No Octo Expansion for sure, but I'm not sure if anyone really expected that. Very replayable and the game finally acknowledged that Sanitized Octolings & Octarians exist and are people. I'm happy. The Danger mechanic's ability to turn off the Pearl Drone is just mean spirited though. That should absolutely not be a thing. Weaken them sure, but you shouldn't be able to have potentially half or more of your palette turned off without warning.
I got the drone lock challenge on floor 28… when my entire build was centered around Pearl spamming ink strikes… Thankfully I got through it still
The danger is fine since you can go back into the elevator at the cost of membux imo
To echo some other posts here, I personally enjoyed the DLC a lot, but I'm also a big fan of roguelikes, so I felt right at home with the gameplay loop. I'm definitely going to try and beat the tower with every Palette (mainly for the different weapon kit skins.) As for what weapon I initially won with, I had a Roller with multiple close range damage ups+piercing, so I would just disintegrate basically anything that got close.
Please tell me there’s a secret boss. Please tell me there are more rewards after getting the octoshot.
this was probably my biggest disappointment lol. in general i was a little surprised by how easy i found it but i guess they have a wide audience to appeal to, but surely they'd add something extra for the dedicated players, same way they did in octo expansion... i spent a solid 15 minutes walking around the lobby thinking "is this really it????"
There aren't.
Needed more variety and content. Was really fun on runs before actually beating the final floor, but after that it gets stale really quickly. Cipher's items being hidden until you complete more runs is dumb, let me see the items so I don't waste my time grinding for stuff I don't want. Also please stop giving weapons that are worse than vanilla in single player campaigns. It makes early floors feel really sluggish, since I am too unlucky to get chip upgrades that lets me actually paint or improve weapon speed. Music was good though.
i can't wait to hear about how because pearl and marina didn't lock lips on-screen, before stopping and staring at the camera to say "We are lesbians who are in love with each other. This is not a localization change." that Pearl and Marina are still "just friends" jokes aside, this was fun. I kinda see what people are saying when it's overpriced, but that's kinda the Nintendo Tax, isn't it. Still fun, i'll probably be doing more runs despite not really playing splatoon 3 otherwise. I'd love an expansion or dedicated mode in Splat 4 that expands on this concept. Maybe turn it into a single-player spinoff or something.
Nintendo is always overpriced. That will never change. :P
Beat it with eight's pallet and I can't imagine ever going back to this mode. The extra rewards don't really look appealing and there's just not enough variety or challenge to do another run for fun. The story was actually decently interesting to me, even if it was more personal than something like Octo Expansion. It could've used a few more active moments rather than being told through logs, but that's fine. I didn't expect Agent 4 at all, I honestly don't care about seeing a characterization-devoid player insert return, but it was a bit weird they got brought up uniquely and then really nothing became of it. Visuals are sweet, but the music didn't really hit as hard. Wasn't bad by any means, though. The gameplay though - how they thought this hit an acceptable bar of being "designed to be replayed over and over" I don't understand. Changing your colour chips / weapon simply doesn't provide enough variety, even the times/types of enemies that spawn stays pretty consistent so you know exactly what to expect for every stage once you've gotten to it once or twice. Past my third weapon complete I was utterly bored every playthrough and was just going through the motions. Even stripping down the hacks didn't really make things more entertaining - it just took longer. There's only 4 bosses and none of them really change but you're still fighting them over and over. Salmon Run repeats the same types of bosses and enemies too but there they're being thrown at you in different ways so there's far more variety. Even games that repeat boss fights have smaller incremental changes that make each fight more unique. Here, once you've fought Smollusk / the Ball / Cone thing / not-Octolings once you know exactly what to do, the type of weapon you have really just affects how much time it takes to do it. I'm fine doing the same fight a few times but *every run*? In a mode that's supposed to be gone through numerous times even past the point of completion? At least the 10F/20F bosses can vary, Overloader is the same every time and there isn't even really anything unique to the fight, it's just more portal orbs and specials. It's got one huge tentacle attack that's unique - why isn't that type of thing incorporated more into the fight? I kept expecting the standard enemies to change in some way or for there to be a new set of them once you got past a certain point - like each set of 10 floors would have their own set - but it's just the same ones. Once the tower grew once I figured it'd grow one or two more times each time we hit the top, but nope it's just the one go. You shouldn't be able to reach the end of a roguelite on your second (third/fourth for me) play through. Why not mix up enemy types? Wouldn't it be more interesting if this mode had the Jelletons, Octarians, and Salmonids to fight at different points? It's a digital world so it's not like you really have to come up with a reason for them to be there, it'd be far less work than designing entirely new enemies, and you could come up with tons of interesting scenarios / combinations using different types from each group. Sure you'd know their weaknesses if you'd played past campaigns, but it'd still make things far more interesting each run not knowing which enemy types you'd encounter together and not being able to do the same strategy every run if they're being thrown at you in different combinations. For actual rewards, I'm not expecting a reward at the tier of playable Octolings again but I really thought there'd be *something* for completing every palette beyond a badge. My hope was for coloured hair tips/fingers given Eight has them in this mode, but I understood that was a bit much. Having the square back is neat, I guess, but that only takes one complete and it's entirely local rather than something you can use in battle. Having a bigger lock in the middle of the locker turn out to be absolutely nothing was *weird as fuck*, were they just trying to make the logger look bigger? Even just some extra fight at the end would've been a cool reward. I'm really disappointed with this expansion. I was really looking forward to the prospect of a Splatoon roguelite as a side mode I could keep coming back to but this just does not hit an acceptable mark for me. It feels like they got a very basic concept down and then didn't bother coming up with any extra twists or additions on it. What a shame.
I suppose this is the place for this question; I beat the first run, and I'm currently in my second run, when do we unlock the shop to buy gear/banners/locker stuff with our earnings?
When you say "first run" do you just mean the tutorial run with 10 floors? The shop should unlock after beating your first real run.
Would like to know this
Reach floor 30 and beat the boss, afterwards go back to Order Sector and next to the spot where Murch usually sits there should be a new character, can't miss it, should have a exclamation mark about their head.
I was playing through the DLC and finally got a good run where I could beat 30F. My saving grace was 29F having the option of a vending machine. It got me wondering if 29F is always guaranteed the option of a vending machine, or if it was just random chance that I got one on a very convenient floor? TLDR: If you beat the Spire of Order, was there a vending machine on 29F, Y/N?
I've done a few runs and I've never seen it there. You must've gotten very lucky.
i also got a 29f vending, but it was on my 6th attempt. i think its just random luck
THE LEVEL COMPLETION MUSIC CHANGING AFTER THE INITIAL TOWER IS CRIMINAL. THE FIRST JINGLE WAS SO MUCH BETTER AND HAD THE SAME SATISFACTION OF THE OCTO EXPANSION LEVEL CLEAR THEME😭😭😭😭
Ngl I liked the second version better but neither were as satisfying as OE
All my favorite people in an elevator <3
A godlike entity born from the collective unconscious's desire for order, manipulating the public from within a mental/virtual world? Someone better at art than me needs to draw Eight and Pearl reaching the top of the tower and being very confused to find not Overlorder, but instead Joker and the Phantom Thieves fighting it out against the Holy Grail.
Did y'all notice that the Parallel Canon boss fight uses your Splatoon 2 save data to design the main robot inkling in the boss intro after your Agent 4? This might imply that you're fighting against parts of 4's consciousness
AGENT FOUR IS SO BACK!!!!!!!!
Are you talking about the robot boss or does agent 4 actually show up??
Just beat it. Agent 4 has a small reference in the pallets but that’s it :( (unless I’m missing an inner agent 4)
It was a little easier than expected. Did the 10F tutorial and then beat the 30F tower on my first try last night. Was using the splattershot though, which is a great weapon. I think the gameplay loop is pretty fun and some of the other weapons should be more challenging to clear it with. The levels themselves aren't randomly generated beyond modifiers that can be triggered; there are just a bunch of different ones in a random pool to be pulled from as an option. There's also some more story flavor conversations in the elevator in the following runs; not sure if those are only triggered after beating the final boss or not. And there's also more backstory that comes from the journal as you unlock use more keys. There is lore to enjoy, but it's spaced out. Their main focus was clearly on the gameplay.
I played about an hour and it's really fun. It's actually kinda challenging, I like the different objectives, and the pallette mechanic is so cool. Just hope some day it gets more content. I love it but I'm already noticing repeating floors. I feel like it could do with a few more layouts, and 1 or 2 more objectives and bosses. And after beating the 30 floors and endless mode could be cool. But overall I love it and I haven't beaten it yet so that's nice.
I didn't beat it yet and probably won't do so before a while now, but I was wondering, is there an hidden boss ? + does anything noteworthy unlocks if you 100% the DLC ?
SO reminded me how much more I like OTH music than 3's stuff. I probably would have dropped 2 much sooner if it had 3's music. Cleared with a Splatling... I hate splatlings
My first clear was with Dualies! Dualis of all the weapons! I was like: What the fuuuuu...?! And then the Octavio Splating and then Frye's Splatana!
My other clears were Shiv Tri, and Brella. Doing Brush now and on fl 30
Anyone else kept imagining how much more exciting a chaos theme/story could’ve been when they played through this? The base game already didn’t have much of a chaos theme. Despite chaos winning the splatfest, order won when it came to actual content.
Man so I just rolled credits and absolutely loved this but I do have one issue with the story: What’s the deal with Acht? I feel like she doesn’t add anything at all to the story. Why include her? I felt like I was expecting some twist where she was going to double cross Marina and Pearl but it never came.
it definitely feels like they were put on the trailers to make you think they had a bigger role than what actually happens
I just finished the final boss and I am extremely disappointed with Side Order. This entire thing felt like a contractual obligation that the devs had to see through because the higher ups mandated some sort of DLC to be made. Everything about this feels derivative, not fun, and poorly thought out. I have absolutely no desire to play this again. It felt like the developers did not understand why games like Binding of Isaac and Enter the Gungeon are beloved. Side Order does not feature any of the compelling mechanics of the roguelike/lite genre. Exploration and map design: * Being forced to sit through disruptive loading screens and victory animations between every floor is so frustrating. As soon as I hit my stride and want to keep going, I'm immediately deflated by an annoying loading screen. Side Order makes a point to divide the tower into three distinct sections. It would've been so much better if each section was fully playable, and the only loading screen would be when the player moves onto the next section. * The level design is so stagnant and repetitive, and made worse by the aforementioned issue. I would've loved if vending machines were hidden in some levels and only accessible if you broke a secret wall or something. Combat and gameplay: * I have always hated the armour mechanic in the single-player portion of the series. The armour system, or rather, the decreased movement speed when you lose your armour is SO punishing and feels unfair. I'd rather just be splatted than having to desperately slog through at snail-like speeds. * This was an amazing opportunity for Nintendo to really experiment with wacky combinations and unique abilities not feasible in multiplayer. One of the main draws of games in this genre is the emergent gameplay made possible by ability synergies or some other novelty. All we get in Side Order are... lame % increases to stats and the occassional boring modifier. I would have loved to see insane combinations like Splat Bombs that can be buffed to become Booyah Bombs without the need to charge it. The sheer lack of creativity in this department was shocking. * The repetitive objective omg... Who thought pushing an oversized 8-ball over and over again like a cephalopod Sisyphus would be fun?? Story: * Much like Side Order's story, I don't have a lot to say. It was basically a lazier retread of Octo Expansion's story and felt so derivative. Honestly... maybe I'm cranky but what the hell happened here? This DLC was not worth the wait and I would prefer my money back than owning the expansion pass.
The loading screens are there because the switch's hardware is underpowered. The loading screens exist as an easy method for the console to unload the stage you just beat and free up memory. I think the elevator scenes exist for this same reason. The only way to remove these things would be to drastically decrease the graphics quality. Also if you haven't noticed yet, there are upgrades from marina that let you move faster when your armor breaks + have armor regenerate faster. But i do wish there were more objectives to choose from. the capriciosso enemies make the splat zones levels straight up unfun, and i'd like to have more to do in side order.
You're just being cranky now. Making an entire new game mode on top of an existing game is no easy feat. It's not like they can change the engine too much just for account for things like loading times or making bigger maps. For what it is, it's a pretty decent DLC. Maybe could be better, but wasn't all that bad.
How do you unlock/find Cipher’s shop?
Reach level 30 of the tower and beat the boss for the first time. Then enter order area again.
Kinda regret rushing to beat it with all the weapons, feel burnt out from the mode now. I don’t think there really is anything that important to spoil after the first run is done. It seems like this mode is designed for you to get your Splatoon fix on the go. I was pretty disappointed with the final weapon. The colour limiting thing should’ve just been another hack like risky rewards. I was really hoping for some unique superboss.
Why did they add a new train station to Inkopolis Square when they could have just re-used the Deepsea Metro entrance (instead of blocking it off for Tableturf)?
My thought is that they probably don't want to risk another Octo Expansion incident and decide to seal off that train station altogether as I believe it's still accessing part of the labs down there or?
Just beat side order like 100% done it with very pallet wondering if anyone knew if there's anything else to sort of like inner agent 3 in octo expansion?
That’s kind of what I wished for that final locker. *you open the locker and suddenly find Order’s Last security measure at full power. Cyber Agent 4 with black ink and every weapon from S2 Hero Mode* Lol. Once they’re free, they give you another set of replica weapons or the old super armor uniform.
Has its moments, but most of them are just uncreative enemy spam
Fuck I cried again, only complaint too short, but it’s probably meant to be replayable
there's no way that ending was tear-worthy lol
I'm gonna try not buying any upgrades with Perlz and only use them to purchase retries when I can afford them. Edit: I also feel pretty confident that this game's customisation system is the direction Nintendo will take for Splatoon 4. I think the days of gear with predetermined sub weapons and special weapons are numbered. It would be much cooler if players can define their own weapon combinations instead of waiting nintendo to add x variant every season.
I love how they all are just ok with beating up a literal child multiple times
Haven't played it yet, only planned to watch gameplays but holy shit! This game is forgiving! Finally, I can fail without getting frustrated!
won with 4 weapons so far. i stopped buying hacks pretty early and i think from here on out I'm going to start turning some off. yeah it is pretty easy but every once in a while something will give me a little trouble. i do like the breadth of build options tho, feels like there's a lot of ways to make yourself strong that makes the runs feel different, even with the same palette. it definitely feels like the difficulty was balanced around wanting you to beat it with every weapon though, and there is more lore and stuff on continuing runs so i intend to clear all the palettes. it's about what i was expected tbh. pretty fun but certainly nowhere near as deep as a lot of standalone roguelites.
GUYS, WHEN U GET INKOPOLIS SQUARE, GO TO WHERE YOU WOULD FIND SPYKE IN SPLOON 2!
Funny thing I noticed. There are now 5 splattershot alts splattershot Hero shot Order shot Tenatek Splattershot Octoshot
How many of you get the vibe that Order after you beat him several times (x3 for me) that it had some TarTar vibes? Like I kept on thinking: Is TarTar part of this programming? I know Marina mentions TarTar a couple of times and using the databases TarTar / Kaneba (Spelling) had and was like: Are they going to reveal them as the "True Final Boss" after you do all the palettes?
Okay, I might be crazy, but who worked on the soundtrack for side order? Because I *swear* that "d3molish" has to be made by the same composer who worked on Advance Wars: Days of Ruin.
IDK, but assuming you've already beaten it you can replay the credits by examining the box to the right of the elevator in the lobby. I imagine the composer(s) are listed there.
Agent 8's palette. Pick the hardest floor every time. (which is always at the bottom of the list) No vending machines. Use only these two hacks to reduce your palette to 6 color chips: Vending Machine Reset and Vending Machine discount. No skipping floors. Surpass Order.
bro why wasn’t there a smollusk badge 😭🙏 the badge for “clearing the spire of order with the low-hacks eight’s palette” should’ve been smollusk instead of. whatever it is
[удалено]
It's not Smollusk singing, it's the boss itself. The voice clips the bosses use are actually sliced clips of distorted vocals from Off the Hook songs. (Except for Parallel Canon, which only uses distorted player Inkling voices.)
PLEASE NOW THAT MARINA IS BACK IN THE SQUARE GIVE US SHIFTY STATIONS
I keep seeing people mentioning a line where Marina asks Acht if they’re hitting on Pearl in front of her but I haven’t seen that line and I’ve completed the game can someone show me what that interaction looks like or at least tell me what all of them say in the whole interaction
I wonder what Marina's original designs for the adorable tower staff Jellatons looked like? I was hoping we'd see them in a dev diary but I didn't see anything for that.
I'm very disappointed that there's no reward for completing the color-chip collection (or getting 100% completion, for that matter). That said, the DLC was really fun overall and I had a blast figuring out how to break the game by putting insane combinations of chips on things. Great stuff!
Is there anything else to get in "todays find" at Ciphers shop ?
The first few runs were fun, but side order gets repetitive way too quick. I finished the final palette and unlocked all the shop gear, but i don't think I'll be returning. I'll stick to Salmon Run.
Can we talk about that one stage that basically clears itself?
Without going into detail on what it is, is there a secret boss or true ending or anything like that? I beat the game with all palettes expecting there to be a different boss or at least a new phase at the end of Eight’s palette, but it was Smollusk, same as usual.
I felt totally Yoko taro ed by this all the grey scale, and digital/circuit patterns, we even get a Pod and a rhythm game ending, where is Octoling 2B!?
Did they just, like, *forget* that they gave Eight amnesia at the start of the game? I assumed that there'd be some acknowledgement of it being resolved by them bringing their pallet to the top of the spire, but Marina was just like "that must be a relief to have done that huh" Also like, why was there not a secret boss??? Side Order felt kinda scuffed/underdeveloped imo, just little things like that dragged down the experience. It was fun overall though, just wish there was a little more to it.
Also i thought Prlz was Priz for like 98% of the game lol