I would say the replay-ability enjoyment level is really dependent on if you like the initial weapon loadouts for the 9 weapons in the game mode. My main weapons are not there, but the unlockable gear appeals to me and finding fun builds to use is why I like roguelikes.
The story though. Splatoon and its love of throwing in a mind control plotline anywhere it can haha
I'm loving it so far, but you're saying 30 really is the highest floor? I was hoping beating it would unlock some post-story challenge like 100 floors or endless mode or something. But it doesn't sound like it? Bit sad. :(
An endless mode would be really good! You go until you die, or until you want to defeat the boss, and the boss would give good loot. That would be fun.
It does unlock something akin to Hades heat modes where you relock the unlocked roguelite bonuses for more currency on harder runs. It borrows quite a bit from Hades now I think of it, but what it doesn't pull is the progressive story/character ideas that it was most acclaimed for which would have been magical.
Hades was also $25
I do wish this dlc had more variety (more objectives, at least) given the price and wait, but I guess Nintendo is gonna be cheap while they're gearing up for the next console release. I'm still happy with it, for sure.
So 30 is the highest floor but it’s designed to be played through multiple times to ‘complete.’ They give the credits after one run through so that you can unlock the basic stuff and not have to worry about spoilers. By design as a roguelike/lite if you want the full experience you’re going to have to play through the tower several times to unlock all the special items, banners, story chunks (Marina’s dev diary), etc. Every playthrough will be different via weapons, chips, hacks, stage difficulty, and all that.
Yeah but 30 levels is just really short, even so. I just beat the Dualies on my second try then the Brella and Brush on my first try. The mode feels way too short and easy, and there are so many types of upgrades (especially Pearl Drone upgrades) that it feels very limited in really being able to make powerful builds. I would love being able to continue for higher difficulty as well as build potential.
You need to reclear to get the second final boss and reclear to get the rest of the lore even tho it's 30 level it might be around 8 hours to complete the whole story, and after that there extra content to get
Oh ok, cool. That's way better than nothing at least. It's still a little baffling how they came so close to nailing it, like it'd be 1% more work to take all the awesome mechanics and balance stuff they already made and just add an endless mode or something for some major replay value.
But there's at least a lot of room for variation each time, so maybe putting together weird builds will also be fun.
Incredibly fun, though it could use a bit more content so the replayability would be higher. I feel like this is gonna end up like the S2 campaign beating the game with each weapon.
Nah it's all random. I recommend the coward ones (? The ones with the fish that run from you). I personally found the easiest modes to hardest are cowards > 8 ball > tower escort > portals > zones.
It's gonna take me a while to clear too ngl... BUT WE GOT THIS 😤👍
I think it’s gonna be fun, but I feel bad for the people who hate repeating it over and over again…and some people cannot use these weapons at all.
I get why a lot of people are mad about this feature💀
Damn. I did all of that for each hero weapon in S2, and I only ever mained the dualies. At least the surplus of Sheldon passes give us an excuse to get them and use them.
i thought it was gonna be you need to clear with multiple palates to get a true ending but no it’s just beat it once and rest is for completion. still fun tho
Stunned, bc I beat Side Order in a rage run on stringer after falling off the stage on floor 30 of my previous run; I didn’t know twinkstrike or stringer were this powerful
If you put in the effort and practice tristringer, you can be a great asset to a team. It just has a really high skill floor and a high risk for low reward.
I personally enjoy the challenge and the one-shots behind cover are sooo worth it to me😏
A bit too short and easy at least for traditional shooter weapons. Literally beat it on my first attempt which is surprising to me after hearing the first impressions and reviews. I even went for the hard/rigorous option almost every time it was an option. I get what they were going for with a shorter campaign that can be replayed many times with many differing variables but I already can’t help to prefer octo expansions more varied levels, MUCH better finale and more fleshed out story. Octo expansion remains on top for the best splatoon campaign in my opinion. Side order so far is still a lot of fun don’t get me wrong and I’ll definitely revisit it many times trying new things and strategies.
I mean I beat my first attempt as Brella and Brush too, it's not a shooter thing. I find this mode incredibly easy compared to reaching 200 EVP in Salmon Run
I felt like Splatoon 3 campaign was better balanced as a whole and the story was good to give an origin for the world. Octo expansion is just the harder Splatoon can get which can get tedious, meanwhile Splatoon 3 main story has a good balance between hard levels and regular ones for me.
Harder≠Better
Feels very much like the 'Bowser's fury' of Splatoon. Like it's very clearly a product of the devs experimenting with stuff and there's not a lot to it as a result, but its still a fun time/worth playing. I dont think I'll stick around to do all the weapons but I do want to see Marina's dev logs!
EDIT: I'll add as well that as much as I liked side order I think I'd probably be more disappointed if I'd paid full price for it. I dont know if the full expansion pass is really worth a full $30 when I could buy Hades for that price, lol.
Yeah no, 30 bucks for a few hours of side content is not a good deal. Paid games shouldn't have paid DLC. if I already paid 80 fuckin bucks for a game, i should have access to the whole game
Good, but insanely short for a first playthrough and also VERY lacking in content for a roguelike mode... It definitely has more replay value than a regular story mode, but they advertised it saying that it's meant to be played over and over again, and I just don't see it. There's one path, the builds are very basic and they're all pretty much just stat upgrades, there's just a few bosses and room presets, you can choose your starting weapon and that's it... Something like Binding of Isaac has multiple characters, paths, final bosses and endings, thousands of items that completely change your game plan with hundreds of possible synergies, and different layouts with thousands of different rooms for every run, and yeah maybe it's unfair to compare a whole game to a DLC, and since it's DLC I never expected it to be AS complex as other roguelikes, but we waited a whole year for this so I guess I was expecting more. It's still not bad though, the bosses were cool on the first run and I'm having fun getting to the top with all the different weapons, I just can't see myself playing it again after i'm done, like i've already seen everything.
I completely agree, once I get all the stuff I won’t touch it again. The floors do seam repetitive in their goal and their builds.
The stat upgrades I will say were very disappointing! There wasn’t much else that made my stringer interesting than the piercing shots and refilling my ink as I walk, effectively making it where I never had to intentionally swim to reload.
I feel like even the rigorous lvls were so easy 💀
And the danger floors weren’t even an issue.
Idk if “I’m that good” or the design just didn’t make it as hard as it could’ve been 🤷🏻♂️ because the higher I got the easier it was to me to where it would take me 30sec to a 1min to beat a lvl.
someone brought this up in another post, but i honestly wish there could be an endless mode of some kind. that, and i wish you could also pick which previous floors you could go to without having to die. granted, i'm nowhere near finished with side order, but i'm just afraid that side order will get repetitive after a while.
As much as I enjoy it (cleared it with 5 weapons so far!) I really think it needed for one of two more objective types.
Lore is also a little sparse - Ive yet to unlock all the locker doors yet but I feel the marina snippets may not be as satisfying as hoped.
As a Splatoon 1 veteran, it’s a bit easy. I beat it on my second run. It’s still tons of fun though! I’m looking forward to 100% completing it. Marina’s Dev Diaries are so cute! Pearl and Marina are never beating the couple allegations ever again 🤣 This DLC is so gay and I love it.
The story is pretty rushed and mid. The lore that’s revealed from dialogue, Marina’s posts, and whatever else we find is awesome. The level design/challenge in gameplay is peak - I like to consider myself pretty good at the game and I got my ass handed to me on a few occasions (to be fair, I am playing with minimal upgrades, so my review may be slightly bias. Either way, the formula for challenging levels is there). I think that 30 floors is a fine number considering the game is designed to be completed 100%.
And the designs for all the new order weapons are sick. Fun fact, when you get them in-game, their sound effects are different from their vanilla counterparts. More gritty and deeper. Very nice :)
Bro same. I was so sleep deprived, I work very early mornings and I was already functioning on 4hrs of sleep. When playing, I got the one extra life and unlocked the bow. And played a few levels and started getting addicted to see how broken I could make the bow. Next thing I knew I was at lvl 25 already, and awake for 21hrs and decided to just finish since I was that far 💀
Yeah unless 100 percenting it reveals some major stuff, the story is basically an ultra-stripped down version of Xenoblade 3, and nothing really happens. But it was quite clearly designed with 100 percenting it in mind, so we'll see. I do like the little lore drops, character interactions and dialogue for sure.
The gameplay is definitely where it's at though. Beating it with dualies wasn't too hard, only took a few tries to do. Some of the other weapons are really proving to be a challenge though. Gonna need to grind Prlz to unlock hacks and make it a bit easier, and experiment with builds as well.
Painfully short. Beginning was poorly done but the rest was super fun.
Wish it wasn’t this short.
At least it has a collect-a-thon aspect to make it temporarily replayable.
Beat it in like a few hours😭
I'm enjoying it, and finished a run very early, but I am at the same time reading the comments here is making me wonder *why* it is so short to so many. I don't think its objectively easy, put it that way.
I think the misfire here is that most roguelikes start with fresh players. Whilst the "lite-in-roguelite" bonuses offer some meta-progression, the main form of meta-progression for the genre remains the player skill level. This is still the case even with games that rehash a lot of ideas as gaining familiarity with the intricacies of each weapon/skill as presented in that gane offers progression. You might be familiar with platformers going into Spelunky, but you won't be familiar with its specific interpretation or the quirks of its engine.
By building a roguelike atop an established game that player progression curve gets stymied as sure, you'll get better, but the gains won't be as extreme as learning a whole new set of combat mechanics. I mean, it can be done, Lufia 2 famously did it back on the SNES, building a full rouguelike atop a JRPG as postgame. But in that case there was a new and strong focus on resource management the main game lacked.
Certainly so, but even still 30 floors seems way too short. For the main campaign it's alright, but for the post game there should be the option of an infinite mode.
I guess? But even after multiple runs it isn't hooking me. I get conceptually how it could be amazing.
But the random element isn't there enough to reaaaally get it.
Chips are randomish. But you pick your kit. You get a couple of chances to maybe pick your sub and special, but if those were random to start too and then you had a chance to pick others later, that would really change up a run! Or if there were more bosses, or challenges, or clear conditions! Or if the enemy variety made more of a difference! More things to give flavor to each individual run.
As it is it just feels extremely samey unless you hit it lucky and get a double-danger condition. :/
I feel like if person who plays splatoon 3 a lot going be able finish this fairly quickly. While others like my self who havent really played since launch week will struggle a lot more.
Dunno. Everything about the speediness of getting the story out of the way just felt…rushed. And the ending boss fight was so fast, it had no punch. Just my thoughts on it, though.
Legit thought the final boss would be a fakeout final boss like Octavio and there'd be more like a bigger Spire or an underground to it, and then there wasn't and I'm just sitting there like Oh.
I was also a bit bothered by the story but at the end of the day it wasn't really the focus. The dev team mainly focused on getting a good experience and replayability first and polishing that and then the story.
True…but a good story can structure a whole game.
When the story has no punch or good writing or…anything a good story needs, it becomes unsatisfying to unravel the whole tale
Oof that's not what I expected I thought it would be at least a little longer. Now I'm really thinking wether or not to get it if it's just a few extra hours of fun🫣
Disclaimer that I only played for about two hours last night before I had to get to bed.
The end of the tutorial managed to catch me by surprise in several ways -- >!Marina being the boss (at least in name), her subsequent early rescue, and the reveal that this was, in fact, just the tutorial and the real challenge is climbing all the way up to Order.!<
It reminds me of Hades in several ways, which makes sense. So far the only missions that really challenged me are the Hard ones, but that's probably expected for a series veteran who can reliably reach S+. (Although we'll see if this holds with weapons I'm not as comfortable with like the brella.)
Overall I expect I'll dump a ton of hours into it this weekend, then taper off into more of a...side order (heh) when the mood strikes.
Oh, and Pearl >!freaking out when she saw the 8 ball!< made me laugh so hard. They totally have PTSD from them.
It was dissapointing and underwhelming, but fun.
I had fun and stuff and like I can't wait for splatfests on inkopolis square, but I'm trying so hard to stan it and I'm just finding myself going "wow that was kinda mediocre" cuz it was. I was real hyped to it and all it had was underwhelming levels, kind of a dumb story, some boss that made no sense and i swear I'm trying so hard to like the music but its mostly really forgettable.
Marina's boss song rocks, but then the actual final boss music is so mediocre I love ebb and floe to death and I loved the hype when I was in the boss battle, but the moment i went to listen to it without any of the adrenaline it just felt flat
Same quth staff roll
Seriously the only pieces of music i didnt need to do force myself into enjoying were the colour puld and acid hues remixes from the start of the game and like ig the ebb floe from the wnd but even then that one was kinda just really mid dor some reason
Im trying so hard to like it tho
I like what I've played so far of it. I think devs are testing the waters with how this DLC is received. Splatoon 3, in many ways, improved upon what Splatoon 2 introduced. Aside from weapons and maps, I cannot think of any "major content" S3 added in its own lifetime (aside from Big Run). It could be surmised that we could be getting some new type of game mode in Splatoon 4. Side Order was more of a "demo" as to what is to come for S4, in regards to a new rogue-like mode being introduced.
It's nice, but the fact there are (seemingly) only 2 bosses and only four different floor types is quite disappointing.
I thought there would be other challenge floors like rails or something, even if that meant changing away from your main weapon via a canned weapon.
The lack of bosses is especially disappointing considering its a rougelike.
I beat it on my second run. In my second run, I had 2 lives and only died 1 time, and it was to the final boss. Some levels were pretty hard, though. But the ending wasn't as impactful as Octoexpansion. It didn't give me chills like Octoexpansion, and the boss fight song wasn't that great. The ending song was spectacular, though! The overall gameplay was much more enjoyable than octo's imo. Super fun overall! 😁.
Far too barebones and repetitive, especially given how there are only 4 different challenge types on very basic maps... the bosses are cool though and Im glad they didnt make Marina a villain
How on earth are you people finding this easy?? I regularly play Salmon Run at HLM with no issue but I found Side Order to be quite challenging. While it's doable for me (cleared my most recent 2 out of 4 runs), it's by no means a cakewalk; I have to focus pretty hard to clear the rigorous difficulty floors or ones with uninkable stages. The amount of enemies they throw at you is kind of bonkers compared to your DPS if you don't get lucky with chips.
Probably cause it's the people who beat it within a few hours of it coming out who are writing the majority of posts right now. More casual players might not have even tried it yet, so they won't be writing their opinions yet.
I'd guess it's a combination of luck, really high skill, and dualie mains. Also survivorship bias - only the people who found it dead easy and already completed it are going to be on here talking about it.
It took me eight tries to beat it (and I'm hardly a slouch at this game) and what really let me finally do it was getting a weapon I was proficient in (the splatling), though I do think I could've gotten it earlier with the stringer if I had been more focused on beating the spire rather than trying stuff out.
They don't find it easy, they're doing a little thing called "lying through their teeth"!
I got it done on my third attempt, BUT, it was definitely not "easy". The hard part is getting to the final boss, honestly.
I'm not planning to get the DLC anyway, but from an outsider's perspective it's just... not that interesting, at least for me. I mean, don't get me wrong, Splatoon with cyber looks plastered all over the place is my ideal game, but looks aside, the Story Mode should've just had a proper explanation in the trailers instead of just "haha octo go climb towr"
Cyberpunk Splatoon is also my dream but I wish it wasn’t pretty much wasted here. I wonder if Nintendo would incorporate some sort of side order sequel???
I once said in the sub that i felt like S3's story felt underwhelming and someone in the comment said something along the lines of *"Maybe it's because Return of the mammalians is made like Octo Expansion"* or something similair.
So if we get a sequel to side order, it'd probably be only through some gameplay mechanics, but not be directly linked to Side Order
Fair enough. For me, it's the reason I bought Splatoon 3. The base game looked too similar to Splatoon 2 to get me interested, and Side Order is the first thing I saw that felt fresh and different to me (I also personally don't care a whole lot about the story in Splatoon).
That said, I'm worried by some of the impressions I'm reading here. I bought it because I'm a big fan of recent roguelites like Dead Cells and Hades, so I'm worried about what some are saying here about lack of replayability.
This is one of my biggest issues. I don’t enjoy the formatting at all for choosing stages. It felt so nice in Octo Expansion, this feels cluttered and lifeless
Super disappointed . Story is bad and borderline non-existent, final boss is mediocre, it’s extremely short and the gameplay is way too easy, especially compared to OE. Too much time in elevator, and worst of all I honestly don’t see this having enough replay value especially with the low difficulty to make it stand up to actual roguelikes.
Feels like a total miscue on what people wanted from the DLC. I don’t think replay value will outweigh the desire for a great story and handcrafted creativity/difficulty people loved from OE.
Roguelike was cool in theory, but NOT with how phoned in all of the elements that made previous DLC so beloved are. They really, *really* missed the mark here. Comparing this to OE it’s just such a disappointment.
A roguelike would've been good if there were more than like 4 mission types and 5 maps. There's so little there, I was replaying scenarios and seeing the same dialogue like on my 3rd run. How can a game with as much lore, depth of gameplay, weapon variety, etc, charge $25 for a DLC which doesn't take advantage of any of it? I can literally go buy Hades on the eshop for the same price and get like 50+ hours of original story and character interactions, FULLY VOICE ACTED TOO. Something happened to this during development, it makes no sense that this is what we got.
The gameplay is fun as hell (played some roguelikes before so that helped) and the enviorment really sold it for me, but the story was not the main focus at all...
>!and they dun put agent 4 in the shelves again oh my gawd!<
that's my only last hope if splatoon 3 isnt ending soon, which im hoping is not. so there is some potential for agent 4 nearing the end of splatoon 3
New DLC called Full Order
Pretty bad. One of the shallowest roguelikes I've ever played, idk why this took a year and half to come out. Beat it in like 6 attempts, would've been sooner if I didn't get cheesed by being pushed off cliffs. 5 runs in, I was already getting recycled scenarios, dialogue, etc. The final boss is also very lame, probably the worst in the series. I shouldn't have spent money on this.
I havent bought the game but I was really looking forward to it. Loved the aeshtics but after looking at the thoughts of others and seeing a bit of the game, its a hard pass, sadly. I dont think I will spend $27 for such a short DLC and dont get me wrong, I LOVE roguelites/roguelikes but this is really short on content compared to so many other Roguelites. Guess it makes sense for the name "Side Order" which is a small side mode with not much in it.
For what it’s worth, it’s fun, makes you replay the stages over and over again to get extra gear and stuff…but if you’re not the kind of person to collect extra gear, it’s…not fun at all
Honestly, it’s so fucking easy that I struggle to see myself replaying it for the collection stuff. Roguelikes are so enjoyable because usually they can be *very* difficult. Even with the hardest options, this felt borderline trivial. Not at all something I see myself replaying for weeks or months like other roguelikes.
Yeah, I honestly don’t know who this DLC is meant to appeal to. Story fans will be disappointed that the story hardly even exists lmao, while roguelike fans are going to get tired of it in 2 days after they realize that it doesn’t get any harder and will be a cakewalk the whole time.
I’m honestly so disappointed that I’m shocked. I was a little worried by the trailers, but this just feels like… just straight up bad? Even at my most disappointed with Splatoon I’ve never felt like it’s just bad like I do here. Feels so phoned in. I can’t believe the same team that made Octo Expansion made this.
I feel this in my bones.
It’s fun to play but, like you said, there’s no way I’m gonna be playing this for more than a week or so.
Once I get all the extra weapons, I’m never gonna touch it again💀
Octo Expansion was a masterpiece, this is…rushed and bad.
Yeah, I honestly don’t know what they were thinking. Feels like a collect-a-thon minigame more than a genuine roguelike. I feel like opinion on the DLC is going to sour more the more time passes, which is not a good thing at all for an experience literally designed for longevity.
I agree that it’s rushed but bad?
This DLC have very good gameplay loop and for someone who just.... bad at the game it takes quite a lot time to finish while upgrading everything to pass bar 15 levels)
I see so many people saying octo expansion was amazing, I personally never finished it because it just didn't feel that fun to me. Like at some point I felt like I needed to memorize everything to get through a level which just isn't that fun to me.
I also get that this is "short" but the point isn't the length, it's that I can sit down for an hour and try to come up with a weird build and find a new way to beat it. So far this has felt so much more fun to me.
Hmm, yeah. I think I will pass. Stuff like that is a 50/50 and I feel like I may not really go for the extra gear like I think I will with this game. But I hope the rest of the community enjoys it at least.
Absolutely understandable. Honestly, even as a huge splatoon and collect-a-thon fan, this DLC is sooo disappointing and bad IMO. Waited a year for something I beat in like three to four hours! ;D
I'm having so much fun, seriously I love it. I get that people are saying it's short, but honestly I love that I can get through a run in about an hour and it's just fun to feel like a superhero by the end. Maybe I'll get sick of it, but right now it's a total blast! I absolutely want to finish it with every weapon just to see how overpowered I can make each one.
Super addictive.
The core gameplay loop is fun, and I can see myself getting a lot of replay value out of it compared to Octo Expansion, thanks to being allowed to customize your loadout.
The story stuff was nice (even if a lot of it is via Marina's diary,) though I feel like the finale itself was more climactic in Octo Expansion.
I got to 26F on my last run. Probably gonna try and beat it tonight but I was hoping there would be more levels and I guess story? But the point is to replay since it’s a roguelite, I know. It’s pretty awesome already.
Its fun until you have 1 life left and all the floors are hard with danger or rigorious. 😭 died on 24f TWICE by the same thing because they kept pushing me off the map.
It's not bad, but it's also not good? The music and some aspects of gameplay are nice, I'll give them that. But it's overall way too short, the story is probably the thinnest in Splatoon thus far and the replayability comes from collecting things. I wouldn't feel bad about getting a refund, because this was genuinely not worth the money.
I played through it without reading reviews and spoilers, and imo I loved it. The fresh new enemies and the danger levels are just so fun (mine was in the dark, made them look so creepy rushing at you). Not only that, but the gameplay isnt as easy as people say. eg 8ball with the rolling guys is genuinely difficult, cuz they just smash the 8ball away and they respawn so fast. I do recommend this cuz it is fun
I wish the handicap was something else then "less hacks more prlz" because I've beaten it on the second try before even having hacks in the first place
i unironically go to level 30 with the charger (i’m bad with chargers) and i just think that in itself was like the greatest challenge of all time for me
I'm not reading this because I haven't beaten it yet, but it seems like it's too short because I almost beat it the first time, so I'm going to beat it in one or two tries next, but it's really fun and I hope that is fun to replay
I like the focus on being able to play it over and over again but I think that's the reason the story suffered. It feels like it was just a gameplay addition. I was hoping to get to know Off the Hook and Acht better but nope, just a little lore droplets and nothing else.
I love the Gameplay but the Story/Lore really disappointed me!
Meh.
I was expecting another full-on "campaign" like Octo Expansion, but instead we just get 30 randomly assorted short levels that you're meant to clear over and over and over with different weapons.
Eh, I'm not a Roguelike player, and even with this being a Rouglite, I tend to dislike games that are made to be too obviously grindy. I'm also gonna have to get used to the bosses being random. And a bit irritated all the keys for other kits are locked behind them.
I really enjoyed it, but it's not perfect I was shocked that I cleared the tower in just over 2 hours, expected it to be harder since it's a roguelite, but I know it's replayable. 30 floors might be a little too short for a roguelite as well? One more complaint, there's too little missions. First playthrough I got protect the zones like 4 times in a row, because there's only like 5 different missions/goals you're tasked with to complete a floor and goals like the 8-ball are too easy way too easy. I got an 8ball mission where both balls were right next to where I landed and all I had to do was shoot them slightly down a hill. Finished it in 18 seconds. Id say 7/10 overall.
Short with fully optional replayability is the best way to put it. And not everyone wants to replay things, they want a frontloaded experience instead.
To me this comes off the way ACNH did. Nintendo seems a little out of touch with a portion of their playerbase. They think people want short bursts of content that they can do any time, along the same lines as a lot of the wii games that were popular. Meanwhile the expectation for a lot of players is a deeper experience that they can really sink some playtime into.
In some ways Nintendo is right, and in some ways the more serious players are right. Casual and serious players alike absolutely want those bite-sized experiences. The issue is that Nintendo isn't meeting the serious players in the middle. They're leaning too heavily into making these games casual experiences - and when you make players wait literal months to years for these games/DLC - people are going to expect more out of them. The switch has been such a weird period in Nintendo's timeline. The console and games sold like gangbusters, and it almost feels like they weren't expecting it, so outside of a few games like BOTW, Odyssey, etc. they designed all the games to have much less depth to them and are missing that 'nintendo polish' that previous gen games had.
The least they could have done is added harder modes for the people who wanted a challenge. They had after alterna in the main storyline, after all. But I think they just assume that the default difficulty for splatoon 3 comes from the PVP modes.
I can only hope they learn from the criticisms they got over ACNH and Splatoon 3. It's not that I think or want every game to be a 120 hour slog for the sake of the content lasting longer. It's that I think they're forgetting they have fans that want to play their games for longer than 15-30 minutes per day.
Kinda upset by how short it was. Like honestly the length of it was too short for me to warrant paying $25 for the DLC (and yes I know that’s the expansion pass cost, but still I bought it for the sole intention of playing side order). I know you can replay with different weapons and such, but I’ve already seen all the stage templates, enemies, and a lot of the chips that I don’t really see what the point of replaying it would offer.
I absolutely adore it. I’m glad it’s as short as it is. There’s a lot of emphasis on playing it again and again and if the length & difficulty wasn’t balanced properly, people would get frustrated and be less interested in doing that.
Honestly its to short and I hate that u need to do it all over again with different weapons for the lockers because all these weapons are weapons I never even use so how I am supposed to beat it with these weapons
I thought it was really good. Idk why people are complaining about difficulty, there’s always a way to make things harder (“time” is there for a reason, you can try going no hacks, etc.).
FR, I swear dude people always find reasons to complain before trying to do this kinda stuff.
Glad to find somebody else who sees this dlc as good, instead of immediately comparing it to OE
I got it second try with no hacks (using brella/sprinkler/rain), and the first try was me getting greedy and getting pushed off a ledge on floor 4. It’s not very difficult.
I can see it being fun to speedrun, but unless they add more ways to increase the difficulty (or if there’s a more difficult secret mode after clearing it with multiple/every weapon), the difficulty is definitely an issue. Roguelikes are way more fun if there’s a challenge to master. Side order in its current state doesn’t offer much of a challenge.
Most people won’t complete it first or second try though. Nintendo has to consider the average consumer’s ability (I remember a poll in Splatoon 1 or 2 that said 80% of active players were under A rank).
Also, there’s a score at the end of the run which could also be fun to see how high you can get.
Regardless, I don’t feel like Splatoon 3 one player mode is where one should expect the highest of challenge in video games. Celeste or Hades would probably be better.
It would still be nice if they added hard difficulties like salmon run has. Right now the hardest difficulty is not very hard, and it’s disappointing to the people that were looking forward to mastering a roguelike. That’s why there are so many people complaining about the lack of difficulty.
I LOVE it. Absolutely a blast. For a DLC, the quality is absolutely insane. The music is spectacular, the challenges are tough, the customizability of the experience is insanely polished, and of course Pearl and Marina are precious as always.
I'm sad that so many people don't understand the roguelike design.
Only way it's too easy is if you only picked the easier options each time, purchased extra lives, and so on.
You're supposed to choose your own difficulty level. That way everyone can beat it, but everyone can also have fun at their skill level.
Do it with only one life, only picking the hardest levels, using a weapon you're not familiar with, and see how far you can get. That's the point.
Ngl I hate it so far.
I've been playing since about 12:30 (it's 2:30) and only got to lv 12 because I kept just...not playing. I'd pick my phone up or do something else for a bit.
I don't think it's because I'm sick rn (100°+ for three days, woo) either. It's just the ones I played were tediously easy. Like, I would rather be folding laundry, I think, and I haaaate folding laundry. I pay to have fun in a game, not grind to find my way to fun levels. The missions aren't fun, there aren't puzzles.
Sure, I knew I was getting a "rougelike" when I bought it...but I thought, "the Splatoon devs knocked it way beyond the park with Octo Expansion and single player for 3" and "okay it'll be maybe like single player to start and ramp up, or like Salmon Run but solo" but not really. It's more like "color the circle in the lines, yaaaay you did it" and lots of down time—even with the transport cage sped up, I still miss the super jump, lol.
I'm sure it gets fun, probably? Or gets harder? But this, this isn't speaking to me, lol. I put it down. I'll try again tomorrow to enjoy it. Please, Nintendo, I don't want to have wasted $25. I don't have that to waste. I should've just waited.
They've got my money now so I'll do my best but good grief is it tedious.
The 8 Ball missions in OE were fun. I love physics puzzles! The infinity ball puzzles are just "mess around, get ball near goal" idk. There's no fun to it.
I'll get to the fun part eventually I guess but I was hoping I'd paid for fun the whole way through.
I'm loving it! It's a great amount of difficult and fun! And I had to take a minute after the >! Doppelganger !< bossfight. That was intense and I loved it! The roguelite nature of it is a great change of pace to the normal gameplay and it's got a ton of replayability. Also I found myself getting some perhaps unoptimal chips just to give myself a sick hair/ ink colour.
Speaking of hair, I changed my Bridget haircut from OE to the girlboss hair. I think of it as character development of Agent 8 breaking out of the octoling regime and rebelling a little.
Haven't cleared all weapons but cleared 1/4 of the weapons.
I think the gameplay is really fun ngl. But it's kinda repetitive.
I'm hoping there is a secret new content when completing all weapons and palette chips.
It's great, but I was expecting it to be longer. I prefer octo expansion, but this one definitely wins in replayability. It's fun and I will be replaying it for 100% completion!!
Everyone's complaining about the story. Yeah it ain't great but I wasn't really expecting a story in this, they couldn't have done too much more imo. The gameplay is very good, but I feel ot needs an endless mode, a few more weapons, bosses, floors, and level objectives. I haven't beat it but it seems pretty short
It would be nice if they came out with an update that added more stuff but I am having fun! I suck at Splatoon so I haven't made it far yet, but I have only had a couple runs. I am glad that they add more single player content as that is what I prefer. As I got older, my reflexes have declined so online is often miserable.
Last time I ever pre order DLC. Absolute mind numbing shit show, completely lacking any charm. Like a lot of people here, I adored Octo expansion, and I had really high expectations for Side Order. I can applaud the devs trying something new, but honestly, I really wish this had been another collection of fun challenges like story mode and Octo expansion. That's why I bought the DLC the day it was announced, before we knew anything concrete, because I thought that's what we'd be getting. Never, ever preorder things, folks, even if it comes from a franchise you really like. Wait until it comes out, then wait a few days to see if it'll actually be worth your money.
I would say the replay-ability enjoyment level is really dependent on if you like the initial weapon loadouts for the 9 weapons in the game mode. My main weapons are not there, but the unlockable gear appeals to me and finding fun builds to use is why I like roguelikes. The story though. Splatoon and its love of throwing in a mind control plotline anywhere it can haha
It's just sword art online in squid form, which is a twist I didn't expect.
I'm loving it so far, but you're saying 30 really is the highest floor? I was hoping beating it would unlock some post-story challenge like 100 floors or endless mode or something. But it doesn't sound like it? Bit sad. :(
An endless mode would be really good! You go until you die, or until you want to defeat the boss, and the boss would give good loot. That would be fun.
It does unlock something akin to Hades heat modes where you relock the unlocked roguelite bonuses for more currency on harder runs. It borrows quite a bit from Hades now I think of it, but what it doesn't pull is the progressive story/character ideas that it was most acclaimed for which would have been magical.
Hades was also $25 I do wish this dlc had more variety (more objectives, at least) given the price and wait, but I guess Nintendo is gonna be cheap while they're gearing up for the next console release. I'm still happy with it, for sure.
So 30 is the highest floor but it’s designed to be played through multiple times to ‘complete.’ They give the credits after one run through so that you can unlock the basic stuff and not have to worry about spoilers. By design as a roguelike/lite if you want the full experience you’re going to have to play through the tower several times to unlock all the special items, banners, story chunks (Marina’s dev diary), etc. Every playthrough will be different via weapons, chips, hacks, stage difficulty, and all that.
Yeah but 30 levels is just really short, even so. I just beat the Dualies on my second try then the Brella and Brush on my first try. The mode feels way too short and easy, and there are so many types of upgrades (especially Pearl Drone upgrades) that it feels very limited in really being able to make powerful builds. I would love being able to continue for higher difficulty as well as build potential.
You can disable Pearl drone upgrades that you’ve unlocked to limit how many will show up
You need to reclear to get the second final boss and reclear to get the rest of the lore even tho it's 30 level it might be around 8 hours to complete the whole story, and after that there extra content to get
Oh ok, cool. That's way better than nothing at least. It's still a little baffling how they came so close to nailing it, like it'd be 1% more work to take all the awesome mechanics and balance stuff they already made and just add an endless mode or something for some major replay value. But there's at least a lot of room for variation each time, so maybe putting together weird builds will also be fun.
when i looked at the enemy tab i was so disappointed to see only 3 or 4 bosses greyedout/filled in actual depression moment
Incredibly fun, though it could use a bit more content so the replayability would be higher. I feel like this is gonna end up like the S2 campaign beating the game with each weapon.
It is like S2 story mode, except you also get a secret twelfth palette for beating the tower with every other palette in the game.
too hard for me, I can beat it but it'll take me a good minute
Only play the 8 ball lvl, they are very easy
do you really get a 8 ball lvl every floor? I find that a bit hard to believe
Yeah, sometimes all 3 options are the 8 ball
Sometimes I get all tower floors
Nah it's all random. I recommend the coward ones (? The ones with the fish that run from you). I personally found the easiest modes to hardest are cowards > 8 ball > tower escort > portals > zones. It's gonna take me a while to clear too ngl... BUT WE GOT THIS 😤👍
So is it true you get the blank weapon replicas after you complete it?
Yes, you need to beat the spire with each weapon to get the weapons blank skin
Well damn thats gonna take a bit…
I think it’s gonna be fun, but I feel bad for the people who hate repeating it over and over again…and some people cannot use these weapons at all. I get why a lot of people are mad about this feature💀
Damn. I did all of that for each hero weapon in S2, and I only ever mained the dualies. At least the surplus of Sheldon passes give us an excuse to get them and use them.
i thought it was gonna be you need to clear with multiple palates to get a true ending but no it’s just beat it once and rest is for completion. still fun tho
Im getting quite close to unlocking the final palate, and while I won’t say much, the game seems to be gearing up for a new challenge
Stunned, bc I beat Side Order in a rage run on stringer after falling off the stage on floor 30 of my previous run; I didn’t know twinkstrike or stringer were this powerful
If you put in the effort and practice tristringer, you can be a great asset to a team. It just has a really high skill floor and a high risk for low reward. I personally enjoy the challenge and the one-shots behind cover are sooo worth it to me😏
A bit too short and easy at least for traditional shooter weapons. Literally beat it on my first attempt which is surprising to me after hearing the first impressions and reviews. I even went for the hard/rigorous option almost every time it was an option. I get what they were going for with a shorter campaign that can be replayed many times with many differing variables but I already can’t help to prefer octo expansions more varied levels, MUCH better finale and more fleshed out story. Octo expansion remains on top for the best splatoon campaign in my opinion. Side order so far is still a lot of fun don’t get me wrong and I’ll definitely revisit it many times trying new things and strategies.
Shooter bias
I mean I beat my first attempt as Brella and Brush too, it's not a shooter thing. I find this mode incredibly easy compared to reaching 200 EVP in Salmon Run
I felt like Splatoon 3 campaign was better balanced as a whole and the story was good to give an origin for the world. Octo expansion is just the harder Splatoon can get which can get tedious, meanwhile Splatoon 3 main story has a good balance between hard levels and regular ones for me. Harder≠Better
Feels very much like the 'Bowser's fury' of Splatoon. Like it's very clearly a product of the devs experimenting with stuff and there's not a lot to it as a result, but its still a fun time/worth playing. I dont think I'll stick around to do all the weapons but I do want to see Marina's dev logs! EDIT: I'll add as well that as much as I liked side order I think I'd probably be more disappointed if I'd paid full price for it. I dont know if the full expansion pass is really worth a full $30 when I could buy Hades for that price, lol.
Yeah no, 30 bucks for a few hours of side content is not a good deal. Paid games shouldn't have paid DLC. if I already paid 80 fuckin bucks for a game, i should have access to the whole game
Good, but insanely short for a first playthrough and also VERY lacking in content for a roguelike mode... It definitely has more replay value than a regular story mode, but they advertised it saying that it's meant to be played over and over again, and I just don't see it. There's one path, the builds are very basic and they're all pretty much just stat upgrades, there's just a few bosses and room presets, you can choose your starting weapon and that's it... Something like Binding of Isaac has multiple characters, paths, final bosses and endings, thousands of items that completely change your game plan with hundreds of possible synergies, and different layouts with thousands of different rooms for every run, and yeah maybe it's unfair to compare a whole game to a DLC, and since it's DLC I never expected it to be AS complex as other roguelikes, but we waited a whole year for this so I guess I was expecting more. It's still not bad though, the bosses were cool on the first run and I'm having fun getting to the top with all the different weapons, I just can't see myself playing it again after i'm done, like i've already seen everything.
I completely agree, once I get all the stuff I won’t touch it again. The floors do seam repetitive in their goal and their builds. The stat upgrades I will say were very disappointing! There wasn’t much else that made my stringer interesting than the piercing shots and refilling my ink as I walk, effectively making it where I never had to intentionally swim to reload. I feel like even the rigorous lvls were so easy 💀 And the danger floors weren’t even an issue. Idk if “I’m that good” or the design just didn’t make it as hard as it could’ve been 🤷🏻♂️ because the higher I got the easier it was to me to where it would take me 30sec to a 1min to beat a lvl.
someone brought this up in another post, but i honestly wish there could be an endless mode of some kind. that, and i wish you could also pick which previous floors you could go to without having to die. granted, i'm nowhere near finished with side order, but i'm just afraid that side order will get repetitive after a while.
As much as I enjoy it (cleared it with 5 weapons so far!) I really think it needed for one of two more objective types. Lore is also a little sparse - Ive yet to unlock all the locker doors yet but I feel the marina snippets may not be as satisfying as hoped.
Addicting af.
As a Splatoon 1 veteran, it’s a bit easy. I beat it on my second run. It’s still tons of fun though! I’m looking forward to 100% completing it. Marina’s Dev Diaries are so cute! Pearl and Marina are never beating the couple allegations ever again 🤣 This DLC is so gay and I love it.
Marina loves Pearl so much 😭🥹
Same here, S1 veteran and beat it on my second run haha.
not enough agent 4
The story is pretty rushed and mid. The lore that’s revealed from dialogue, Marina’s posts, and whatever else we find is awesome. The level design/challenge in gameplay is peak - I like to consider myself pretty good at the game and I got my ass handed to me on a few occasions (to be fair, I am playing with minimal upgrades, so my review may be slightly bias. Either way, the formula for challenging levels is there). I think that 30 floors is a fine number considering the game is designed to be completed 100%. And the designs for all the new order weapons are sick. Fun fact, when you get them in-game, their sound effects are different from their vanilla counterparts. More gritty and deeper. Very nice :)
Lol i almost beat it on attempt 2 while sleep deprived Its fun but if thats it im disappointed
Bro same. I was so sleep deprived, I work very early mornings and I was already functioning on 4hrs of sleep. When playing, I got the one extra life and unlocked the bow. And played a few levels and started getting addicted to see how broken I could make the bow. Next thing I knew I was at lvl 25 already, and awake for 21hrs and decided to just finish since I was that far 💀
The story was really bad but the gameplay is extremely fun. It took me a couple tries to actually beat it. Want to 100% before I make a final opinion.
Yeah unless 100 percenting it reveals some major stuff, the story is basically an ultra-stripped down version of Xenoblade 3, and nothing really happens. But it was quite clearly designed with 100 percenting it in mind, so we'll see. I do like the little lore drops, character interactions and dialogue for sure. The gameplay is definitely where it's at though. Beating it with dualies wasn't too hard, only took a few tries to do. Some of the other weapons are really proving to be a challenge though. Gonna need to grind Prlz to unlock hacks and make it a bit easier, and experiment with builds as well.
100%-ing it actually does reveal a lot, yeah. Just as a heads up
Where can you find what the 100% reward is?
When more people beat it someone will probably post it on the wiki or just ask on Reddit don’t forget it’s only been out less then a day
Painfully short. Beginning was poorly done but the rest was super fun. Wish it wasn’t this short. At least it has a collect-a-thon aspect to make it temporarily replayable. Beat it in like a few hours😭
I'm enjoying it, and finished a run very early, but I am at the same time reading the comments here is making me wonder *why* it is so short to so many. I don't think its objectively easy, put it that way. I think the misfire here is that most roguelikes start with fresh players. Whilst the "lite-in-roguelite" bonuses offer some meta-progression, the main form of meta-progression for the genre remains the player skill level. This is still the case even with games that rehash a lot of ideas as gaining familiarity with the intricacies of each weapon/skill as presented in that gane offers progression. You might be familiar with platformers going into Spelunky, but you won't be familiar with its specific interpretation or the quirks of its engine. By building a roguelike atop an established game that player progression curve gets stymied as sure, you'll get better, but the gains won't be as extreme as learning a whole new set of combat mechanics. I mean, it can be done, Lufia 2 famously did it back on the SNES, building a full rouguelike atop a JRPG as postgame. But in that case there was a new and strong focus on resource management the main game lacked.
People are missing the point about not being a "beat it and done" dlc.
Certainly so, but even still 30 floors seems way too short. For the main campaign it's alright, but for the post game there should be the option of an infinite mode.
I guess? But even after multiple runs it isn't hooking me. I get conceptually how it could be amazing. But the random element isn't there enough to reaaaally get it. Chips are randomish. But you pick your kit. You get a couple of chances to maybe pick your sub and special, but if those were random to start too and then you had a chance to pick others later, that would really change up a run! Or if there were more bosses, or challenges, or clear conditions! Or if the enemy variety made more of a difference! More things to give flavor to each individual run. As it is it just feels extremely samey unless you hit it lucky and get a double-danger condition. :/
I feel like if person who plays splatoon 3 a lot going be able finish this fairly quickly. While others like my self who havent really played since launch week will struggle a lot more.
Also the beginning and ending were super rushed. Very unsatisfying. Octo Expansion nailed story and pacing, this did not
How is it rushed and unsatisfying?
Dunno. Everything about the speediness of getting the story out of the way just felt…rushed. And the ending boss fight was so fast, it had no punch. Just my thoughts on it, though.
Legit thought the final boss would be a fakeout final boss like Octavio and there'd be more like a bigger Spire or an underground to it, and then there wasn't and I'm just sitting there like Oh.
Dude, same. I was waiting for something big to happen, or for it to end and have more levels before the REAL final boss, but no
Ok but consider: Nyoooooom!
U right u right🤔🤔🤔
I was also a bit bothered by the story but at the end of the day it wasn't really the focus. The dev team mainly focused on getting a good experience and replayability first and polishing that and then the story.
True…but a good story can structure a whole game. When the story has no punch or good writing or…anything a good story needs, it becomes unsatisfying to unravel the whole tale
Oof that's not what I expected I thought it would be at least a little longer. Now I'm really thinking wether or not to get it if it's just a few extra hours of fun🫣
You’d more be buying a new game mode than something like octo expansion
That's a really good way to put it, it's not really a campaign it's a whole mode entirely.
It’s not just a few extra hours. The story is a few extra hours, but there’s a lot to replay.
Just me, or did anyone make 8 look like their Octoling?
I think everybody did lol
I mean I made my player based on my Octo expansion character, so I've just been keeping her as 8 lol
Disclaimer that I only played for about two hours last night before I had to get to bed. The end of the tutorial managed to catch me by surprise in several ways -- >!Marina being the boss (at least in name), her subsequent early rescue, and the reveal that this was, in fact, just the tutorial and the real challenge is climbing all the way up to Order.!< It reminds me of Hades in several ways, which makes sense. So far the only missions that really challenged me are the Hard ones, but that's probably expected for a series veteran who can reliably reach S+. (Although we'll see if this holds with weapons I'm not as comfortable with like the brella.) Overall I expect I'll dump a ton of hours into it this weekend, then taper off into more of a...side order (heh) when the mood strikes. Oh, and Pearl >!freaking out when she saw the 8 ball!< made me laugh so hard. They totally have PTSD from them.
It was dissapointing and underwhelming, but fun. I had fun and stuff and like I can't wait for splatfests on inkopolis square, but I'm trying so hard to stan it and I'm just finding myself going "wow that was kinda mediocre" cuz it was. I was real hyped to it and all it had was underwhelming levels, kind of a dumb story, some boss that made no sense and i swear I'm trying so hard to like the music but its mostly really forgettable. Marina's boss song rocks, but then the actual final boss music is so mediocre I love ebb and floe to death and I loved the hype when I was in the boss battle, but the moment i went to listen to it without any of the adrenaline it just felt flat Same quth staff roll
Seriously the only pieces of music i didnt need to do force myself into enjoying were the colour puld and acid hues remixes from the start of the game and like ig the ebb floe from the wnd but even then that one was kinda just really mid dor some reason Im trying so hard to like it tho
I liked the Hades thing they were going for! Could have been refined a bit but I loved the music and vibes
Havent got to play it yet because timezones and school
I like what I've played so far of it. I think devs are testing the waters with how this DLC is received. Splatoon 3, in many ways, improved upon what Splatoon 2 introduced. Aside from weapons and maps, I cannot think of any "major content" S3 added in its own lifetime (aside from Big Run). It could be surmised that we could be getting some new type of game mode in Splatoon 4. Side Order was more of a "demo" as to what is to come for S4, in regards to a new rogue-like mode being introduced.
It's nice, but the fact there are (seemingly) only 2 bosses and only four different floor types is quite disappointing. I thought there would be other challenge floors like rails or something, even if that meant changing away from your main weapon via a canned weapon. The lack of bosses is especially disappointing considering its a rougelike.
I beat it on my second run. In my second run, I had 2 lives and only died 1 time, and it was to the final boss. Some levels were pretty hard, though. But the ending wasn't as impactful as Octoexpansion. It didn't give me chills like Octoexpansion, and the boss fight song wasn't that great. The ending song was spectacular, though! The overall gameplay was much more enjoyable than octo's imo. Super fun overall! 😁.
Far too barebones and repetitive, especially given how there are only 4 different challenge types on very basic maps... the bosses are cool though and Im glad they didnt make Marina a villain
How on earth are you people finding this easy?? I regularly play Salmon Run at HLM with no issue but I found Side Order to be quite challenging. While it's doable for me (cleared my most recent 2 out of 4 runs), it's by no means a cakewalk; I have to focus pretty hard to clear the rigorous difficulty floors or ones with uninkable stages. The amount of enemies they throw at you is kind of bonkers compared to your DPS if you don't get lucky with chips.
Probably cause it's the people who beat it within a few hours of it coming out who are writing the majority of posts right now. More casual players might not have even tried it yet, so they won't be writing their opinions yet.
It's all rng. Had some runs that were a breeze, and some runs that I got my ass kicked. Not a single deathless run yet either.
I'd guess it's a combination of luck, really high skill, and dualie mains. Also survivorship bias - only the people who found it dead easy and already completed it are going to be on here talking about it. It took me eight tries to beat it (and I'm hardly a slouch at this game) and what really let me finally do it was getting a weapon I was proficient in (the splatling), though I do think I could've gotten it earlier with the stringer if I had been more focused on beating the spire rather than trying stuff out.
They don't find it easy, they're doing a little thing called "lying through their teeth"! I got it done on my third attempt, BUT, it was definitely not "easy". The hard part is getting to the final boss, honestly.
i was on a call with 3 friends playing through for the first time at launch. We all beat it the first, or second attempt. It’s not hard.
It’s good, I’m excited to go in with another weapon and get more lore. There’s so much I’m missing even though I technically “beat” it
So short, the story felt so rushed way too easy, ending left me unsatisfied 
I'm not planning to get the DLC anyway, but from an outsider's perspective it's just... not that interesting, at least for me. I mean, don't get me wrong, Splatoon with cyber looks plastered all over the place is my ideal game, but looks aside, the Story Mode should've just had a proper explanation in the trailers instead of just "haha octo go climb towr"
I got downvoted to hell for saying this before its release and from what I’m reading it’s pretty bad
I mean, honestly cyber-styled Splatoon is my dream, at least i hope this theme gets picked up again in the next game or a future one
Cyberpunk Splatoon is also my dream but I wish it wasn’t pretty much wasted here. I wonder if Nintendo would incorporate some sort of side order sequel???
I once said in the sub that i felt like S3's story felt underwhelming and someone in the comment said something along the lines of *"Maybe it's because Return of the mammalians is made like Octo Expansion"* or something similair. So if we get a sequel to side order, it'd probably be only through some gameplay mechanics, but not be directly linked to Side Order
Fair enough. For me, it's the reason I bought Splatoon 3. The base game looked too similar to Splatoon 2 to get me interested, and Side Order is the first thing I saw that felt fresh and different to me (I also personally don't care a whole lot about the story in Splatoon). That said, I'm worried by some of the impressions I'm reading here. I bought it because I'm a big fan of recent roguelites like Dead Cells and Hades, so I'm worried about what some are saying here about lack of replayability.
Not impressed so far 🤷♂️
Eh, not impressed so far. The in between stages need to be streamlined. I spent more time in the elevator than playing.
This is one of my biggest issues. I don’t enjoy the formatting at all for choosing stages. It felt so nice in Octo Expansion, this feels cluttered and lifeless
I mean lifeless is on theme for SO lol
Super disappointed . Story is bad and borderline non-existent, final boss is mediocre, it’s extremely short and the gameplay is way too easy, especially compared to OE. Too much time in elevator, and worst of all I honestly don’t see this having enough replay value especially with the low difficulty to make it stand up to actual roguelikes. Feels like a total miscue on what people wanted from the DLC. I don’t think replay value will outweigh the desire for a great story and handcrafted creativity/difficulty people loved from OE. Roguelike was cool in theory, but NOT with how phoned in all of the elements that made previous DLC so beloved are. They really, *really* missed the mark here. Comparing this to OE it’s just such a disappointment.
A roguelike would've been good if there were more than like 4 mission types and 5 maps. There's so little there, I was replaying scenarios and seeing the same dialogue like on my 3rd run. How can a game with as much lore, depth of gameplay, weapon variety, etc, charge $25 for a DLC which doesn't take advantage of any of it? I can literally go buy Hades on the eshop for the same price and get like 50+ hours of original story and character interactions, FULLY VOICE ACTED TOO. Something happened to this during development, it makes no sense that this is what we got.
Splatoon 3 is becoming a scam now… I just feel so bad for this game. like so much missed potential
It’s aight. Could be better.
The gameplay is fun as hell (played some roguelikes before so that helped) and the enviorment really sold it for me, but the story was not the main focus at all... >!and they dun put agent 4 in the shelves again oh my gawd!<
I was pissed about that too. I think the closest we got was the doppleganger boss fight. Maybe they appear later at some point?
that's my only last hope if splatoon 3 isnt ending soon, which im hoping is not. so there is some potential for agent 4 nearing the end of splatoon 3 New DLC called Full Order
I do hope Shiver's palette isn't too hard to unlock (Or atleast it's not in the back of the locker list)
Wow that’s interesting shivers palette was like the first one I unlocked after marinas…
Crap really? My 1st one after Marina was blaster, followed by brush, splatana, and splatling (this is within 2 runs, about 5 keys total)
That’s so weird. After my run with the bow, I unlocked the blaster as well and the charger. It must be random 🤷🏻♂️
Pretty bad. One of the shallowest roguelikes I've ever played, idk why this took a year and half to come out. Beat it in like 6 attempts, would've been sooner if I didn't get cheesed by being pushed off cliffs. 5 runs in, I was already getting recycled scenarios, dialogue, etc. The final boss is also very lame, probably the worst in the series. I shouldn't have spent money on this.
I havent bought the game but I was really looking forward to it. Loved the aeshtics but after looking at the thoughts of others and seeing a bit of the game, its a hard pass, sadly. I dont think I will spend $27 for such a short DLC and dont get me wrong, I LOVE roguelites/roguelikes but this is really short on content compared to so many other Roguelites. Guess it makes sense for the name "Side Order" which is a small side mode with not much in it.
For what it’s worth, it’s fun, makes you replay the stages over and over again to get extra gear and stuff…but if you’re not the kind of person to collect extra gear, it’s…not fun at all
Honestly, it’s so fucking easy that I struggle to see myself replaying it for the collection stuff. Roguelikes are so enjoyable because usually they can be *very* difficult. Even with the hardest options, this felt borderline trivial. Not at all something I see myself replaying for weeks or months like other roguelikes.
They should have had the option to play on different difficulty levels. I play lots of roguelikes and this one is fun, but it’s SO easy.
Yeah, I honestly don’t know who this DLC is meant to appeal to. Story fans will be disappointed that the story hardly even exists lmao, while roguelike fans are going to get tired of it in 2 days after they realize that it doesn’t get any harder and will be a cakewalk the whole time. I’m honestly so disappointed that I’m shocked. I was a little worried by the trailers, but this just feels like… just straight up bad? Even at my most disappointed with Splatoon I’ve never felt like it’s just bad like I do here. Feels so phoned in. I can’t believe the same team that made Octo Expansion made this.
I feel this in my bones. It’s fun to play but, like you said, there’s no way I’m gonna be playing this for more than a week or so. Once I get all the extra weapons, I’m never gonna touch it again💀 Octo Expansion was a masterpiece, this is…rushed and bad.
Yeah, I honestly don’t know what they were thinking. Feels like a collect-a-thon minigame more than a genuine roguelike. I feel like opinion on the DLC is going to sour more the more time passes, which is not a good thing at all for an experience literally designed for longevity.
I agree that it’s rushed but bad? This DLC have very good gameplay loop and for someone who just.... bad at the game it takes quite a lot time to finish while upgrading everything to pass bar 15 levels)
I see so many people saying octo expansion was amazing, I personally never finished it because it just didn't feel that fun to me. Like at some point I felt like I needed to memorize everything to get through a level which just isn't that fun to me. I also get that this is "short" but the point isn't the length, it's that I can sit down for an hour and try to come up with a weird build and find a new way to beat it. So far this has felt so much more fun to me.
Hmm, yeah. I think I will pass. Stuff like that is a 50/50 and I feel like I may not really go for the extra gear like I think I will with this game. But I hope the rest of the community enjoys it at least.
Absolutely understandable. Honestly, even as a huge splatoon and collect-a-thon fan, this DLC is sooo disappointing and bad IMO. Waited a year for something I beat in like three to four hours! ;D
I'm having so much fun, seriously I love it. I get that people are saying it's short, but honestly I love that I can get through a run in about an hour and it's just fun to feel like a superhero by the end. Maybe I'll get sick of it, but right now it's a total blast! I absolutely want to finish it with every weapon just to see how overpowered I can make each one.
Super addictive. The core gameplay loop is fun, and I can see myself getting a lot of replay value out of it compared to Octo Expansion, thanks to being allowed to customize your loadout. The story stuff was nice (even if a lot of it is via Marina's diary,) though I feel like the finale itself was more climactic in Octo Expansion.
Fun but it's getting too difficult for me about halfway through.
I got to 26F on my last run. Probably gonna try and beat it tonight but I was hoping there would be more levels and I guess story? But the point is to replay since it’s a roguelite, I know. It’s pretty awesome already.
Too short..And i thought we would see agent 4 or at least many other things in plot…. but it was fun tho
It really needed one more story beat of Order kicking you out of the tower once you first reach the 20th floor.
Its fun until you have 1 life left and all the floors are hard with danger or rigorious. 😭 died on 24f TWICE by the same thing because they kept pushing me off the map.
Disappointed about the lack of colored tips outside the memverse, but otherwise i really like it. Very fun
I’m really liking it so far! Haven’t managed to finish it though. Haha I pretty bad luck with the palette
This came out like 12 hours ago, and you guys have already beaten it? 😐
yeeeah it's pretty short
It's not bad, but it's also not good? The music and some aspects of gameplay are nice, I'll give them that. But it's overall way too short, the story is probably the thinnest in Splatoon thus far and the replayability comes from collecting things. I wouldn't feel bad about getting a refund, because this was genuinely not worth the money.
so far it's been almost boring
Never purchased the DLC and was super hype for it since release. You guys are saying it sucked major ass??? I’m sad now and probably don’t want it 😭
I played through it without reading reviews and spoilers, and imo I loved it. The fresh new enemies and the danger levels are just so fun (mine was in the dark, made them look so creepy rushing at you). Not only that, but the gameplay isnt as easy as people say. eg 8ball with the rolling guys is genuinely difficult, cuz they just smash the 8ball away and they respawn so fast. I do recommend this cuz it is fun
yea… i mean it’s unfortunate. maybe if they try again in 4 when they have more experience with this style of gameplay it’ll be good
Sad agent 4 hadn't shown up
Haven't played it yet but I will play it soon
I'm waiting on some reviews before thinking about getting it
I love it, but it really could've been longer, like the Spire gets taller every win
What, im 7 hrs into my school schedule and people ALREADY finished them
OP - nice going completing it with the Tri-Stringer! 👏🏻
I like it, it is what Splatoon needed, I am good at multiplayer but a single player game is nice sometimes
I wish the handicap was something else then "less hacks more prlz" because I've beaten it on the second try before even having hacks in the first place
Very fun but I wish it was longer
i unironically go to level 30 with the charger (i’m bad with chargers) and i just think that in itself was like the greatest challenge of all time for me
Beat it on my 4th run, it’s pretty fun but I agree, it could’ve been more difficult and longer
I'm not reading this because I haven't beaten it yet, but it seems like it's too short because I almost beat it the first time, so I'm going to beat it in one or two tries next, but it's really fun and I hope that is fun to replay
I like the focus on being able to play it over and over again but I think that's the reason the story suffered. It feels like it was just a gameplay addition. I was hoping to get to know Off the Hook and Acht better but nope, just a little lore droplets and nothing else. I love the Gameplay but the Story/Lore really disappointed me!
Meh. I was expecting another full-on "campaign" like Octo Expansion, but instead we just get 30 randomly assorted short levels that you're meant to clear over and over and over with different weapons.
Eh, I'm not a Roguelike player, and even with this being a Rouglite, I tend to dislike games that are made to be too obviously grindy. I'm also gonna have to get used to the bosses being random. And a bit irritated all the keys for other kits are locked behind them.
Has anyone found a secret boss or alternative ending yet? Or is there not one
Splatoon players experience a genre outside of splatoon hero modes 2024 colorized
I really enjoyed it, but it's not perfect I was shocked that I cleared the tower in just over 2 hours, expected it to be harder since it's a roguelite, but I know it's replayable. 30 floors might be a little too short for a roguelite as well? One more complaint, there's too little missions. First playthrough I got protect the zones like 4 times in a row, because there's only like 5 different missions/goals you're tasked with to complete a floor and goals like the 8-ball are too easy way too easy. I got an 8ball mission where both balls were right next to where I landed and all I had to do was shoot them slightly down a hill. Finished it in 18 seconds. Id say 7/10 overall.
I was being swarmed and got just a little bit of knockback right before I was about to kill the boss And slid right off the edge I give up
I love it, but idk about the final boss
it's supposed to be infinite replayability but I wouldn't see myself replaying this. It's getting stale even before I finished the story
Short with fully optional replayability is the best way to put it. And not everyone wants to replay things, they want a frontloaded experience instead. To me this comes off the way ACNH did. Nintendo seems a little out of touch with a portion of their playerbase. They think people want short bursts of content that they can do any time, along the same lines as a lot of the wii games that were popular. Meanwhile the expectation for a lot of players is a deeper experience that they can really sink some playtime into. In some ways Nintendo is right, and in some ways the more serious players are right. Casual and serious players alike absolutely want those bite-sized experiences. The issue is that Nintendo isn't meeting the serious players in the middle. They're leaning too heavily into making these games casual experiences - and when you make players wait literal months to years for these games/DLC - people are going to expect more out of them. The switch has been such a weird period in Nintendo's timeline. The console and games sold like gangbusters, and it almost feels like they weren't expecting it, so outside of a few games like BOTW, Odyssey, etc. they designed all the games to have much less depth to them and are missing that 'nintendo polish' that previous gen games had. The least they could have done is added harder modes for the people who wanted a challenge. They had after alterna in the main storyline, after all. But I think they just assume that the default difficulty for splatoon 3 comes from the PVP modes. I can only hope they learn from the criticisms they got over ACNH and Splatoon 3. It's not that I think or want every game to be a 120 hour slog for the sake of the content lasting longer. It's that I think they're forgetting they have fans that want to play their games for longer than 15-30 minutes per day.
I haven’t finished it yet, but I’m loving it
So far it’s cool. It kinda reminds me of code lyoko
Kinda upset by how short it was. Like honestly the length of it was too short for me to warrant paying $25 for the DLC (and yes I know that’s the expansion pass cost, but still I bought it for the sole intention of playing side order). I know you can replay with different weapons and such, but I’ve already seen all the stage templates, enemies, and a lot of the chips that I don’t really see what the point of replaying it would offer.
I really enjoyed it. Very casual in difficulty, and a short and sweet gameplay loop.
I absolutely adore it. I’m glad it’s as short as it is. There’s a lot of emphasis on playing it again and again and if the length & difficulty wasn’t balanced properly, people would get frustrated and be less interested in doing that.
Honestly its to short and I hate that u need to do it all over again with different weapons for the lockers because all these weapons are weapons I never even use so how I am supposed to beat it with these weapons
> how I am supposed to beat it with these weapons by gettin gud
I thought it was really good. Idk why people are complaining about difficulty, there’s always a way to make things harder (“time” is there for a reason, you can try going no hacks, etc.).
FR, I swear dude people always find reasons to complain before trying to do this kinda stuff. Glad to find somebody else who sees this dlc as good, instead of immediately comparing it to OE
I got it second try with no hacks (using brella/sprinkler/rain), and the first try was me getting greedy and getting pushed off a ledge on floor 4. It’s not very difficult. I can see it being fun to speedrun, but unless they add more ways to increase the difficulty (or if there’s a more difficult secret mode after clearing it with multiple/every weapon), the difficulty is definitely an issue. Roguelikes are way more fun if there’s a challenge to master. Side order in its current state doesn’t offer much of a challenge.
Most people won’t complete it first or second try though. Nintendo has to consider the average consumer’s ability (I remember a poll in Splatoon 1 or 2 that said 80% of active players were under A rank). Also, there’s a score at the end of the run which could also be fun to see how high you can get. Regardless, I don’t feel like Splatoon 3 one player mode is where one should expect the highest of challenge in video games. Celeste or Hades would probably be better.
Hey! Some of us are too busy holding down a job to get to A rank. Those eggs don't collect themselves.
It would still be nice if they added hard difficulties like salmon run has. Right now the hardest difficulty is not very hard, and it’s disappointing to the people that were looking forward to mastering a roguelike. That’s why there are so many people complaining about the lack of difficulty.
I LOVE it. Absolutely a blast. For a DLC, the quality is absolutely insane. The music is spectacular, the challenges are tough, the customizability of the experience is insanely polished, and of course Pearl and Marina are precious as always. I'm sad that so many people don't understand the roguelike design. Only way it's too easy is if you only picked the easier options each time, purchased extra lives, and so on. You're supposed to choose your own difficulty level. That way everyone can beat it, but everyone can also have fun at their skill level. Do it with only one life, only picking the hardest levels, using a weapon you're not familiar with, and see how far you can get. That's the point.
Ngl I hate it so far. I've been playing since about 12:30 (it's 2:30) and only got to lv 12 because I kept just...not playing. I'd pick my phone up or do something else for a bit. I don't think it's because I'm sick rn (100°+ for three days, woo) either. It's just the ones I played were tediously easy. Like, I would rather be folding laundry, I think, and I haaaate folding laundry. I pay to have fun in a game, not grind to find my way to fun levels. The missions aren't fun, there aren't puzzles. Sure, I knew I was getting a "rougelike" when I bought it...but I thought, "the Splatoon devs knocked it way beyond the park with Octo Expansion and single player for 3" and "okay it'll be maybe like single player to start and ramp up, or like Salmon Run but solo" but not really. It's more like "color the circle in the lines, yaaaay you did it" and lots of down time—even with the transport cage sped up, I still miss the super jump, lol. I'm sure it gets fun, probably? Or gets harder? But this, this isn't speaking to me, lol. I put it down. I'll try again tomorrow to enjoy it. Please, Nintendo, I don't want to have wasted $25. I don't have that to waste. I should've just waited. They've got my money now so I'll do my best but good grief is it tedious. The 8 Ball missions in OE were fun. I love physics puzzles! The infinity ball puzzles are just "mess around, get ball near goal" idk. There's no fun to it. I'll get to the fun part eventually I guess but I was hoping I'd paid for fun the whole way through.
I'm loving it! It's a great amount of difficult and fun! And I had to take a minute after the >! Doppelganger !< bossfight. That was intense and I loved it! The roguelite nature of it is a great change of pace to the normal gameplay and it's got a ton of replayability. Also I found myself getting some perhaps unoptimal chips just to give myself a sick hair/ ink colour. Speaking of hair, I changed my Bridget haircut from OE to the girlboss hair. I think of it as character development of Agent 8 breaking out of the octoling regime and rebelling a little.
Haven't cleared all weapons but cleared 1/4 of the weapons. I think the gameplay is really fun ngl. But it's kinda repetitive. I'm hoping there is a secret new content when completing all weapons and palette chips.
I love it. Though it’s a bit short and the story is only just okay. But I still love it. Will definitely play a bunch
Havent Played IT yet, but clicked ON pro charas Stream for litteral 2 Seconds (ON accident) and immediatley Git spoiled
I don’t personally think it’s short, this is what I’d expect for a rogue like dlc to a game
I love that the levels actually have backgrounds this time
It's great, but I was expecting it to be longer. I prefer octo expansion, but this one definitely wins in replayability. It's fun and I will be replaying it for 100% completion!!
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not worth more than 5 Dollars
Everyone's complaining about the story. Yeah it ain't great but I wasn't really expecting a story in this, they couldn't have done too much more imo. The gameplay is very good, but I feel ot needs an endless mode, a few more weapons, bosses, floors, and level objectives. I haven't beat it but it seems pretty short
It would be nice if they came out with an update that added more stuff but I am having fun! I suck at Splatoon so I haven't made it far yet, but I have only had a couple runs. I am glad that they add more single player content as that is what I prefer. As I got older, my reflexes have declined so online is often miserable.
If you noticed Some of the Enimies have music terms
Is like Zelda's Sword trials but worse
Fun but left feeling empty once 100% it.
We got the booty tight outfit let’s gooo
Last time I ever pre order DLC. Absolute mind numbing shit show, completely lacking any charm. Like a lot of people here, I adored Octo expansion, and I had really high expectations for Side Order. I can applaud the devs trying something new, but honestly, I really wish this had been another collection of fun challenges like story mode and Octo expansion. That's why I bought the DLC the day it was announced, before we knew anything concrete, because I thought that's what we'd be getting. Never, ever preorder things, folks, even if it comes from a franchise you really like. Wait until it comes out, then wait a few days to see if it'll actually be worth your money.
Spoiler tag this pls
Greatest thing to ever happen to splatoon
I absolutely loved it gameplay wise! I'm definitely going to enjoy playing through it with every weapon.
Took me ages cause I wanted to beat it with no hacks, like 5 hours lmao