#I'm arguing this isn't even a spoiler because it's been a running theme. fight me

[dogtoling]

Just beat side order n while i did have fun it kinda just confirms one thing to me: splatoon has just been trying to make octo expansion 2 again and again. It was clear with return of the mammalians, and it was clear here- especially the finale. I definitely liked it but i did wish there was a bit more plotwise yknow- having a sanitized octoling as a character was sick as hell but i wish we got to know more about sanitization from them and more about acht and marinas pasts- i admit I'm still hunting for the dev diaries so if any of these things are answered there i will gladly take it.

Also this is just me being cringe but they should've gone all out with the color theme and have eight get rainbow ink for the final boss

Your first point is VERY TRUE honestly they REALLY HAVE just been trying to recreate octo expansion ever since octo expansion came out lol. (Spoilers for Side Order under cut)

I'm not "done" with the story yet, I hesitate to call the first full run-through of the tower "the story" despite the final boss being there. Arguably when you beat the final boss, that's basically the prologue for the ACTUAL story to start, because prior to that you have like... maybe 20% of all the lore the thing has to offer. I feel like it is a weird decision from them to put so much of the story (well, not even really story, just unlockable lore) behind you already having beaten the final boss and rolling credits, given most people that get through the final boss will treat that as the mark that they've "beat" the game even though in Side Order's case, "beating the game" is really just STARTING the game. (And this makes most of the story technically postgame, which is something a lot of people don't enjoy.)

I believe the ACTUAL story will further unravel as you do repeat playthroughs of the tower, as the story is less "get to the top of the tower and defeat Order" and actually more "reconfigure all the palettes to save all the people whose souls have been pulled into the Memverse (name pending)". I won't be giving any bigger consensus on how the story is or if it's good until I've *actually* gotten to the very end of it, because the way it's been unraveling I am interested in if there's some other developments later on - I'm thinking there's about a 50/50 chance of there really not being anything more than extra lore, but the other 50 chance of there actually BEING some kind of story progression later on still.

They definitely SHOULD'VE done rainbow ink for the Order fight... I can agree with people on one thing and it's that the final boss was very underwhelming. I got to the final boss on my FIRST TRY (then died because i got knocked off the stage lol) and just... having the final boss be about one and a half hours of gameplay after STARTING the game is not great lol. But even with the final boss battle itself, it felt extremely underwhelming with no buildup and a short boss battle, and you could argue that the whole story IS buildup to the boss - this is true! But if it's JUST buildup to the boss, then... my point is Side Order's first full run kind of feels like the escape phase in Octo Expansion with much worse payoff. It's a pretty good buildup for a pretty underwhelming final boss, but it's just that - JUST the buildup, really. I think Octo Expansion's escape phase might even be longer than my average run of the tower, and the tower is the main game.

I dunno where I'm going here really. I do hope they start doing more ACTUAL LIVING STORY in Splatoon rather than putting the characters in a box and giving you all the information as a text box - but that's something i expect from Splatoon stories as per default, honestly, so i wasn't let down. As for the story itself, I'm pretty happy with it and it's delivered above my expectations so far (which were low, so that isn't saying much). I'm just really happy they're finally doing continuity and going back to elaborate on Octo Expansion - you know, something that a lot of people love and. something I have been complaining about for like 6 years straight now because im a hater. Though I also think the decision to make the story indirectly - AND directly - about octo expansion is a really weird choice given there's got to be a lot of players who never played it, and those players have no idea what's really going on and probably won't care as a result. Thanks for the ask!

#side order #side order spoilers #mailbox