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stingrayloveblog · 19 days

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If you listen to the music of side order it tells a completely different story than the game itself

I keep thinking about it and it fucks me up every time. Especially now that the interview has been fan translated and we know they focused on story telling through the music as one of their top priorities

I feel so insane about it. Because if you listen to the music and nothing else it paints a more vivid picture of the story that's just. Completely different from what happens in game

This was something I noticed in Alterna too. Unfortunately all the fucking variations for Alterna Space Center have been copyright striked into oblivion so you can't find them super easily anymore.

I'm seriously urging you to listen to the tracks outside of the game sometimes. The music evokes so much more than the writing could ever hope to

I genuinely believe they put all their time into making sure the music tells the right story and then when it comes to writing they just slap anything together and call it a day. And it SUCKS

I also want to point out this wasn't necessarily the case until Splatoon 3.

In Splatoon 1 the music and story were all whatever right. Everything with Splatoon 1 was expwrimental and they still had a lot to figure out with the game's identity. But obviously they made it clear from the getgo that music is very important to the series. Hence why the Calamari Inkantation has the significance it does.

In Splatoon 2 music holds more significance than it already did. This is often shown by recurring themes being remixed and stuff (spl2 hero mode final boss, oe variations of off the hook themes). Apart from that, a lot of the music for the kettles/stations are very good at setting the mood for the environment that you're in. It's what any reasonable person would ask for regarding music! It's good!

In Splatoon 3 they went above and fucking BEYOND with the music. The music now reflects so much more than the game environment or the character's personalities. Does anyone remember when Anarchy Rainbow first dropped? Being able to hear the influences of the character's cultures is a new level of detail that hadn't been considered to this degree before.

The Squid Sisters have their folk version of Calamari Inkantation, and Off the Hook's music is themed to American Pop and Hip-Hop (?) Callie and Marie's respective solo songs (Bomb Rush Blush and Tide Goes Out) showcase their personalities more. The demo songs for Off the Hook (and additionally their respective feature songs) show Marina and Pearl's personalities.

But with Deep Cut they went BEYOND that. Shiver's vocals is the most obvious example of this as they tie back directly to her culture. And in Anarchy Rainbow especially you can hear influences of Frye's culture in the instrumentals of the song.

But back to focusing on story modes. Everyone knows how melancholy the site music in Alterna is right? I mean they're not all melancholy but I'm thinking mostly of site 3. I would say that song reveals the most about Alterna and what it's supposed to embody.

My point is there are a lot of different approaches they could have taken to the music there. But they chose that approach specifically. And if you're in that site and walking around the environment and thinking about the logs, that's whem it's really going to dawn on you just how tragic the situation is.

The logs themselves are mostly informational (I know this is likely due to O.R.C.A. being the one to document it all, but still). They don't instill the sense of desperation and tragedy, the hope and longing all the humans had to see the surface. The story gives the information, but the music tells the bigger picture. It's also worth mentioning that the more you explore the area, the more records you find, building upon the music with each one.

Actually saying that out loud is crazy. Because the way it's implemented, it really drives home the fact that we're navigating the remains of a civilization that fell long ago. We're discovering what they left behind, learning more about them as we go. And as the music builds, you feel more connected to them, or at least get a clearer understanding of what life was like for them. They didn't have to do that. Like at all. But they did, and that wasn't something they did in previous games.

With the ending of the game, they do the usual thing of remixing past themes - this time using Grizzco music. But I'd say in terms of telling a story, Alterna Space Center clears any previous remixes of themes/recurring leitmotifs (except Onward but I'll get to that later.) As you're doing the final segment of the game, climbing the rocket to get to Grizz, the music gets more distorted each time you step outside. It gets more corrupted, more difficult to recognize. If it wasn't constantly interrupted by Deep Cut's yapping, it gives you a much better idea of what's going on.

The Alterna Space Center themes reflect the fact that Grizz himself is warped beyond recognition. He's been warped by the grief thaf comes with survivor's guilt. It also sends the message that as you ascend the rocket, it's slowly dawning on you just how grim the reality of the situation is.

And this is where I wanna talk about the issue with Splatoon 3. Well. One of them. There is so much care and detail and emphasis put into the music to make sure it tells the right story...that they forget to write the fucking story altogether.

EVERYTHING in spl3 hero mode is shoehorned in at the end. EVERYTHING. Why are we only NOW getting an explanation for Deep Cut's motives, whe we're supposed to be focused on stopping whatever the hell Grizz is doing?! Why are teaming up with them NOW, right at the END of the game?! There's no time to establish deeper connection or attachment to them! We just kicked their asses 3 timss over and now they're begging...to work FOR us? They don't even know what we're doing. They don't even know what this is all about! As far as we were concerned, this is just a convoluted rescue mission for Gramps! Why the fuck are THEY getting involved?!

And like I said, Alterna Space Center music is great. IF IT WASN'T FOR DEEP CUT'S YAPPING! Like dude! Shut the fuck up! Now is not the time! Any and all tension is completely severed by their tomfoolery! I don't wanna hear about your sense of smell, Shiver! Shut up! I have bigger fucking problems on my hands!

Their conversation is so distracting and detracts so much from what the music is able to convey. And I know we've had the idols talk us through final segments of the game before! But it was not NEARLY as obnoxious as this, and at least when they talked it would be primarily related to and focused on what we're ACTUALLY doing. Marina and Pearl understood the gravity of our situation. Deep Cut do not give a FUCK.

But honestly who fucking cares right. Because spl3 hero mode is so deeply unserious. Like yeah we find Gramps literally fucking DEAD. And then we spongebob movie his ass back to life and it's no big deal. And can we TALK about how Callie and Marie did not give nearly half as much of a fuck about his death as Captain 3 did?? Like DUDE. COME ON.

The reveal of Grizz to be an overstuffed teddy bear does little to help the situation. I'm sorry. How did we go from concept Tartar designs...to THIS?

And this is the point I want to make with Splatoon 3's music. It's so great. It's so so so so so good at telling a story on its own, with setting the tone, the mood, the environment, everything. If you listen to the soundtrack and keep the vague concept of the game's story in mind, it feels like you get a completely different vision for what the story was supposed to be. For how it was supposed to play out.

And the music has been nonstop bangers! We got Yoko and the Gold Bazookas in this muthafucka! Take yo sensitive ass back to Inkopolis! Jokes aside, the music design has been phenomenal. To the point where it's becoming a detriment.

They put so much focus and care and attention to detail in the music...so much that the rest of the game gets forgotten. Where is this level of care for the story? The worldbuilding? The character development? The pacing? What ever happened to...all of that? Everything else?

Side Order is the biggest offender of this. Ever since I beat the game, I've been extremely conflicted on how I feel about it.

Let me just say that right out of the gate, music is phenomenal. Duh. Like, go figure. The gameplay is also really fun. I'd go as far as to say they did a good job balancing the game, balancing the difficulty of it and everything. It's challenging for casual players, but not completely impossible and unbeatable. For skilled players it isn't too difficult, but they include a lot of ways to make the game harder for yourself, and you can always self-impose challenges. Even if you're really good at the game you can still trip up and die when you least expect it, but I wouldn't say it's overwhelmingly bullshit. It's also super fun to clear floors as fast as possible.

The PROBLEM is that you only have to beat the spire ONCE to complete the story. Don't lecture me on this. I am aware of the dev diaries and everything beyond clearing all pallettes.

My point is that even after you do all of that, they still add...nothing. The main game is beat by the first clear. Everything else is bonus or arguably post-game, and does little to enhance the story that's already been told. The main villain is defeated. The threat is eliminated. Don't you understand? There's nothing meaningful left to do.

This is horrible structure for storytelling. There's no room for the story to breathe, no way for it to be properly paced and spread out. They didn't even need to do it this way too.

Obviously the first run is 10 floors to do the tutorial. The way this is structured is good, it gives you ample time to talk to the characters and feel out the situation, to get an understanding of what's going on, both with the gameplay and the story. At the end of that we meet the main antagonist and get introduced to the real plot of the story.

The problems start when you do your next run and the spire now has 30 floors. Huge jump from the previous 10. What's more is that you don't really get to talk to the characters much between floors. If they do talk it's just a few bits of dialogue, but it's not much. And the floors aren't structured to take exceptionally long either. Everything goes by very quickly.

You get past the first boss...then another...and then...main villain? Let's talk about that, actually.

In Splatoon 1 and 2 hero mode, you have 5 areas. 4 bosses before main boss. Each boss functions as a sort of checkpoint in the story. This leads to a sense of progression and accomplishment for every time you defeat a boss. It also allows the story room to breathe, breaking it up and giving it time to develop.

Octo Expansion is structured differently. Insteas of the bosses being checkpoints, they're replaced by the thangs. Each thang collected serves as a checkpoint. The story develops, you get time to breathe, to take a break from the gameplay and actually process what's going on.

Splatoon 3 hero mode is flawed in terms of pacing, but the checkpoint system is still somewhat intact. You have the 3 boss fights to function as checkpoints, but they don't progress the story much. It's also worth mentioning that since bosses are only on every other site, the sense of progression is muddied and gets a bit lost. I'm speaking personally here but I was majorly confused when I completed site 5 and nothing happened.

In any case, stories need time to be told, and players need to be given time to digest what's being thrown at them. If you want a good story you need checkpoints where you can take a break from the gameplay and pick it back up later.

The structure of Side Order doesn't really allow for that, but at the same time, I don't think it would have been too difficult to implement. The pacing for the tutorial spire was perfectly fine. If they had continued that structure, maybe incrementing the spire with an additional 5 or 10 floors after each clear, it would have given room for the story to pace itself better.

Let's say that after the tutorial, the spire still only had 10 floors. You could clear a 10F spire, and then after defeating a general boss (not Order), Order makes an appearance or something and increases the spire to 20F. You clear the 20F spire, fighting another general boss, and now it's increased to 30F. Now this would function as it does in the game, fighting Order once you hit the top. From there on the game could be as it is now.

This gives you 3 checkpoints before the final boss; the tutorial spire, the 10F spire, the 20F spire, and the 30F spire. The gameplay would be almost identical to how it is now. Would people still be able to beat it fast? Sure, but it would force them to take longer because there's checkpoints to slow them down. Even without changing anything else about the story, I think if they had done this and spread out the dialogue between all of these clears, it would have led to the story feeling better and an overall more significant sense of accomplishment.

As it stands now, the bosses in the spire don't function as checkpoints. They don't slow down anything, and there's not much room to breathe after a clear. Sure there's a vending machine, but those are optional. And it also doesn't give you a break from the game - you just go right back to doing more floors. In previous games, clearing a boss or getting a thang forces you out of doing levels back to back. It forces you to go back to the hub world, unlock the next area, get more info about what's going on. You can jump straight back in if you want, but it does a good job of breaking up the gameplay so everything else doesn't feel rushed.

Technically you can pause runs of the spire, but you're never prompted to. You clear a boss, get like 2 seconds worth of dialogue, and are immediately prompted with the next floor. Gameplay isn't broken up at all, story doesn't get a chance to exist.

But for what it's worth, the boss music is great! Everyone loves Asynchronus Rondo, right? Clap if you love Asynchronus Rondo!

Each boss theme in the spire is unique to its respective boss. It changes whether you're fighting them in 10F or 20F. There are elements that allude to Off the Hook's music, and they talked about why in the interview they did recently. It sets the tone, it sets the mood, it fits the environment, it reflects the boss design (0ct0pt1c0n and Ech0 Ons1aught show this very well - merry-go-round motifs and start of match music respectively), the music does everything. It tells you so much about what's going on.

It feels like it's to the point where the music is the main vehicle for storytelling and the actual dialogue is supplementary. But I'd say it's more than that. I think the dialogue brings down the storytelling efforts of the music.

Again, SO much love and care was put into the music of Side Order. Each of the objectives having specific tracks that change depending on which segment of the spire you're in, the names of these tracks all having letters that can be substituted by 1, 2, or 3 to signify this, the boss theme titles having letters to substitute with 0 or 1 based on which version you're fighting, the bosses singing chopped up version of Off the Hook songs, Acht and Pearl's themes reusing Octo Expansion tracks (I don't remember if Rina did this as well soz), the list goes on. And it fucking does dude. Like every track in this game received so much care. The Order Sector and Spire Lobby music as well, with the little thingamabobs that pop in and out and add to the music? Like just LISTEN to how melancholic the initial Order Sector music is. It fucks me up man. It does.

And can we TALK about ONWARD. THE FUCKING ONWARD MOTIFS? Like yeah all fhe bosses blah blah blah I DON'T CARE. MY POINT IS, ACHT STRAIGHT UP NAMES THE CREDITS TRACK #47 - ONWARD, AND I HAVEN'T SEEN A SINGLE PERSON TALKING ABOUT THAT. Like yeah, you didn't hear the little "bum-bum-ba-ba-bum !" In the song itself, but it's STILL NAMED ONWARD. BE SO FOR REAL.

Like if you LOOK at the MUSICAL IMPLICATIONS THAT HAS. That IMPLIES that ACHT would have been EVIL. The only other times we hear it in Side Order is IN THE BOSS THEMES!!! THAT'S what I mean when I say the music tells a different story, dude! IT TELLS SO MUCH.

And the initial Order Sector music. It's so desolate. Especially if you listen without the musical thingamabobs - like just hear the track isolated? It's so sad. It really drives home that feeling of being lost and confused. Like so lost. It's so good. IT'S SO GOOD.

Basically my point in all of this is that they put SO much effort into the music that it's negatively affecting their ability to put the same level of care into the story itself. Side Order's story is rushed, the pacing is out of place, a lpt of what is revealed contradicts what was previously established, so many things don't line up, and overall it falls a little flat on its delivery. I think the premise overall is cool. I just don't think they put that much effort into the execution. But that's because they used up all their effort on making the music.

There is a very real imbalance in the quality of the music and the quality of the story. And I'm willing to talk more about Side Order's story - like how it could actually be really good in the context of the information revealed being false. Like if they release another dlc or story or expansion, and we find out that Marina was wrong about a lot of what she thought about Kamabo and the Memverse, or we find out that Acht was deceiving us and wasn't "randomly pulled in" - basically if they elaborate on this story further and we find out that they fed us false information in order to enhancs the context of the story - I think it could be good.

Side Order's story could actually be REALLY good if they follow it up and reveal that the cake is a lie the player was being lied to and Marina was genuinely misinformed/incorrect on her findings. Keep in mind - this isn't her specialty! She's good with machinery and all, but this is her first time working with memories! And they even reference in-game that her prototypes tend to have a high mortality rate! Just keep that in mind!

Anyways yeah. Splatoon is at a point where it's so focused on music that they're neglecting the story. The music is really really good but because the story is so neglected they basically paint 2 completely different pictures entirely. Splatoon's story is nothing without its music. But the music can be everything without the story. The story hurts it more than it helps.

#inb4 someone without basic comprehension skills says some dumb shit like 'ermm i think u just expected too much'#or 'errrrm actually you wanted too much from the concept art its called concept art for a reason 🤓'#anyway. i agree with all this. the music is so awesome and then it kinda. doesnt match #because all the characters like like teehee. oopsie!#and like thats it. like okay what was the point of all that then

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