#No idea if that octo from the Side Order DLC is actually Agent 8 but close enough. Also that whole drawing was kicking my butt | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sloshr · 2 months

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After watching through Side Order... I have a Few Thoughts.

[Spoilers ahead]

My Review of the Side Order DLC - Its little more than Gameplay.

Initial Opinion

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Overall; I like the gameplay mechanics initially, but the story absolutely feels lacking to me, imo. It feels like they were really banking on Side Order being Hard but... multiple of my friends finished it on their 2nd or 3rd run through the Spire.

That in itself isnt a problem! But... everyone felt sort of unsatisfied? There were no developments in the story, as we, Agent 8, were just assigned the task to Get to The Top of the Spire -> The Player Does That -> You beat a Boss -> Credits Roll (?)

On my watchthrough I literally said Please Say Sike 😭 because, dont take this poorly, but they were advertising Side Order as;

• Difficult (stated Multiple Times in basically every Trailer)

• Story Driven (You Uncover things as You Climb)

• Character and Lore Intensive (as shown by the trailers with all the concept art as well as promo art)

I dont feel like it was wrong to expect more based on how it was advertised.

But... if you complete the DLC in 1-2 runs, which is Very Much Possible, no buildup happens at all. The story was banking on the player struggling, and putting all the content behind repeat runs, which falls through and Doesnt really work/feel satisfying if the main goal is achieved in such a short time. I Feel like anyone who regularly plays Salmon Run will likely have a similar experience. And I feel kind of cheated? Because what we got was something that was Tell Not Show rather than the Show, Not Tell formula. And in my opinion, it really doesn't work as well at all. It puts all the major lore that the game has set up behind repetetive climbs (which never change btw, despite each climb being generated differently, its the same after a while) and you get about 1 Sentence of Exposition, with a Modlog from Marina if you are Lucky.

Side Order was (to me), after watching it all;

• Not Difficult, But Repetetive Gameplay (This easily runs people down, which would be fine if the tower had more than 1 setup or phase)

• Inital Story Setup with no complexities or stages. You climb the first Tower, Save Marina, Climb the Second Tower, Beat Order, and the credits Roll. In its most complex, you could fit what Side Order's Story is in 2-3 Sentences. Rather than Lore being revealed During the story, it feels Pushed to the Side as all of it is either in Text the player may never see (different climbs) or care to read (Marina's Mod Log)

• Use of Character Drops with no explaination / mention (The Agent 4 Boss, Anyone?) (This felt very Bait-y, with No Payoff)

Rating

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If I had to give Side Order a Rating

4/10. At Best.

I am a bit disappointed with this as I feel like I was promised more, Storywise, and honestly a bit gameplay wise. I think it fails where other DLC has succeeded Due to being Built in such a way where anything engaging is stuck behind barely changing gameplay. It is not built in a way where the experience cant fail to show you whats important to the characters and the worldbuilding. It relies too much on telling you whats happening rather than the world showing you. Its too Simple, and It Doesnt Work, personally, in a series that contains Octo Expansion.

Which is Sad to me!! It had so much wasted potential and I really hope this isn't the last we're going to see of the concept, we get to see ideas actually built into the story, and... maybe find Agent 4.

Conclusion

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Tldr; Side Order had a good concept, but failed in execution for being simple and gameplay dependent, which was ultimately disappointing due to it being advertised as something more for all involved.

It was an alright attempt. The experience will just be known to me as... well. Baby's First Rouge-like. Nothing worldbreaking.

(PS, this isnt meant to be mean spirited or overly critical, I just love the Splatoon Series so I give it Tough Love. This is just my personal view on the DLC)

Thank you for Reading! Feel free to share or add any thoughts!

#This is Just my opinion but Ive seen a couple people with similar experiences to me and wanted to make a post to see if anyone else #feels the same about the whole DLC #if anyone has any experiences to share feel free! id love to hear #sorry if this seems mean spirited or overly critical - i really do love the splatoon series with all my heart #its tough love #splatoon #review #Side Order #Side Order Spoilers #Splatoon 3 #Nintendo

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keystone8379 · 2 months

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Side Order review

Ever since Octo Expansion, the Splatoon series has been shaking up its single player content every few years, I only really got into the series during 3’s release cycle but it must be refreshing and exciting for longtime fans. With Side Order’s release, the shake up was adding a movement shooter roguelike to the game, a very indie game idea and a very exciting one. I was so excited, I ended up playing a few runs of every roguelike I owned in preparation. So how was Side Order? How does it compare to other games in its genre? Let’s talk about it.

In Side Order you’ll be climbing the Spire of Order, one floor at a time. Each floor will give you colour chip which ranges from things you can get in gear abilities to more crazy stuff like your dualie dodge rolls having attacks, or your shots having homing. You’ll then take that buff into a floor where you have to complete an objective, either destroying portals, defending splat zones, pushing a tower, sinking an 8 ball, or defeating runaway enemies. There’s not many objectives, but the amount of different rooms you can get makes each floor varied, though the objective count is an issue to some people.

Personally, my biggest issue with Side Order is that there’s a lot of downtime, much more than any roguelike I’ve ever played…except maybe Kirby Fighters 2. Between floors, you have to watch an animation of Eight putting the chip you chose into the palette, you have to watch the animation of the elevator going up, you have to take the cage to the actual level, then after you complete the objective you have to watch an animation of Eight walking back to the elevator. This adds up a LOT over the course of the run.

That being said, when you’re actually playing the game, it’s a blast. All of the rooms have designs that can be tackled in a variety of ways, and when you start seeing repeat rooms, it’s very satisfying to improve at them, whether it be with more optimized movement, better gameplans, or even just a new build. This is really complimented by massive build variety, there’s a lot to find with synergies between chips, or unique builds for certain weapons. The game also rewards min-maxing in a really creative way. Most upgrades will yield diminishing returns…unless you max out that upgrade type. Firing rate for the blaster would go from 300% on the 4th upgrade to 1000% on the 5th upgrade, and it’s super exciting to see what each chip type does when maxed out. It gives the game a lot to explore.

There’s also a lot of little things during combat that I like. Several enemies either interact with the stage in a unique way, or can be interacted with in a unique way. You’ll have some enemies that will only attempt to paint the zone, or enemies who love the 8 Ball and will try to hit it at all times. You also have enemies that drop a top or spring that you can take advantage of. It leads to super dynamic combat. Since not all enemies paint well, or some not at all, you’re really rewarded for having stage control more than any other single player mode. Since most enemies attack you directly, you’re promoted to push past the zone instead of just staying in it, which is what you should be doing in Splat Zones normally! The bosses also follow this mentality of designing for skill expression, but to talk about them we need to go into spoiler territory.

The slowest and easiest boss is Parallel Canon, an army of Agent 4s. That’s not to say it can’t be done fast, or isn’t interesting though, as clones will scale depending on what buffs you take. However, it’s the only boss that isn’t always vulnerable. Meanwhile, the ball has a small weak point that can be expanded by either waiting, or by pushing it into a bumper. It’s super satisfying to take advantage of its positioning to get high damage while opening it up as it constantly rolls away. My favourite boss from the DLC has got to be the tower though, there’s so much risk to juggle but it’s so rewarding when done well, whether it be running under the tower to get to its weak points quicker, or only aiming for the layers you need to destroy to win. There’s tons of room for skill expression and I love it.

Special mention to the tutorial boss and final boss for sharing mechanics, meaning you can’t be blindsided by the final boss’s premise like you can in some games. (looking at you Time Eater) If we’re going into story stuff though, the game starts with a great intro, it left me really excited to keep going and has one of my favourite songs in the DLC.

However, this is one of the weaker stories in the series. The main plot is only made with one win in mind, so while the finale is very good, the pacing to get there is a little janky. I was also left with a lot of unanswered questions that Octo Expansion and Alterna didn’t leave me with, aside from the classic “is this a mistranslation” thing. That’s not to say what’s there isn’t good, Marina trying to help the victims of Kamabo Co. is very compelling, Pearl is a bunch of fun to be around, Acht is very cool, and Smollusk is a hilarious villain, even if he doesn’t have the thematic depth of Grizz, Tartar, or Octavio. There have been loreheads who really didn’t like the story but it didn’t bother me too much, except for 2 instances.

I know roguelikes have never really been known for their story, (for the most part) but I can’t help but feel like the first trailer for Side Order was a bit of a sucker punch. Seeing all this concept art for visuals and potential lore that didn’t make it into the game is a little upsetting.

The second big thing writing wise is, and I know this upsets me more than it reasonably should, but fuck man, Eight not having a personality in Side Order hurts. I know she got more stuff than Agent 4, but Eight was one of the most real feeling characters in the series. The mem cakes from Octo Expansion gave her so many little quirks, but there’s almost nothing from Eight. No poems and very few emotes. It’s especially upsetting because Eight was on Team Order but there’s nothing she can say about her situation. What Eight does get is really sweet, and it’s not a dealbreaker for me, but man, it hurts.

There’s also a few other issues like the lack of seeding or any real Heat/Ascension settings. Any challenges you want to do, like no hacks or single tone palettes would be self imposed challenges, and I do wonder if the game may get stale faster than other rougelikes. There also isn’t any secret boss, nothing like the Heart, the Collector, the Lich, or Charon to really push your skill and your build to its limits. It’s especially frustrating because it feels like subsequent runs seem to be building up to something but it doesn’t really go anywhere. But then you have moments like the Epic, Vibrant Battle, or how charming the elevator dialogue can be, and it reminds me how much I’ve loved being a fan of this series. I may have a lot of criticisms with Side Order but I did absolutely enjoy my time with it.

So, in conclusion, should you get Side Order? Well, if you take your switch on commutes, I think the answer is 100% yes. Trust me on this, I can’t tell you how much time I would put into the slay the spire mobile port if it wasn’t Apple Arcade exclusive. If you’re a fan of roguelikes and Splatoon, I would get it, this is the category I fell into and I had a blast with the game. If you weren’t already interested in Splatoon 3, there are probably better roguelikes to get, I’d suggest Risk of Rain 2 if you want a movement shooter. If you value story as much as gameplay or more than it, I would instead suggest Hades if you want a roguelike. If you’re worried about the genre’s permadeath being unforgiving, I would pick up the game, as Side Order does a pretty good job of dispelling that fear while also allowing for the high stakes that makes roguelikes so exciting. I genuinely think you will get more out of Side Order if you’re not great at Splatoon, as you’ll have more hacks to disable for if you ever want to do challenge runs. Overall I’d give it an…uhh…8/10, I guess? Can we get rid of number scores?

#Splatoon #splatoon 3 #side order #agent 8

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ceph38 · 2 months

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side order reimagined ideas

before more information was revealed on the dlc i actually thought that side order was being more focused on agent 8s backstory (remember that weird green sludge water from the octo ex customisation screen?) and that the all white inkopolis plaza place was taking place in someones mind

im imagined that it was kind of like a kamabo co hive mind where all the sanitised octolings minds go when they become blended / zombies

or kind of 8 traveling back through their past experiences ? also that image with many agent 8s

we still don’t know so many things like how are the test applicants chosen / who attacked us snd brought us to the deep sea metro

and since agent 8 is the one that had a whole theme with recollecting memories (mem cakes) and having flashbacks (inner agent 3) an inner world travel through their memories would also have been very fitting

my thoughts are not very organised and neither is my writing help </3

#side order #splatoon #agent 8 #octo expansion #agent 3

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freakshowonfire · 1 year

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a splatoon 3 side order dlc theory !

hello ! so i was looking through a lot of people saying the dlc was about marina's backstory, some saying it was about eight again, and a very small amount saying it was about a new octoling, so i was a bit curious, i went looking through the stills myself, and made my own theory!

the main theory: the dlc is about marina, agent 8, and a brand new octoling, all at once ! (or at least all of them are important)

will get into explanations below !

important octo #1: marina

so marina's pretty obviously gonna be important to the story, since she appears in her damp socks outfit (probably) here

but personally, i think she also appears in a different form, in this image

other than her skin tone being similar and her ink color resembling splatoon 2 marina's ink, if you look closely at the glass, you can also see her face reflected in it

this expression is pretty similar to a semi-common marina expression in splat2 promo art! specifically in splatfest art, though it can show up once or twice outside of that too

(a couple examples)

that little tidbit fully convinced me that that's marina in that screenshot ! i originally thought she was in this screenshot too because of her similar looking outfit and same tentacle sucker location at a glance, but i can see now that the octo below is just wearing standard splat1 octoling armor, so that might just be a normal octoling

anyway, that's marina done, now onto section 2 !

important octo #2: agent eight

eight also seems to be pretty obviously in the trailer ! specifically in these two images

her tentacles have her classic reddish-purple color from octo expansion, she has the same tentacle-style, and in the second image her eyes are pretty clearly orange, like in the octo expansion promo art and trailer !

she also seems to appear in these two at a greater distance ! same hairstyle and ink color, though it's a lot more faded and dark in the second one

eight might also appear in this image below?

this one's a big maybe because i have no idea who she's meant to be, but she's wearing the outfit eight is wearing in the trailer and vaguely looks to have red tentacles as well ? yeah

that's it for eight! now onto the final one

important octo #3: the new girl

surprisingly, this doesn't appear to be eight ! she doesn't appear to have any suckers on her entire right (from her perspective) side of her tentacles, and her other front tentacle looks to be puffy and varied in thickness, almost like an inkling hairstyle! in addition, she's wearing what appear to be ragged clothes in the second image, while eight has her new testing gear. the new girl looks to have two-colored eyes too, you can spot a darker ring around her eyes that eight doesn't have in her art. the new girl is also pretty pale compared to the others, and has what i see as her biggest trait, a notably gray ink color, which seems to be actually gray as opposed to the other octos just matching the desaturated palette. not entirely part of this girl being new, but i think she's in the same place in both images just from different angles, which i think is cute :3

so we've identified three different octolings; marina, eight, and the new girl, and now there's a big question for this theory:

who's this one ?

personally i think it's the new girl, because of a few reasons: her ink color is a match to the new girl's gray, her skin color matches up decently well ? (not perfectly, though, the new girl drawing is pretty pale) and i think that nintendo would probably put their new main protagonist front and center in the teaser.

it could also be eight, though ! her hairstyle is the same as eight's, and her skin is a much closer match to the drawing. my personal explanation for the hairstyle is that since you only see her from the back, nintendo hasn't made her unique hairstyle yet, and since eight's style is pretty close from the back, they just used it as a placeholder. this could be wrong though, and it could end up being eight ! but i do think that if it is eight, she won't be the main playable octo (cod i hope we get to play as all three)

(UPDATE from a day later: ok so im pretty sure the trailer octoling is eight now just going off of height and tentacle style)

and thats it ! i made it to explain the inconsistencies between the three different octolings in the trailer (four, counting the cloned one? maybe five with the orange-ink one? thats a lot of octolings) and so i could have the best of all worlds: having marina, eight, and a new girl (who has been named pearlina daughter by my friend maddy)

oh, and one last thing, not related to the octolings this time:

who's this ?

that's pretty clearly an inkling shadow (from the pointy ears), and that definitely isn't pearl casting it. so, my final theory: this shadow is cast by agent four PLEASE PUT HER IN THE DLC NINTENDO

ok thank you for coming to my ted talk i put so much thought into this

#splatoon 3 #splat3 #splatoon dlc #side order #theory #analysis #marina #marina ida #marina splatoon #agent 8 #octoling #agent 4 #PLEASE NINTENDO

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dogtoling · 1 year

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Overall, I'm rather disappointed with the DLC. We get to endure 3 months of fan theories and speculation over basically nothing. We know nothing about what will happen.

I will note that this is confirmed to be present-day Inkopolis. So I know Inklings are kinda stupid, but are they really so stupid that they completely miss Inkopolis Square turning completely white?

Wave 1 is kinda boring. Considering I just got a Wii U, seeing the hub world again is so boring. They could have done so much more with the first Wave and they're just leaning on nostalgia to do the talking. What's the difference? I get Inkopolis in 1080p?

Anyway, back to side order. First off, I do not want another playable species, or for Nintendo to rush one in haphazardly. Octolings were an exception since they were already planned to be added in S1 but it just didn't make sense story-wise. I don't want them to rush one in without good reason just because the fans want it.

Next, we know nothing about Side Order. Yay, Inkopolis Square is white. Oh and here's some artwork that tells us nothing about the game. Theorize for the next few months while we figure out what and when to release stuff. Oh, and it might take us until next year to release the DLC so there's that (as much as I want Wave 2 this year, they didn't put 2024 on the eShop for nothing). I'm gonna hate scrolling through Reddit knowing we're gonna be throwing around theories for a long while.

I also really don't want this to be about Agent 8. She got an entire DLC to herself and she actually has a backstory, while 4 and Neo have next to nothing for a backstory. (3 technically doesn't either, but that was made up for with OE and S3's story mode). I'd love for Agent 4 to make a return, but knowing she probably won't is sad. I overall don't like how they shuffle between the same 5 characters in every story mode. Always Callie and Marie, Cap'n Cuttlefish somewhere, and a clueless you. They mixed it up with Pearl and Marina, but still kept Cuttlefish and 3. Just give us someone new! Reusing old characters is fine, but not 4 times in a row.

Anyway, thanks for all your thoughts. They were fun to read :)

relatable thoughts. To be fair, none of the inklings seemed to care that there was a massive death cannon in Inkopolis Bay during Octo Expansion either, so inkopolis square getting bleached and everyone just being like "oh okay" wouldn't even be that far-off, lol. I don't think it's literally the square in the real world.

HUGE agree with the reusing of the characters. I know it's a Nintendo trademark to throw around the same marketable characters in every game until the end of time, and honestly I wouldn't mind character-focused stories IF THE STORIES WERE ACTUALLY CHARACTER-FOCUSED AND THE CHARACTERS WERE GOOD. Especially OE and RotM so far felt like they were trying to tell some completely different and interesting story but the idols just HAD to be shoved in there for no reason, and the story isn't even about the characters in the end, they're just kind of there - but they're there enough to retract from other cool stuff that the story COULD'VE been about....

On the topic of a new playable species, I agree it would be weird if they added one out of the blue and it might set an annoying expectation for a new species to be added in every game. On the other hand, I want cuttlefish... there's been concepts of cuttlefish in the game before and it feels like it SHOULD happen at some point, given the common consensus of cephalopods as a group is "squids, octopuses and cuttlefish". Yet we have no cuttlefish... but we DO have an angry cuttlefish graffiti sticker alongside the angry squid and octopus ones. As to how they'd add cuttlefish and make it fit and not feel sudden and out of place, I have no idea.

#mailbox

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sepiamestus · 7 months

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i will talk to you about tpn splatoon au bestie that sounds fun as hell iam staring at you with my big autistic eyes. give me your thoughts <3

OHHHH YYEAHHH ok putting under a read more cuz it might take a while to explain

Ok so because I never recovered from 2018 my ideas mostly revolve around octo expansion (which is the dlc where the first playable octoling agent 8 was introduced. I won't explain the entire plot since its pretty convoluted and my au does not closely follow canon at all but the gist of it is agent 8 gets trapped in an underground testing facility and has to fight other octolings yo make it to the ""promised land"" aka the surface).

^^ 2 diff versions of 8

But in the au version the kids (all octolings) were raised in the deapsea metro (the testing facility) and believe that if they pass all the tests (aka get full scores wink wink) they will go to the surface.

But what they DONT know is that the kids are actually getting put in the blender

Like in canon when the antagonist (tartar) needs blended up octolings as his "ingredients" for the "primordial ooze". (Theres a loooot of theorizing about what tartar did with the Octoling GooTM that hasnt been confirmed by canon but for the sake of the au and basing off tpn we'll say it's for dinner reasons).

So then norman and emma walk in on conny being blenderfied, and they realize that their entire childhood was a lie and they're actually being prepped to be smoothies, and decide they need to escape to the surface in a way that doesn't require help from Tartar the big bad blender guy.

So they go to our favorite boy ray who, alongside knowing about the testing facility scam for years, acquired a map of the facility through secret sources (cough cough dedf1sh the zombie DJ who lives in the walls).

But before they escape mr tartar sauce catches onto their schemes and tries to undermine them by prematurely sending norman to smoothie town (presumably 👀)

R and E then use the map to try to escape the facility the long way by going up through all the floors. Yadda yadda yadda, fight some brainwashed octariens, dodge some lasers, etc.

Then they get to The Big Elevator that's supposed to take them to the surface but instead they find norman, who instead of being turned into a protein shake, has been "sanitized" aka mind controlled by tartars primordial ooze

Like agent 3 in canon :)

****Big epic paint battle scene here****

Norman gets degooped, and the kids go to the surface. This is where it splits from octoex canon cuz in the game, there's a big boss fight with tartar and his knockoff statue of liberty, but instead after they reach the surface they find inkopolis (the main inkling hub) completely abandoned (like in side order) and go

THEN we get to the delayed part of pearl and marina, who I've decided are sonju and mijuka simply because it's the funniest. And basically they keep living in the abandoned inkopolis till the events of side order. And then dedf1sh comes. Eventually <3

#AYAYAYA HIII SKYE. I HAVE A LOT OF THOUGHTS #i hope this is coherent enough im sick af and my brain is not functioning at particularly high speeds #This is quite possibly the most self indulgent at anyone has every made but I cant help but splatoonify every character I like.#Soos voice my wisdom is both a blessing and a curse #ruby speaks #Splatoon #Tpn #Asks #Skye🌦

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zikadraws · 1 year

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Ok so other than the fact that I will now be unhealthily obsessed and probably crying over that Splatoon 3 DLC, some quick thoughts :

One, holy shit, what the fuck, can I please have my silly cephalopods with a bit less of existential horror and survivor's guilt, for the love of god ;

Two, seeing what they gave us because of "Side Order" makes me so unbelievably regretful (?) of Chaos winning, even though that was my side, because now I'm curious sick of what order themed Splatlands and Hero Mode could have been, and above all we probably would have had a Chaos sided DLC, and I NEED a insight of that in the next official Splatoon artbook ;

Three, I'm extremely disappointed that we didn't get to see Agent 4 in this trailer, as they are obviously my favorite and this is why I'm regretful we didn't get a Chaos side DLC. (Also, please leave the octarians alone, have they not suffered enough.)

However : this is only the first trailer of this DLC, and truth be told, we didn't even see any actual gameplay so far. (Remember the very first trailer for Octo Expansion, which was literally just showing Unconscious 8 over "Nasty Majesty".) Which means that there is a chance there will be more "Waves", at least in my book, and we still don't have any idea of the pitch ; so all in all, maybe Agent 4 will be included in future trailers (tell me they didn't doxx them for nothing), or that we might have an insight from another "Side" ; and who knows what and who else will be involved in whatever soul-crushing lore they're gonna hurl at us this time.

On a last note, still personally convinced my DLC scenario was best. -_- But yeah granted it's not like I've even seen anything.

#splatoon #splatoon 3 #splatoon dlc #rambling #autistic rambling #agent 4 #agent 8 #I'm anguished in advance is what I am help me #uuurrrghhhhhhhhh-

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