So the other day I played Splatoon 3’s new DLC—Side Order. It’s a new take on the traditional Splatoon single player experience established in the previous two entries, this time functioning like a full-on rougelike (or rougelite, but let’s not get into semantics -_-). In my experience, I haven’t tackled too many rougelikes; Enter The Gungeon was my first rougelike, but i was a bit too, um, bad at it. Later on, I played the hugely popular Hades, and, like many others, I got hooked with its gameplay loop and narrative. That positive experience gave me the confidence to try out others like Dead Cells, and now, Nintendo is also taking a crack at this booming sub-genre. So what did I think of Side Order?
The story follows up a few years after the events of Octo Expansion, and we see Eight and Pearl in this inexplicable white void of Inkopolis Square. They soon enter the tower and meet up with a new-er, old face named Acht. Fans will recognize them as Dedf1sh from Octo Expansion, now in the flesh. The trio hear a distant scream eerily similar to Marina’s, and figure out that they need to reach the top of the tower if they want to find her. When they eventually get to the top, they see a giant, mind-controlled Marina in all her boss fight glory (unglory?) After defeating her and snapping her out of mind-control, it’s revealed that an AI known as Order is behind the anomalies that have been ocurring throughout Inkopolis Square, or at least, this version of it. Cuz’ yep, this is a VR/AR recreation of that same locale called Memverse and it gets really complicated with memcakes and the recollections of their users and… It’s a lot. In short, if we want to save the Memverse, we need to climb the tower and defeat Order.
This is where the main gameplay loop begins. You climb the tower floor by floor until you get to the final boss and (hopefully) clear the tower. Each floor you reach you get an option of three chips that can enhance aspects of Eight and Pearl, whether that be damage, mobility, luck, or upgrades to Pearl. The way this is handled might not be everyone’s cup of tea, since most of the upgrades tend to be numerical (i.e. Main Weapon damage 100%—>125%). Some people prefer drastic alterations to their character that switches the entire play style on the fly, but I believe Side Order handles these upgrades well, especially as they stack on they make a big difference in how you approach encounters. One can make a build focusing on luck and item drops, or another on speed and agility, or a build purely focusing on upgrading Pearl. The different weapons also add some variety, as some have distinct play styles and exclusive upgrades.
An area of contention might be found with the floor and objective design. Like many rougelikes, the actual level design tends to stay as static as possible. And there are only around 5 objectives one can carry out in a given floor. This could lead to some repetiveness as you continue making more runs. However, one general aspect I think they nailed is the decision making. Particularly, when doing Risky Rewards runs is when the game is at its most fun and engaging, every decision made in a floor has an impact and you have to really level out if the rewards outweighs the risk.
There’s lots of fun to be found with Side Order. Nintendo, as usual, made an accessible take on an otherwise “hard-to-get-into” genre of games. If you own Splatoon 3, it’s WELL worth your time and money to experience it and see it all the way through to the end.
So The Other Day I Played 
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