A fantastic gameplay concept (after all who doesnt love cheese?), however the game sadly just got too convoluted for me as it went on, and i ended up spending most of my time on tutorials or cheating death and rewatching the stage's intro rather than playing the actual game. The story twists in chapter 3 and 4 didnt really do it for me either which is a bit unfortunate as i was enjoying the story in the earlier ones (not to mention the abrupt ending after so much buildup).

Overall a charming experience but not something id revisit, il give it some extra flowers for the unique idea and great artstyle though.

Theres something very charming about how high effort this remake is for a game most people probably didnt even know existed, the original still has the crusty charm of being an early 2000s game with a budget of 12 dollars, but this one is a lot more easy on the eyes and ears, plus features more content than the original as well. I also liked them splitting getting all the presents and beating the level fast into two different modes, it makes both playstyles more fun that way.

-2 stars for being 50$ and not bringing back the cut level editor or the ereader levels tho like come on bro

+1 star for keeping "THEY ARE 40 DOLLARS"

Was a bit skeptical of this at first (quite honestly i would have eaten up another octo expansion-like campaign) but i really think they did a great job with this dlc, i cant imagine turning splatoon of all things into a rougelike was an easy task, yet it works surprisingly well.

Theres a lot of synergies and fun abilities that lets you be super broken allowing you to aim for super quick runs or you can make it hilariously hard to the point where 1 mistake will end your run, the best of boths worlds if you ask me!

The level design is very solid specially when you consider that it has to take all weapon classes into account, the enemies are pushovers but their strenght lies in numbers so dont sleep on them! (side note: fuck you sprinkler fish stop capping my zones)

Of course as usual the style, themes and music are fantastic (shoutouts to the pearl drone and ball boss theme), a bit different from what we saw from the original teasers but thats concept art for you, the rewards for the base game are also pretty neat (not sure we needed the order suit to be caked up tho)

As for issues, my main gripes lie in the lack variety with the floors, just 4 bosses and 4 objectives is a bit low for a roguelike, Splatoon 3 has had troubled development because of covid but still, i think maybe reusing some bosses from previous campaigns would have helped, as for the objectives maybe tower control and clams blitz could have been integrated into the spire? or how about having more bonus/danger modifiers?

The story is also a bit shorter than expected but for this type of game i didnt mind that much, the dialogue (granted 70% of it is Marina declaring her love for Pearl), plus all the flavor text in the logs and tone/fish pokedex do make up for it a bit.

Overall i think Wave 2 of Splatoon 3 Expansion Pass: Side Order, for the Splatoon 3 game for Nintendo Switch system is a great experience with a decent amount of replayability, and i would love to see a more fleshed out version of as its own game or in Splatoon 4. I dont think it stands quite on the shoulders of other games like Risk of Rain or Isaac but its still pretty well made and fun on its own way.

10/10 If isopadre was in the elevator instead of acht tho

I Am Thou,
Thou Art I,
I Am Thou,
Thou Art I
Splatatatatatatooooon