Completed a full run with every palette, and feel like I mellowed out on this DLC quite a bit. Maybe my rating is a bit unfair, because Side Order is really cool!
Its take on a roguelike is great in concept, and it has a lot of neat ideas of how to meld that sort of progression with the way past singleplayer modes worked as stage clear games. Being able to dangle each reward you’ll get before choosing a stage, while showing exactly what you’d be in for if you went for it, provides a lot of risk and reward. There’s been times where I’ve actively avoided stages that would give me a better palette upgrade because there was a “Danger” warning or because the difficulty was set too high for me to currently handle. The variety of builds you can create with each weapon also really helps reframe the way I would normally play the game, having to work around luck, or solely using my sub for damage, or using a kit I’ve normally never touched before.

I really hope this roguelike mode continues in future Splatoon games as a fun side thing, because my biggest issue with Side Order is how underbaked it feels. There's a good amount there on first blush, but the game ultimately asks you to complete at least 12 full runs when it feels like there’s only enough content for 5-6. After just a couple runs, I was already running into objectives and stages that I had seen more than once before. Runs ultimately felt like they wholly blended together because I kept getting the same objectives, over and over. The builds and weapons you use add a good amount of variety on their own, but after a while it felt like I was tackling the same things the same way each time. The bosses feel limp after the first fight, the objectives start getting annoying rather than interesting, and I came out of my final run feeling pretty bored by the whole affair. It’s a shame, because like I said, the core concept of a Splatoon roguelike is cool!! There’s just simply not enough content and intrigue to keep replaying any more than you need to. Maybe doing some zero hack runs would make it a bit more exciting…

The story is fine. It’s not much, but it gives a nice little wrap-up on the loose ends of Octo Expansion, while also providing a look into Marina’s past and her own feelings after the events of the Deepsea Metro. Acht is a great new character, and it’s cool seeing someone else who was only represented through their music get a larger role. But, of course, at the end of the day, it feels like this whole DLC was made just to have Pearl and Marina’s relationship be as unsubtle as possible, and what else could I really ask for?