Review: Splatoon 3: Side Order

Splatoon 3’s Side Order has been dangling just out of reach since it was revealed in 2023, but Wave 2 of the DLC has finally landed for Splatoon 3 Expansion Pass owners. Nearly five years after the release of Splatoon 2’s Octo Expansion, Agent Eight’s story continues in the drab and colourless world of the Memverse, but is it worth the train fare to reach this particular station?

Let’s be blunt, Side Order is a roguelite, meaning there’s a series of semi-random levels you must beat sequentially in order to triumph. The catch? If you run out of lives, you’re sent right back to the start. Note the ‘t’ in the genre name, though, as unlike a roguelike, you can unlock bonuses and boons to make each subsequent run up the tower that little bit easier.

It’s a tried and true formula, and in typical Splatoon style, it gels beautifully with the base game’s mechanics. Once you’ve picked your loadout (known as ‘Palettes’ in-game, and each containing part of the soul of an in-universe character, yikes) you’ll be tackling each floor of a large tower. Things start off almost painfully basic, but you’ll notice you’ll be unlocking a little boost to your stats with each floor in the form of Color Chips, and sweet beans, you’re going to need them.

Side Order is hard. There are ways you can mitigate the difficulty through Marina’s permanent upgrades, or by selecting floors of easier difficulty when presented with the option, but even seasoned squids/kids will have a tough time. It’s not impossible, far from it, but expect some sweaty, sweary sessions as you reach the upper floors and the randomised Color Chips you’re offered really aren’t helpful. Just give me Run Speed Up, you stupid game.

It’s worth it, though. The satisfaction from grinding failed runs until finally reaching the tippy-top (and possibly dying to the final boss) is tremendously addictive, and as soon as you’ve managed it once, you’ll be desperate to jump back in with another Palette to be beaten into the dirt once again because you’re used to an overpowered Splatling and not a barebones Splat Charger.

But a roguelite lives or dies on its variety and its ability to surprise and test you, and with Side Order, that’s when things get slightly less rosy.

Don’t get us wrong, there’s plenty of diversity in some areas; for example, the Color Chips you choose can make one run play entirely differently to another, even if you’re using exactly the same Palette. You could create a Slosher that can essentially snipe enemies for massive damage from an impressively safe distance, or make your ink cover the ground by the (much larger) bucketful, poisoning and killing any enemies that are forced to wade through it, or ignore your main almost entirely and just keep charging and executing your special with little to no cooldown.

Or get the Pearl Drone to do everything, or force enemies to drop bombs when they die causing a chain reaction, or roll around at the speed of sound so enemies can never even get close to you. Suffice it to say, there’s an incredible number of options in how you complete each floor, and it’s a delight.

Unfortunately, the floors themselves seem to dry up in terms of variety disappointingly early. As we just said, the way you complete them can change every time, but there are only five total potential objectives, so you’ll be repeating things a lot over several runs. There are more maps than this, but some maps can seemingly accept any objective, whilst others are locked to a single one.

It’s the same with the boss levels as well, which occur every 10 floors (with the final boss being on the 30th). They’re great fights, and a joy to blast through in all the different ways you can, but the total number within the pool is a paltry three. We’ll delight in the strange, screeching sounds of the Asynchronous Rondo every time we fight it, but given that the design of this genre demands repeated playthroughs, we’d really like to have seen more. It’s just as well the Palettes and Color Chips offer as much flexibility and variety as they do.

There is one area where the objectives and maps shake things up, and that’s on the odd occasion you get a Danger Floor. These are marked as such, and although you can just ignore them, doing so will mean they show up again later, and can become unavoidable. The prospect of losing your run because the map is suddenly shrouded in darkness, entirely covered in enemy ink from the start, or your Pearl Drone is out to lunch is undeniably thrilling, and even if the objectives and map are the same as you’ve had before, this added danger forces you to get your big shoes on. Sometimes these Danger Floors can even have more than one effect active simultaneously. Zoinks.

Given the theming of the DLC is centred around turning everything into a monochromatic amalgam, and the very limited colour palette that that demands, it’s impressive just how un-boring Side Order looks. The stark contrast between the plain, off-white backdrop, the void-like black ink of the Jelletons enemies, and the oversaturated streaks of colour you impose upon the landscapes is really something.

Performance is great as well, although that was probably to be expected. The game seems unshakeable from its 60fps target, although we did notice a few distant enemies running at a lower frame rate in order to maintain this goal. The amount of chaos happening on screen meant we only noticed it literally once though, so fair play, Nintendo.

And the music, oh the music! Splatoon as a series is no stranger to bangers of every flavour, but Side Order may have some of the best we’ve had grace our earholes thus far, with one track in particular reminding us of the Guardian battle music from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Yes, we broke out in a cold sweat.

Conclusion
Splatoon 3: Side Order is an excellent addition to Splatoon 3, and helps to give it a stronger identity over its predecessors. Whilst we’d like to have seen more variety in the stages and objectives, the overwhelming number of options on your weaponry and how you upgrade them makes sure that things don’t get too repetitive. We found ourselves repeatedly coming back to try just one more run which turned into five, so that should speak for itself. Splatoon fans rejoice, it’s another goodie.