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As we all know, Side Order is going to be played by many players very soon, so a new temporary rule was created, which is to keep all Side Order-related spoilers in this thread. This rule as I said, will only be temporary as it will last the rest of February and all of March. Any spoilers posted outside of this thread before March is over will be deleted, with no exceptions. So make sure to keep all spoilers posted inside of this thread if you don't want your spoiler post to be deleted. If you see any spoilers posted outside of this thread, let me know.
Dunno what makes you think of Mario, besides the company that made it. It's a Roguelike game. Think Binding of Isaac. Or Rogue. The points are just the damage you're dealing with each hit.
Not sure if its worth making a thread or not for this question, so I'll ask it here: has anyone found out how to get access to Cipher's shop? It was shared on the official twitter a couple of times.
Also I feel like you get them by reaching the top of the spire or through Cipher, but is it known yet how you exactly unlock the weapon replicas for multiplayer?
Edit: you get both access to the shop and the replica of the weapon you're using when you beat the game apparently
The mechanics of Side Order make me so so so invested
It's so fun! Been playing a few hours and I'm so happy with it
Favorite palette so far is Marina's, but Agent 4's just EXISTING has made me super happy too
Lots of potential for challenge runs too! All around just super satisfied with it :)
After streaming for six hours, here's my day 1 thoughts:
Mechanics are all super cool. They’ve done a great job giving you a lot of fun toys to play with as your build evolves. There’s so much going on and it’s an absolute blast to play.
However, my biggest concern going in was that it’s going to be a grinding game, and I’m a grumpy old man who hates grinding games. Of course it would be, a proper Roguelike would not be accessible to Nintendo’s target audience.
There are a lot of permanent upgrades to unlock, and they have a pretty big impact. Big enough that the game is clearly designed around them. Surely I cannot just skip them… but I’m so stubborn that I tried to anyway.
I spent about four hours trying to see if I could clear it without buying any permanent upgrades. I managed to get to floor 21 once, but it was an incredibly painful struggle and I couldn’t get that far again.
Not having enough DPS can cause enemy spawns to snowball out of control and feel like there’s just no hope of recovery, I don’t know what to do if I literally can’t kill them faster than they keep coming. Lack of defensive upgrades also makes it way too easy to die in situations that felt out of my control. There’s one particular enemy that will put you in Danger in one hit, and the movement penalty while in Danger makes it virtually impossible to avoid getting hit again and die. Most of my runs ended to that guy in particular.
Still, it feels like it’s gotta be possible for a much more skilled player than me, or at least a lucky one. I got close once! But I could see it’s not how Nintendo wants me to play the game, so eventually I swallowed my pride and bought a few upgrades. I was a little relieved to find out that upgrades can actually be toggled back off at will, so Nintendo did leave the door open for this playstyle…
And from there I got a win in just two more attempts.
The final few floors were nail-bitingly intense, and I started to chicken out of max difficulty floors despite being offered some highly coveted upgrades there.
The final boss… was a pushover. Bit anticlimactic honestly. Still a fun fight, good flavor, but no challenge at all compared to how brutal the Spire itself gets at its peak.
After the credits roll, returning to Side Order plays a new cutscene that spells out very clearly for the player that you aren’t done yet and need to do it again with every weapon. Wondering what that will unlock - maybe a harder true final boss? Or just lore?
But what surprised me the most is that a new upgrade gets unlocked - one that multiplies your rewards for clearing a run based on how few upgrades you have enabled! So Nintendo was considering this kind of challenge run all along! Still, going all the way down to zero upgrades just felt brutal in ways that I was convinced the developers didn’t expect this to be playable, so… I guess I’ll have to see how better players pull it off? Maybe there’s just something I’m missing and with a lot more practice I’ll eventually be ready for this kind of run?
For now, I’ll just work on clearing all the weapons to see what comes next.
Oh yeah, I also want to shout out one of the sub-bosses I really liked, which was just a deathmatch against a few waves of player-bots. That’s not new to the series, but I was surprised at how much better the AI was than any previous instances of this type of fight.
This time around they were surprisingly good at using the terrain, breaking line of sight with me and already being gone every time I thought I could just peek the corner and get them. The Roller and Slosher would even get under the ledge to attack my high ground!
I haven’t actually lost to them yet, but they made me sweat in a way these fights never did before. I loved it.
the building of your palette is so intuitive the game just flows so nicely. it is simple, but it isn’t minimal either. i found the hardest decision making being “ok do i get this vending machine or no” because i always know what kind of chip i am looking for. the main time it isn’t worth it is if there is a color chip you like on a not too hard level and you have all your lives and you like the sub and special you have. if color chips aren’t looking good, re-rolling is cheaper than chips in the vending machine so it’s usually not a big deal. but if you have only like 2 lives left or you have not that great sub and special always go to vending. can also be used to just go up a floor if the levels are too hard.
i beat the game with the brella, marina’s palette, and i switched the sub and special to splat bomb ultra stamp.
i love that it was genuinely challenging and even stressful at times. you have to respect the difficulty and not just mess around because you can easily die that way.
also zones at higher floors are so incredibly difficult. the bomb guys and the painter guys combined, plus the higher swarm of normal guys makes it so difficult of you dont have a lot of range and painting chips. i think its the most fun but also the most challenging
my favorite color chip type is lucky i think its really cool but pearl upgrades are second because sometimes you can just let pearl destroy everything while you do objective.
i have only played a few roguelikes before, but honestly i thought they were just going to make a “little timmy’s first” kind of game, and it could be, but it still is genuinely a really fun experience.
So, I finally played the mode myself, and there's actually something I like that they do at the very beginning. So if you let your copy of Splatoon 3 recognize Splatoon 2's data, the default Agent 8 will actually be the one you have customized in Octo Expansion. While Side Order definitely gives us more options to customize Agent 8 with, I stuck to the one I customized in Octo Expansion for continuity purposes.
Also, Agent 4 was mentioned, but the icon for their Pallette is actually the logo for Cuttlegear, which is actually a nice touch given Agent 4 was part of the New Squidbeak Splatoon.
if you 100% the game w/ all palletes you get agent 8's pattete then you have to beat side order AGAIN with agent 8's BUT the more hacks the less color chips the pallete allows. but if you do beat it you get octo shot replica ;)
ngl bros, this dlc was so underwhelming. I understand it's supposed to be short in order to be "repayable" but it has like 1/3 of the content of OE, yet costs $5 more. I guess it's kinda neat to get Inkopolis Square as a completion bonus, but that doesn't justify the price or the year and a half wait in my opinion. Not to mention that the story felt very anticlimactic, which especially burns considering this was advertised as single player dlc.
