OnePotWonder
Inkling Fleet Admiral
- Joined
- Jan 31, 2024
- Messages
- 755
- Location
- Marooner’s Bay
- Pronouns
- He/Him
- Switch Friend Code
- SW-2068-8904-6306
#5 - Return of the Mammalians (Splatoon 3)
Return of the Mammalians was a cool campaign at first, but looking back at it now, it was an absolute joke. The gameplay and the lore are completely separate entities that literally never interact. The gameplay and the setting don't mesh with one another at all. The bosses all fight you for no reason, misunderstandings dictating all of the conflict, except the final boss. The final boss that you only end up running across because they kidnapped the character you've spent the entire campaign searching for, for a reason that is literally never explained. Said final boss then reveals itself to be a giant bear with a plan to destroy the world, then promptly flies off into space.
Guys, I don't know, but I have a feeling that this campaign's story was a little rushed. By which I mean thought up in the last stage of development a week before the game's release. Return of the Mammalians was so bad, I would argue a campaign that's blatantly copy-pasted from a previous game is better than it.
#4 - Octo Canyon (Splatoon 2)
Octo Canyon, for all of its uninspired duplication of Octo Valley, actually has a pretty decent and believable story. DJ Octavio waits until Cap'n Cuttlefish and Agent 3 leave Inkopolis on a mission, kidnaps/recruits Agent 1, then steals another Great Zapfish with only one member of the New Squidbeak Splatoon left to stop him. It makes perfect sense, especially for a character with stubbornness as a prominent personality trait. The story of Octo Canyon is actually a highlight of the campaign for me. Everything else is pretty subpar.
Despite being uninteresting and unmemorable, Octo Canyon is not bad, all things considered. It has decent characters, decent gameplay, a more than decent story, and a setting of all time. It also has a lot more replay value than other campaigns, thanks to 100% completion asking that you beat every level in the game nine times. That may or may not be a positive, actually...
#3 - Side Order (Splatoon 3)
Taking a step away from the campaign that plays most into the standard formula, we have the campaign that strays farthest from it. Side Order is more focused on gameplay than any other campaign in the series, mostly because that's practically all it has. It's story is fine, but it's a lot shorter than all of the others even taking into consideration that a majority of every campaign's gameplay has nothing to do with the story. Return of the Mammalians has the rocket sequence, Octo Valley tells a story as the gameplay progresses, Octo Canyon builds interesting character dynamics, and Octo Expansion is Octo Expansion. Side Order has a final boss. That's about it. No buildup, and like with RotM, most of the lore goes into the world-building and setting rather than the characters.
The highlight of Side Order is its few bosses, if you ask me. This is the game where Nintendo perfected the boss formula, creating the perfect blend of initially terrifying and goofy once you get to know it. For each of its four main bosses. I only hope that Nintendo maintains that peak in future story modes.
Side Order's gameplay is decent. Nintendo, for what it was worth, tried to make the mode not feel too repetitive after it was beaten, but the lack of diversity in floors, bosses, or objectives left run diversity solely in the hands of color chips, which is only just good enough. I feel like the mode started out going in an entirely different direction, so assuming that it was a bit rushed, it ended up being pretty good.
#2 - Octo Valley (Splatoon)
The OG campaign from Splatoon, introducing the Octarians, Cap'n Cuttlefish, DJ Octavio, and the kettle format. One point of interest for the original campaign was that it was a lot harder than later campaigns, and I mean a lot. Players had no armor by default (which is how it should be) and enemy shields were unbreakable. The bosses were genuinely intimidating (not Octonozzle), something only the DLC campaigns have been able to do since.
And the final boss. Well, the final boss is in a league of its own. Original Octavio is what you get if you take the cinema of the NILS Statue and combine it with the gameplay of Overlorder. It's a genuinely challenging bossfight against a genuinely intimidating boss. These days we all know Octavio as a lovable, stubborn pushover, but he most definitely was not always that way. It managed to meet the satisfaction of Octo Expansion's final boss without so much as a whole minute of cutscene. Speaking of which.
#1 - Octo Expansion (Splatoon 2)
Duh.
Octo Expansion is a perfect campaign. It has a perfect setting, perfect lore, perfect characters, perfect gameplay, and a perfect story. The only part of the campaign you could possibly consider a negative is how high it set the bar for future campaigns, to the point where the developers tried to copy it, possibly more than once, and ultimately settled on trying a completely different single-player format. Octo Expansion is the reason Off the Hook is the most popular idol group. It's what originally allowed players to play as octolings. It's the reason half of Splatoon series players have an instinctive fear of giant 8-balls. Despite the fact that the boss fight was nothing more than shooting a bunch of targets Dark Beast Ganon-style with literally no threats except for a time limit, it's consistently ranked among the top 3 bosses in the series because of how cinematic it was.
You do not do better than Octo Expansion. Not unless you somehow have equally good characters, an equally good setting with equally good lore, an equally impactful story, and equally good gameplay. There are so many highs with Octo Expansion that hitting all of them again seems impossible. I do hope that I'm wrong about that.
Thanks for reading, feel free to share your own thoughts about Splatoon single-players below. Your favorite campaign is Return of the Mammalians for whatever reason? I'm very curious to hear your justification for that.
That's all from me. Have a wonderful day!
Return of the Mammalians was a cool campaign at first, but looking back at it now, it was an absolute joke. The gameplay and the lore are completely separate entities that literally never interact. The gameplay and the setting don't mesh with one another at all. The bosses all fight you for no reason, misunderstandings dictating all of the conflict, except the final boss. The final boss that you only end up running across because they kidnapped the character you've spent the entire campaign searching for, for a reason that is literally never explained. Said final boss then reveals itself to be a giant bear with a plan to destroy the world, then promptly flies off into space.
Guys, I don't know, but I have a feeling that this campaign's story was a little rushed. By which I mean thought up in the last stage of development a week before the game's release. Return of the Mammalians was so bad, I would argue a campaign that's blatantly copy-pasted from a previous game is better than it.
#4 - Octo Canyon (Splatoon 2)
Octo Canyon, for all of its uninspired duplication of Octo Valley, actually has a pretty decent and believable story. DJ Octavio waits until Cap'n Cuttlefish and Agent 3 leave Inkopolis on a mission, kidnaps/recruits Agent 1, then steals another Great Zapfish with only one member of the New Squidbeak Splatoon left to stop him. It makes perfect sense, especially for a character with stubbornness as a prominent personality trait. The story of Octo Canyon is actually a highlight of the campaign for me. Everything else is pretty subpar.
Despite being uninteresting and unmemorable, Octo Canyon is not bad, all things considered. It has decent characters, decent gameplay, a more than decent story, and a setting of all time. It also has a lot more replay value than other campaigns, thanks to 100% completion asking that you beat every level in the game nine times. That may or may not be a positive, actually...
#3 - Side Order (Splatoon 3)
Taking a step away from the campaign that plays most into the standard formula, we have the campaign that strays farthest from it. Side Order is more focused on gameplay than any other campaign in the series, mostly because that's practically all it has. It's story is fine, but it's a lot shorter than all of the others even taking into consideration that a majority of every campaign's gameplay has nothing to do with the story. Return of the Mammalians has the rocket sequence, Octo Valley tells a story as the gameplay progresses, Octo Canyon builds interesting character dynamics, and Octo Expansion is Octo Expansion. Side Order has a final boss. That's about it. No buildup, and like with RotM, most of the lore goes into the world-building and setting rather than the characters.
The highlight of Side Order is its few bosses, if you ask me. This is the game where Nintendo perfected the boss formula, creating the perfect blend of initially terrifying and goofy once you get to know it. For each of its four main bosses. I only hope that Nintendo maintains that peak in future story modes.
Side Order's gameplay is decent. Nintendo, for what it was worth, tried to make the mode not feel too repetitive after it was beaten, but the lack of diversity in floors, bosses, or objectives left run diversity solely in the hands of color chips, which is only just good enough. I feel like the mode started out going in an entirely different direction, so assuming that it was a bit rushed, it ended up being pretty good.
I'm sure many people have theories about what happened to Side Order to change it from "dark game about the perils of sentience" to "funny fish-exploding simulator". Mine is that Side Order was originally developed to virtually be a carbon copy of Octo Expansion, with a color-chip like weapon enhancement mechanic being the main appeal, but the developers later decided that it wouldn't end up selling and decided to turn it into a roguelite late into its development.
It was impossible to keep the dark themes intact when the new format required that Marina act as a supporting character to give the player access to hacks, rather than her original role I assume as a brainwashed final boss. The whole theme of the mode fell apart, and the developers realized that they had to abandon their original vision and fully embrace the player-friendly roguelite format. Acht's lore (and general importance to the story) got lost in the shuffle, since their character was far better suited to darker themes.
I feel like Nintendo could have stuck to their original version. Octo Canyon wasn't bad, and Side Order's setting isn't a carbon copy of Octo Expansion's. Also I'm sure I'm not the only one that wanted way, way, way, way, etc. more lore on Acht.
It was impossible to keep the dark themes intact when the new format required that Marina act as a supporting character to give the player access to hacks, rather than her original role I assume as a brainwashed final boss. The whole theme of the mode fell apart, and the developers realized that they had to abandon their original vision and fully embrace the player-friendly roguelite format. Acht's lore (and general importance to the story) got lost in the shuffle, since their character was far better suited to darker themes.
I feel like Nintendo could have stuck to their original version. Octo Canyon wasn't bad, and Side Order's setting isn't a carbon copy of Octo Expansion's. Also I'm sure I'm not the only one that wanted way, way, way, way, etc. more lore on Acht.
#2 - Octo Valley (Splatoon)
The OG campaign from Splatoon, introducing the Octarians, Cap'n Cuttlefish, DJ Octavio, and the kettle format. One point of interest for the original campaign was that it was a lot harder than later campaigns, and I mean a lot. Players had no armor by default (which is how it should be) and enemy shields were unbreakable. The bosses were genuinely intimidating (not Octonozzle), something only the DLC campaigns have been able to do since.
And the final boss. Well, the final boss is in a league of its own. Original Octavio is what you get if you take the cinema of the NILS Statue and combine it with the gameplay of Overlorder. It's a genuinely challenging bossfight against a genuinely intimidating boss. These days we all know Octavio as a lovable, stubborn pushover, but he most definitely was not always that way. It managed to meet the satisfaction of Octo Expansion's final boss without so much as a whole minute of cutscene. Speaking of which.
#1 - Octo Expansion (Splatoon 2)
Duh.
Octo Expansion is a perfect campaign. It has a perfect setting, perfect lore, perfect characters, perfect gameplay, and a perfect story. The only part of the campaign you could possibly consider a negative is how high it set the bar for future campaigns, to the point where the developers tried to copy it, possibly more than once, and ultimately settled on trying a completely different single-player format. Octo Expansion is the reason Off the Hook is the most popular idol group. It's what originally allowed players to play as octolings. It's the reason half of Splatoon series players have an instinctive fear of giant 8-balls. Despite the fact that the boss fight was nothing more than shooting a bunch of targets Dark Beast Ganon-style with literally no threats except for a time limit, it's consistently ranked among the top 3 bosses in the series because of how cinematic it was.
You do not do better than Octo Expansion. Not unless you somehow have equally good characters, an equally good setting with equally good lore, an equally impactful story, and equally good gameplay. There are so many highs with Octo Expansion that hitting all of them again seems impossible. I do hope that I'm wrong about that.
Thanks for reading, feel free to share your own thoughts about Splatoon single-players below. Your favorite campaign is Return of the Mammalians for whatever reason? I'm very curious to hear your justification for that.
That's all from me. Have a wonderful day!
