Splatoon 3 Side Order DLC Review (Nintendo Switch OLED)

by Jim Smale · Published February 27, 2024 · Updated February 23, 2024

Splatoon 3 Side Order DLC Review, As Agent 8, you wake up to discover Inkopolis Square has been drained of colour and its residents have gone missing. Alongside a drone who claims to be Off the Hook member Pearl, ascend the floors of the Spire of Order and strengthen your abilities as you climb the tower in a single-player experience that’s designed to be replayed over and over!

Splatoon 3 Side Order DLC Review Pros:

Gorgeous graphics.
10.8GB download size.
Import Splatoon 2 save (optional) to get Golden Sheldon tickets, early access to a game mode and settings, and online rankings.
A character creator for you and your little sidekick.
Roguelike shooter gameplay.
Opening tutorial section.
Full gyroscope controls (optional).
3rd person shooter gameplay.
In-game cutscenes.
Exceptional soundtrack.
Familiar controls.
Splatsville is your hub town where you can freely roam the streets, enter and use the shops, do deals, read and write messages with others and do some online play.
Controls can be inverted with sensitivity sliders. The handheld and big screen have seperate menus.
Amiibo support.
Color the floor with your ink color, transform into a squid travel faster in the ink, and replenish your ammo.
You can use the ink to climb walls, jump over obstacles, and go through fences.
The train station takes you to either Inkopolis Square or Inkopolis Plaza.
Single-player game mode.
You create a character from a list of hairstyles, eye color, eyebrows, etc.
Color the floor with your ink color, transform into a squid travel faster in the ink, and replenish your ammo.
You can use the ink to climb walls, jump over obstacles, and go through fences.
The opening part is setting up the story and scenario.
Fast loading times.
You play a character called Agent 8.
Basic tutorial pop-ups that are more of a refresher.
In-game cutscenes and character interactions.
Uses its own Squid language.
The color has been taken from Inkopolis.
Color chips can be earned after each floor is clear and give new buffs, abilities, etc, and are color-coded and you equip them in each color slot.
Damage numbers show as you shoot.
You are working your way up a tower and start at the bottom every time with a boss fight at the top.
Every floor has a set objective.
You get three lives per floor.
Enemies take damage in your ink.
Your drone partner can carry you if you fall far and whilst being held you can shoot.
Combo counter as you take people out.
Breakable objects in the game world.
Uses a cool CCTV-like camera cut at the end of a level and has hi-tech-looking ui and screens.
A floor consists of a practice dummy and a cage to take you over to the main floor, when in the cage you can’t shoot but you can drop out whenever you want and fly in on your drone.
Blowing up portals within a level causes a huge ink explosion and portals spawn enemies.
Auto saves between floors.
The floors do incorporate multiplayer modes but in a solo setting so things like holding down an area and splatting everyone or shooting an antenna to move it etc.
Earn Membux from each floor after completing the objective.
Satisfying gameplay loop.
Bite-sized floor challenges.
You still get your bombs and special moves.
Works as a good way to help you with online.
Later floors will let you pick the objective and each has a difficulty assigned.
All new enemy types are called the Jelletons.
Very basic puzzle elements to floors as if you plan and work out what stuff you can make clearing a floor easier or/and faster.
The combo counter builds which can have bombs and rewards drop.
The end of the level shows the time taken.
Membux can be used to continue the floor if you lose all your lives otherwise you start the floor again from scratch.
Photo mode.
PRLZ is the main currency and is used to lower the difficulty of the spires.
The game turns into a roguelike after the opening spire run.
At the end of every run, you turn your collected color chips and Membux into PRLZ.
Spend PRLZ on your character – max lives, damage reduction, max armor, and broken armor jump. And your drone (who is Pearl) drone action slots, drone gauge Turf charge, and drone ink mine.
Over time you unlock new entries to spend your PRLZ on and can be real game changers.
Keys can be found and these are used at the lockers to get new rewards like diary entries, banners, new weapons to use, etc.
Palettes will have a weapon, most common tone (chip) secondary common tone, and abilities and bomb types. They are loadouts.
The Foyer is a huge practice area and you have access before any new run.
Floors are randomized in terms of objectives and difficulties for each objective.
Towers will have rewards at certain levels and you see them on the map after finishing a floor.
You are collecting and encountering items to fill in – the color chop collection, the Jelleton field guide, and the Dev diary.
Many rewards can be used outside of the DLC and used online.
Some cool level layouts and designs.
Hitting floor five gets you a bonus of PRLZ but then has the next run giving you 500 Membux to start with and floor 5 has a shop.
Your best run gets shown on the map every run.
Gets very addictive.
Bonus floors can appear for a bigger one-off reward.
You can spend PRLZ on the starting floor position.
End of run breakdown showing what killed you and all the chips you collected and then how many PRLZ you get after they are converted.

Splatoon 3 Side Order DLC Review Cons:

You get very little info in terms of owning the DLC and where it is.
Such a slow starter with a lot of stop-start cutscenes and character interactions.
In tight spaces, you go first person and it all goes a bit weird along with not always being able to see your ink level.
The story is not front and center.
Having a level timer feels a bit redundant.
It’s slow going between floors and not that snappy.
Cannot skip the cutscenes.
The game can definitely get overwhelming and that can be frustrating for new players.
You don’t get all the information like you can drop early from your drown by pressing shoot at a certain angle.
Some levels are a pain as they stack the game against you but in a cheap way like shoving a load of enemies in a small space.
Hard to know what objective you are playing, just the difficulty and reward are clear with the objective just being an icon.
The game doesn’t have a huge pool of modes to play.

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