#i replayed the octo expansion

[diezmil10000]

splatoon yuri -—⁠☆

[crazysnor1ax]

#8 Regret - Dedf1sh

Redraw of a piece from 2018, OG under cut:

[ultravioletjayne]

Agent 8

[loveletterworm]

the really annoying thing with splatoon games is  compared to other games  it is consistently MASSIVELY inconvenient to replay any story mode from the beginning, like they will just literally never let you see the opening cutscenes again in any way (octo expansion even has an entire first level that you can never see again after completing it), and of course because it’s splatoon you can’t just reset the save data without losing all evidence of ever playing the online parts of the game, so i guess the only option is to literally just make an entire new user on the console just for the sake of Being Allowed To See The First Cutscene Of Something Again, Once

[candycoatedrox]

looking through the tcrf pages for the splatoon games i am so. normal. oh my god

[hiroshotreplica]

how do i ramble about how music almost solo carries octo expansion (pearl and marina help elevate the story to better heights too i have to add that) while knowing nothing about music. it sets up the atmosphere so well. it makes the lore hit harder and make it feel so much.. darker. it makes the tests feel so. whats the word. i dont know the right word. unnerving? maybe that one. just something that like gets under my skin but in the best way possible.

[missnatzooie]

Listening to Splatoon 2 music while drawing and having a latte is awesome

[wybienova]

as much as i loved splatoon 3’s story (i really genuinely enjoyed it don’t take this the wrong way) i still think that octo expansion is maybe the best thing splatoon has done

like. like there’s so much to it i don’t know how to summarize it all but it like . it’s so much it’s so good . Peak splatoon

a little more involving splatoon 3 spoilers (not the ending though) under the cut

the reason return of the mammalians kinda ranks lower to me is mainly just like… the entire format of splatoon 3’s story mode is just kinda … octo expansion but Again .

this doesn’t inherently make it worse or anything , the OE format is still great, but it’s still kinda like.. it doesn’t have the same effect twice? part of why OE was so great is because it was New and Different and this is kind of a repeat . also it kinda fit octo expansion better imo? it made a little more sense then

there are a lot of things I really like about 3’s story mode that are new there though, like the alterna logs and the collectibles being in the overworld! the bosses were fun too but i wish there were more of them .

i dunno . again don’t take this the wrong way i still love 3’s story mode but octo expansion was just kinda…. the culmination of everything everyone wanted and it was fantastic . hoping the next DLC is a cool switchup like that

[realkeylogger]

SPLATOON 2 STORY MODE AND LEVEL 50+ SPEEDURN

[splatsvilles-fashionista]

So over the week I've been replaying Return of the Mammalians, because I haven't played it since the week Splatoon 3 launched and I wanted to see how I felt about it without the excitement of playing a brand new game clouding my critical judgement.

(spoilers for RotM below, just in case)

That said I didn't feel like it changed my opinion very much. RotM's biggest problem is that it feels like the developers thought of a couple of really cool ideas (The fakeout in the intro, Deep Cut being bosses, the lore in the Alterna Logs, the final fight against Mr. Grizz) and then put them all in the game without really trying to connect them all in a very tangible way, and as a result Alterna is a very nebulous space that doesn't make any sense from a narrative standpoint (if it was a human settlement why is it full machinery and tests only inklings and octolings can use? What even IS the treasure we assemble except "a tool that just happens to solve the current problem?) but only really exists for gameplay.

The story also suffers as a result of this, too. Narratively nothing really happens until the very end of the game, where we end up just kind of stumbling into Mr. Grizz's plot to fuzzify the world right as he puts it into motion. Octo Expansion got around this by using its lore snippets to give the supporting cast a story of their own that unfolded as you progressed through the game, and ultimately it's Agent 8's actions that push the story of OE forward. In RotM we just happen to be there when things happen.

But despite all of its problems RotM also just plays really well. The combination of OE-style shorter trial levels with Hero Mode-styled hub areas you have to explore for levels and secrets work really well together, and those hubs in particular are an absolute blast to dig around in for secrets and open up a little by little. Deep Cut are incredibly fun as ineffectual Team Rocket-esque villains, and the whole final fight against Mr. Grizz is really good, especially the music. I don't even think Calamari Inkantation is especially good by Splatoon standards, but 3MIX is genuinely just an astounding track.

But I think what ultimately makes me feel more positive than negative about RotM is that I think its' thematic undertones actually really work for me. Mr. Grizz's actual involvement in the story might have been mishandled but as a villain he works. I've already written about him a bunch so keep things brief Splatoon has always been about the dangers of clinging to the past, and Mr. Grizz pushes that idea to its limits, because he is the past. He is a relic of a lost age, and he is so desperate to return to the world he knows that he will burn the future and turn back time (metaphorically) to achieve it.

But there's also the Alterna Logs and the reveal that it was human dreams of seeing the sun that drove sealife onto dry land. I think there is a compelling argument to be made that they didn't need to explain any of that to begin with, but I also think the explanation works with everything the series has been setting up on a thematic level. Humanity is gone, and will never come back, but our dreams lived on in the minds of the inklings and the octolings (and the jellies, and everyone else), and while they didn't know why, they reached for the sun together, and by achieving humanity's dreams they earned the right to take our place.

TL;DR: RotM good actually

[semisentientseafood]

Something kinda small I really like about side order is the amount of scene-specific dialogue voice clips there is. This is absolutely corn plate level stuff but this is my tumblr so I’ll yap about tiny things like this as I please

In octo expansion, outside of a small handful of scenes, majority of the talking sounds are just the same as they are on the news, slightly changing with expression depending on what’s being said as they normally do. If you go and replay/rewatch parts of octo expansion Pearl and Marina’s dialogue gibberish won’t always sound the exact same in the same places as it’s just grabbing randomly from their voice strings with slight variation depending on expression.

There’s a bit more of these scene-specific voice clips in return of the mammalians, though similar to octo expansion they’re still pretty limited to one-time intro or ending type stuff such as Frye’s shouts when deep cut appears in early and late alterna. Side order however’s got a buuunch of these, still mainly in cutscenes but not as limited to just high-action parts of scenes. Majority of the cutscenes in side order will sound the same every time when it comes to the characters talking in them.

(I would’ve put this scene in video here as an example but there’s another video below and tumblr doesn’t like more than one video on posts 💔)

I really like that they did this cause the characters’ voices sound a lot more appropriately expressive for the situations they’re in. Even though they’re saying “sbdbjwsnsbjd” you can still clearly pinpoint a tone of voice, and sometimes the clips will even kinda match with the cadence of the phrase being said/dialogue speed which I think is Pretty Neat

(There’s way more examples of this but again tumblr hates multiple videos)

Also double appreciation here shoutout to every Pearl drone animation ever but this is a post abt voice clips so I’ll relate these things to each other. The scene when Eight and Pearl first find Marina agitando I really like cause along with the scene-specific worried Pearl voice clips they do a great job conveying her distress in her animations even though she’s literally just a sphere with eyebrows and wings

Anyways I don’t know why I wrote this long of a post on the expressiveness of “wsjdncgsgsh” talking sounds but nobody stopped me soooo enjoy the ramblings of someone who likes this game a normal amount

[octoshott]

So. Side Order, huh?

I've been chewing on my thoughts over this for a good few days now. Want to spit them out somewhere. Vague-ish spoilers ahead.

I want to preface this with saying that I love Splatoon, I've been playing it since 1, really dropped off near the end of 2. Nintendo made Octo Expansion for me, they released it on my birthday and I love it so fucking much.

Side Order is fun, but lacking criminally in content.

You can argue Roguelites are like this in general, its the core princible to replay them over and over again and as someone who enjoys Roguelites, I agree!

However, a key thing that good roguelites do is continously give you a reason to keep playing- whether that be addictive gameplay or, usually, good story and lacing that in with difficulty that becomes the players goal to lessen- It rewards the player for being curious, experimental and above all else persistant.

I am fully aware that difficulty, due to Splatoon's target audience, in something like a roguelite was never going to be an easy thing to balance let alone pull off but having the main plot resolve itself once you hit the top of the tower was, in my opinion, the first of its blunders.

I feel as if the Splatoon developers know how much the lore and worldbuilding of these games matter to players. Side Order was advertised in very similar veins to Octo Expansion. The trailers had mystery and intrigue with clear connections to the well recieved and loved Octo Expansion to the point of having the same protagonist among other simularities.

They were clearly teasing this to be a successor of SOME capacity to Octo Expansion. And even as I went into this expecting it to be nothing like OE in terms of it's personal weight, I wasn't expecting something so short.

Classically, in roguelites that focus on story, you would gain story beats the more you replay. And techincally you gain this with the keys gathered from each fully cleared palette. But usually your story rewards in roguelites come from clearing or attempting runs and rewards:

With Side Order's story being resolved the MOMENT you step onto floor 30 with no real context unless you've intentionally avoided the top or have genuinely been slowed by its difficult (which I assume is what the devs intended) makes it's climax feel fast paced and lackluster- undeserved, even.

And, yes, I am fully aware that when you climb the tower agani after the credits role, you begin gain more lore about whats going on. But with the actual, main threat neutralized in every possible way it feels as if this lore should've been offered to us much sooner and much more spread out for a better pay off.

It's story feels like its being told out of order and, in my personal opinion, the themes and actual telling methods of Side Order we're a largely missed opportunity to tell something a bit more indepth. Climbing a tower that gives you essentially nothing until you reach floor 30 (which in my experience takes about 35-40 minutes) only to recieve about two scentences of lore is incredibly tiring and feels dissastifying when the main plot is already over.

It's lack of variation in level design, tasks and chips doesn't help with the climb each time if you're looking for the lore or just to 100% either. And you can argue this is a roguelite problem, but Splatoon's scenario's for a tower climb are pitifully small and you will start to seem repeat almost immediatly on your second or third run.

I also feel like it relies far too heavily on the player knowing and caring about Octo Expansion. I'm not saying that I think it was a bad idea to have most of what's going on in Side Order happening because of Octo Expansion's events. Hell, I was happy when they were very blatently showing this early on.

But it does very little with its ties to Octo Expansion, making Side Order feel like its constantly struggling to be its own thing away from the original DLC.

I think I can almost see what they wanted to go for here, and its frustrating, it felt close to something at least telling a decent story.

Every single little beat I've gotten has helped me understand more and more what they were going for, but since the main conflict is already resolved I find it hard to be excited and more frustrated that I wasn't given these during my initial playthrough.

I feel as though the roguelite formula was an interesting idea that they polished the best of their ability and to make work both for casual and experience players- but I think thats where the problem comes in.

With Side Order being the same price as Octo Expansion and offering very little in terms of replayability and most especially for me, story, the whole thing ends up feeling like a muddled mess that would've worked better had the roguelite aspect perhaps been dropped in general for a general tower climb.

Missed opportunies feel like they decorate Side Order in a way that leaves me fairly disappointed.

I think, overall, Side Order is a fun time that can be enjoyed but the way it was implimented into the gameplay formula was largely a mistake, especially coupled with the marketing of this being something more indepth with its story when it's not, and I can absolutely understand why I'm seeing a lot of disappointment for it.

[lordoftime01]

One of my few gripes with Side Order; Remember the Vibrant Battle

When I wish to replay the final boss, I want to replay it all. Not just part 2 of it. With Octo-expansion, you not only Inked Tartar's statue, but you did the climb up as well.

The pressing the Zr button to the beat to continue the fight was a very unique idea. And the cutscene where we see emotion on Acht's face, the worried look in her eyes. Followed by her and Marina DJing together is amazing.

I don't want to have to go to YouTube to watch it again.

[twinkified-squid]

an older oc of mine, i decided to draw her again and show her some love :>

i came up with her about a year or so ago when i chose to replay octo expansion again and came across marina's file from the octarian military. i used her file as a base for the information i would put on harlow's file, but changed some things. one of the bigger differences is that harlow would've left after agent 4's battle against octavio instead of 3's, due to her not being present at the fight between 3 and octavio (due to some reasons i have yet to come up with). the time of her promotion to assassin would be after octavio's defeat against 3, since i imagine he would try strengthening his forces directly afterwards.

wow that's a long essay. anyway

[loveletterworm]

deep cut are the hosts of the world’s first 12 second long podcast

[candycoatedrox]

ok but like. fundamentally there was nothing wrong with the hero mode gameplay formula from splatoon 1 and especially 2 and i think completely changing it for 3 was a mistake. it was great actually. i want to go back