Splatoon 3: More than just a multiplayer game!
I got back into playing games on my Switch and picked up Splatoon 3. I've always been interested in Splatoon, between the style and unique-looking gameplay. But I've been without a reasonable internet connection for years so I haven't bothered putting much consideration into multiplayer-focused games. I heard on this sub that Splatoon 3 had a pretty robust amount of single-player content compared to the first two and decided to give it a go.
The single-player content is in two parts, the main campaign and the Side Order expansion. I started with the campaign and definitely recommend it to anyone. Zooming out it's essentially a series of smaller challenges connected by a linking series of islands. It does a great job of teaching the game and pretty much every weapon, ability, and mechanic has at least one dedicated challenge relevant to it. As far as I recall there wasn't a single challenge that felt recycled from a previous one. The difficulty ranged from easy to brutally difficult, especially when a timer or target shooting section got involved. On the bright side, you don't have to do all the challenges to progress through the campaign (I did anyway though). The game culminates in a questionably justified but undeniably epic boss fight and had me laughing and invested all at the same time. All in all I think it did a great job. The way the missions were isolated from each other did make it feel less like a true 'story' but they would have to put in a ton of effort to make a true story mode that let you cover all the mechanics Splatoon has to offer while still being good. Maybe if Nintendo's feeling ambitious they can give that a try later down the line.
After that I gave the Side Order a go. This was a bit of a switch-up by turning the game into a 30-floor rogue-lite, mostly fighting off hordes of various fishy enemies while completing one of a handful of objectives. Each run you unlocking more meta-progression, gaining new weapons and incremental stat boosts that make the next run just a little bit easier, similar to Hades in that respect. It took me about a dozen runs or so to finish off the final boss, but with each run taking 30-45 minutes it was still a pretty significant time investment and I wouldn't have wanted it to be much longer anyway. It was good length for the amount of content available.
Two things really stood out to me as great design choices in Side Order. The first is that you get to choose what you want to do at each floor between three options. Missions can vary by difficulty rating, rewards, bonus challenges, and whether or not there's a 'danger' (an unknown additional hardship that starts getting applied to more and more missions the longer you avoid it). It has you constantly evaluating whether you really want that upgrade on the hard mission you don't like or whether you should do the easier mission and clear out a danger, etc. It allows the game to provide interesting decisions both run-to-run and floor-to-floor.
The second thing I really liked is that the upgrades you can get each floor usually have five or so levels they can be upgraded with the final level providing a MASSIVE boost compared to the rest. This incentivizes the player to create more focused builds and try to get those final bonuses, allowing runs to feel more unique even when using the same weapon. On my winning run I had gotten to the end of the knockback upgrade track, giving my paintbrush 2000% knockback! Hordes of endgame enemies would go flying as I slashed away, often off the map entirely. That allowed me to focus on the task at hand and clutch out the win (culminating in yet another over the top anime-style ending sequence).
Overall I was super impressed with the game's style, design, and mechanics. Being able to tilt the switch to help with aiming was a cool and unique mechanic once you get used to it, and the flow of attacking to put paint down and swimming through it to reload feels great. I'd highly recommend anyone to pick Splatoon 3 up, internet or no internet.