Splatoon 3 with a SIDE ORDER of salt 

Apologies for the audio, i just moved and haven't gotten my setup back to normal and lost all my audio program settings

to me side order arguably as more replayability and value for the sake of completion and unlocking everything, but nothing will ever beat the satisfaction of seeing octo expansion unfold and unlocking the coolest reward ever

I was really hoping that the title would be "Splatoon 3 side salt with a side of order"

3:55 “You don’t just, like, hand her multiple versions of her girlfriend…” tbh I don’t think Marina would mind that

When pearl said "Aw man! Not THOSE things again" I felt that

7:45 *intensely stares at the spot where Squid Beats 2 used to be*

Just a note for anyone running drone build- if it takes your drone away, just turn around and get back in the elevator. Costs a bit of cash, but you can back out of any level this way. Beats dying and losing the run.

Hear me out... this mode deserves an endless mode with the mobs actually getting stronger.

Honestly the lack of map variety and boss variety is my biggest issue if there were more unique maps or just maps that are more interestingly designed for certain objectives, that would really help.

I like the side order lore for answering questions we had about Octo expansion, like sanitization and stuff. Also, I kinda like how this dlc is more focused on Marina and Acht (and Pearl).

Gotta love the Nintendo model of "if you're gonna buy it, wait six months after release to see if they finish the game in post"

The cruel Sisyphean salt of side order

Also, feels like they kinda swapped the role of regular storymode and DLC stuff. The whole test system was repurposed as Alterna stuff and there's a secret super-hard level. While levels in Side Order are designed to be beaten with all the weapons, like the good old storymode.

I entirely agree with this, most people I know really enjoyed side order, but I was really disappointed with the lack of variety and story. I played for a couple hours on the first night, beat it a few times, and was already bored. I went back to 100%, hoping for a secret boss, and nothing. I feel like I’ll maybe play three or four more runs of it and that’s it

What I do like about this dlc, is that you can basically choose how easy or difficult you want it to be. Too hard? Get as far as you can and buy some upgrades to make it easier. Too easy? Don't buy any upgrades and deactivate the ones unlocked by default. Maybe even go as far and always only do the hardest difficulty when choosing a stage.

"You two are so gay for each other. I love that for you." -Theo, Celeste 64

I'm a huge roguelite buff who's got over a thousand hours in Binding of Isaac: Rebirth, and then I love Splatoon's setting + lore + general gameplay, so this was a treat that's already gotten my money's worth in play time. I do agree that the lack of variety is a bit odd, and I'm hoping that they might sprinkle a bit more in (more bosses? more stage layouts?) with the update schedule we have left, but it's like Salmon Run to me: different weapons completely change up how you approach enemies, goals and resources. It gave us closure for Octo Expansion's aftermath and pretty much canonized Pearl + Marina being a couple, so that's really nice too. It's not perfect but I'm having a blast with it, playing it like a proper roguelite with only one life and no continues ever. :D

I had very low expectations to the point where I was genuinely surprised and happy when the first ten floors were a fakeout regardless it was still a fun weekend and Monday afternoon going for the 100%

I’ve played Side Order to the point where I have died trying to glide in Salmon Run XD

I had a lot of fun with side order but personally I think you can get more out of side order if you choose to play with less hacks. Since Marina does allow you to remove some of them.

the PTSD is very real

The ball levels are not the hell they were in Octo Expansion.

The 8 ball stages being easier was fucking hilarious to me because they were... Kind of easy akready if you took it slow. But theyre just a different thing now, and im glad

I know it's a pretty simplified roguelite, but honestly as someone who's not usually a fan of them I enjoy side order a lot. I usually find roguelikes and roguelites to have an overwhelming amount of variety, and because of that there's little opportunity to learn from mistakes. It doesn't matter if you know what you did wrong if you're not gonna see that same situation again for a while. So I like seeing the same floors as often as I do. I like how familiar I can get with them and how much faster I get each time. Although I do wish there was 1 more boss in rotation.

Funfact, you can just leave the level and reselect the floor you want to take. I figured this out after dying once on a level i was struggling with and wondering "Can I just go back into the elevator when i respawn?" Yes. Yes you can

Side Order was pretty difficult at first. Then i got double attack damage and all the drone hacks.

Yeah I mostly do agree. I had a feeling it would happen when I found out it was a roguelike game. And it's fun, gives me stuff to do to keep playing it, but, like. Just not really enough. It's like a really good piece of gum that tastes great for a bit but as you keep chewing looking for that flavor blast you had at the start, you kinda realize it's just gone. I do like the mode, I LOVE the aesthetics and some of the music too. But it definitely lacks something. Hell I even beat Eight's palette on my third try with no hacks. I've come to realize that's where I get the most satisfaction is from playing without hacks bc hacks really do make things too easy. SO was what I wanted it to be on my first run. Runs after that did lose something.

I don't think side order and octo expansion are even comparable. They share the same basic gameplay but in terms of complex mechanics they vary A LOT To me, octo expansion was a great story mode wich I dropped after completing, only coming back to 100% it. Meanwhile side order although lacking in story, is in comparison way more replayable. I found myself returning to it way after 100%

If I’ve learned anything at this point, it’s to learn as little as possible about something before it comes out. “Oh wow that looks fun!” And then ignore news about it until you get that drop date. The less you know and think about how something’s gonna be, the better an experience you can have with it because you came in with few expectations. It’s probably why I could enjoy Side order as much as I did- even accounting for all the flaws, and even if I did want more story. I heard it was going to happen, preordered the DLC, then never looked into it again. It probably also helps that I don’t play rouglikes much. Something about the gameplay loop for them didn’t hook me. But hey, maybe Side order will change that. Cause it’s apparently got some Baby’s first rougue like elements that would be expanded upon by other games in the genre.

I can see that they focused so much on the design of side order, like they usually do. There are so many nice things like: the focus on the number eight, a reminder to octo expansion, leitmotifs, just bangers of a song, Blender? The color chips, like tones for a printer, and more stuff. I really wish they focused on the gameplay more, since it is lacking. Hopefully there will be 2 more DLC (there are 4 ink splatters shown in the thumbnail for the expansion pass), and those will make up for that somehow.

1:45 I didn’t understand what this meant at first lol. After my fifth hour of side order for the day, I was like “oooh”

I'm really glad I'm not alone in being disappointed in the fact this takes place in AR/VR or whatever. Like when the trailer dropped I was intrigued by the fact that the place was a ghost town LITERALLY covered in Ghost Coral. It could have been like a meta way of showing us, as players, what happens to these games after we just move on to the next console or game. These enemies are mechanical so it could be that we're not dealing with ink, but machine oil and that's why it's more dangerous or something. It's polluted the area and killed it and that's also why our ink seems more glittery than normal (at least to me), it's a cleaning solution that's meant to counter the oil and we need to take out the one making the oil once and for all to finally restore the hub. But that's all my head canon and I can't help but make like an AU reason for why things are to make it...more real if that makes sense...rather than the virtual world setting. But hey...it's fun but there's not too much to this that intrigues me so I'll try and beat it, unlock what I can and see where it goes. It's at least got me playing Splatoon 3 again.

watched your stream of this and you didnt get to experience getting the 5th chip on some things. getting a 5th charger charge speed or 5 blaster firing speed turns you into a god. 5th chip on some things just boosts to comical levels

This feels like a tech demo, but not in a bad way. Like this is a test before making a full blown Splatoon game with this (I’m now realizing that they kinda did the same thing with Octo Expansion to a lesser degree)

As someone who played Hades recently, yes. It's so good. I'm currently heading towards my 100th run, and there still seems like plenty of stuff to do and plenty of reasons to keep on playing. Another amazing rouge-like is enter the dungeon, where all of it's runs will practically never be the same as another. It's also great because it's very much designed to reward very skilled players, as finishing a boss without getting hit rewards you with additional health.

I’m gonna throw in my own thoughts, and say that this was one of the most interesting experiences I’ve had from a DLC. Whilst I do agree that it does lack in variety and does get stale kinda quickly the more times you attempt to do it with different palettes and trying to get all the items from Cipher’s Siftings, the gameplay loop was engaging and fun that I don’t think it is something I regret. One issue I have with both this and Salmon Run though is that sometimes I feel the game becomes borderline inaccessible due to the number of Salmonids or Jelletons on screen, and for a game about fast-paced shooting and movement, getting trapped in the corner whilst there’s too much clutter on screen as you rotate the camera becomes annoying and too frustrating. For someone like me who deals with information overload as I’m neurodivergent, it makes it tedious to not get the right RNG, and repeating the same cycle does drag the fun out of it for me. I disagree though that it feels like a barebones experience and that it doesn't feel like a DLC/it's early access as I think that opinion gets tossed out waaaaayyy too much when I’d argue when compared to releases like Pokémon, it feels way more polished even with an intended smaller scope. It’s harder to satisfy everyone these days and sometimes I feel the opinion of “new thing bad, old thing better” gets out way too hard when the games industry is going through mass layoffs, and I can anticipate why it must feel harder to do differently this time due to changing market conditions.

8:35 Or you can grab Penny's Big Breakaway which, isn't a roguelike but it's the most fun i've had this year so far!

Yeah, I 100% that game, including getting all the color chip entries to max, unlocking all hacks, enemy entries to max, the hidden dev dialog, using the 12th palettes without a single hack and bought everything in the post game store. My favorite part has to be the final boss part 2 after defeating it for the first time. So liberating. Also, as soon as you get a single run win and sees the ending cutscene, the difficulty starts plummeting and you end up breezing through the other palettes until you reach the final one with its special caveat of run no hacks or you get LESS color chip slots

its hard to beat octo expansion from a story/hype point. People wanted to play as octolings for literally ever, so like splatoon 4 is gonna have to come out with salmonkid dlc or something to get anywhere close to it, and even then it probably wont work.

I had absolutely no expectations for side order (i didn't think i would get it) so when I finally got my hands on it and it had ROGUELITE ELEMENTS I was ECSTATIC. I love how splatoon controls but I'm not good at multiplayer so this felt like it was made for me. Being able to turn weapons that I normally hate into absolute powerhouses with the chips felt incredible. When I started to breeze through it it didn't feel like it was because the game was too easy, but rather because I got stronger. My main complaint is that I put in all the time and effort to complete every weapon thinking that there would be a secret final boss/true ending but there was just. Nothing. They didn't even roll the credits a second time. I really wanted to be rewarded ;w;

"They won't...they already got your money." ...yeaaaaaah.

I feel like i would give it a 9 out of 10, but it could use some more stuff. Personally, i wouldve loved if we unlocked a secret "Inner Agent 3 style" boss after beating the spire with all the palettes. I also wouldve loved an endless mode, where there is no floor limit, and you just keep climbing and climbing until you lose, with it getting progressively harder and harder, with no way to regain lives. Those are the two things that i believe would REALLY elevate it to a 10/10 for me. Other than that, it was great! Although, in fairness, the story left a bit to be desired, but its not like they can change that now, right? The two things i specified could easily be added as an update later on, if they wanted to.

Remember when people thought this DLC would be a prequel to Splatoon 2 (or midquel?) and we would see Marina's backstory?

‘YOU WORK THE POLE. -to death.. by shooting it’ man u got me there scott

TBH, you can care more about the story beats of OE and that's fair; but most people don't really want to replay much in there aside a few levels and the Escape sequence (Though fantastic). I think the core of Side Order is much more refined but I was kinda hoping the dev diaries would be animated given the expressive models they gave Marina and Pearl this time around. Marina could have very easily just recorded herself with video vlogs and I think it would have greatly added to the story aspects. I'm actually super fine with how it turned out because it gives ample room to show how more Octarians could mesh with the Inkling world, meshing it all together. Add in Grizz in the Single Player being a non-issue anymore and I feel like Splat 4 will likely be a H4rmonic display. It also lets the lesbians have a baby. Good for them.

Splatoon is big enough to merit its own studio now. Having staff work on both Splat and Animal Crossing is hurting both when it comes to support.

Ah yes. Another day, another puzzle

I really REALLY enjoyed this dlc, my favorite part of it was definitely the story, sure its not that deep but nonetheless it was still really interesting, i wish this was as big as octo expansion but oh well, still great!

The highlight of this was seeing the final boss dancing like a goober

I mean, a common aspect of Rogue-likes is either an 'Extended run', that has like, double the floors, but double the upgrade potential. But Side Order is just stuck with 30 floors with a base standard palette. You shouldnt feel bad about comparing this to Octo-expansion given they were made by the same team, It's only natural we should expect more, But we didn't even get a 'Side Order'. This hardly even qualifies as an 'Appetizer'.

3 more mission types and 2 more bosses would've gone a long way

The only “end boss” thing I can think of is once you unlock all the lockers, u get 8’s pallet which is basically risky rewards on the weapon itself, less hacks u have, the more colour chips u can apply to it, but u can skip floors… but even then, there is nothing new with the run

I don't have a lot of time to play games these days (college is hard), so I hadn't even beaten the main Campaign yet. So, before doing this DLC, I decided to go back and finally finish every stage in Alterna. The difference in stage design was night and day. Splatoon 3's main campaign isn't perfect. It's basically more Octo Expansion, but watered down. But at least it HAS level design. It's got plenty of memorable music and stage gimmicks. It has a bombastic finale that, like Octo Expansion's, has serious implications for the world and lore of the series. Splatoon 3's DLC is a roguelike that never got out of Steam Early Access and has little-to-no bearing on the story. I have learned my lesson: NEVER pre order anything, ESPECIALLY DLC

For me, the DLC is just "The Binding of Veemo"

That intro voice instruction thing reminds me of something. *burnout revenge flashbacks* MILLIONS MUST CRASH.

I like to see side order as 4 friends that annoy each other in a elevator

The thing that pisses me off most in the DLC is when you go back to/remember the final boss it puts you in the second half where you only have to collect the chips in the portals and then let pearl do the job again. I would have loved to actually start at the beginning of the boss when smollusk was still order before turning into overloader and play through the first half, see the cutscene with acht turning on ebb and flow and pressing a button to the beat, but NOPE! You get plopped into the final half which is basically an interactive cutscene. It pisses me off more that in octo expansion and splatoon 3 main campaign it's handled SO much better! Sure I wish I could just skip the path up to the boss, but at least we get to actually fight the ENTIRE boss!!

honestly i think side order is a good example of the issue with the game industry's current obsession with making games that don't have any defined progression or ending: even if you spend multiple years on a DLC like this it's going to, by its nature, either end up jank and unfinished feeling (like sonic frontiers) or really polished but shallow (like this). octo expansion probably had a fraction of the resources this did but it ended up so much more memorable because they had a clear goal and didn't need to support """infinite""" gameplay

really good video. sums my thoughts up perfect. whenever I reached the 20th floor, the build was getting cracked and it was a matter of minutes before final boss to unlock a weapon. every time I got there I had this question "where's the super difficult floors that push a full palette to its limit?" you get so powered up, but nothing more than portals and chum to test it out on by the end

Agent 8 and their overlord lived alone in a small VR world in a computer. Life was simple, and they were both happy.

the side of salt series is always so fun to watch lol

I’m pretty sure side order was gonna be another story campaign like octo expansion but got shafted to a rougelike early in development While yeah I really liked the rougelike format I kinda wanted to see more story and lore that they couldent show because they needed to make it replayable And to think this is the sendoff for these characters and we only get diary logs and bits of dialogue 😔 A part of me hopes we get a wave 3 but considering this took a whole year of development and it releasing near the end cycle of the updates it’s very unlikely Give us deep cut dlc and justice for agent 4

0:10 Agent 8: Wha--? Ball...? I remembered that... I failed many times... I DON'T WANNA DO THAT EVER AGAIN!!!

Honestly I love side order but that might be because I’ve discovered it helps me when I’m feeling depressed. Like it helps me get any frustration I have out while feeling like I’ve accomplished something. I’ll probably get board if it eventually, but right now it’s really been helping me.

Yeah your opinions are interesting, octo expansion is a fantastic dlc but side order fixes the cons of it like new enemies and bosses. The gameplay is more fun and chaotic, the chips are amazing. I understand the replay is repetitive at times but I can’t get over the freshness of the gameplay is. Octo expansions is more linear while but side order is shorter but replay-able.

This is personally my favourite DLC to a game that I ever played.

I have the same problem with Side Order that I do with Risk of Rain Returns, funny enough. There's very little build variety. The most variety you get is from the weapon you pick and that kinda stinks. I think it needed more modifiers to the way you shoot or like special effects. The lucky bombs and poison ink are pretty good starts for that but we really needed more. Like shooting beams or like make the gun act more like a grenade launcher or something. I dunno maybe I'm just spoiled by how much build variety there is in The Binding of Isaac. That being said, I dropped like 100 hours on Risk of Rain Returns between two copies of the game so I will probably also drop a ton of time on Side Order too One can only hope we'll get some update to add more content/palettes etc but I'm not gonna hold my breath.

Personally, after beating Side Order for the first time, I can confidently say this DLC has roped me back into Splatoon 3. Originally I never wanted to touch this game again because I don’t find the multiplayer fun, but I feel like this DLC will be able to help keep me engaged for the next while.

Incredibly valid criticisms, I also wish for you to be wrong about the existence of updates, but you are definitely right about it. I, personally, am a sucker for cute and emotionally traumatic storylines and so side order was great for me (although, I didn't actually play it myself and instead watched it because I like watching people play video games more than playing them myself).

I have a very strong love-hate relationship with this game. I love it because it’s Splatoon, it has so much content, so much great quality of life things compared to the first two games (lobby, equipping speed, main abilities setting, etc.), a bunch of great kits, and more. I hate it because of the garbage stages, the AGONIZINGLY SLOW update cycle, the lack of important or good balance updates, the content-lacking updates, some of the kits (reeflux deco, dread wringer d, s-blast with sprinkler, etc.), let us choose battle songs that can play including ones from past games, and more. This game has so much going for it and it gets so many things right, but it does so many things wrong too. I love splatoon and this game, SO MUCH, and all I could hope for is that they either fix a bunch of these problems or that it’ll be better in the next game 😕🙏

yeah, by this point in my tower climbs, it's like... >walks into a room with a lucky/drone build >no items+no drones >walk back into the elevator

The fact that it came with another dlc as a sweetener and had a massive psuedo-preorder window should've been an omen

...yeah... This DLC just doesn't feel worth it. It's not wrong to expect the next game in a series to one-up the previous one or to introduce something new, but unfortunately, Splatoon 3 is just the dark horse of the trio. If Splatoon 4 does get made, I'm hoping it's a return to form for the Splatoon series. If it isn't, then we might not see another Splatoon game for a while.

As a person who has now played Side Order multiple times past the last palette, I enjoy it very much. This could be due to the fact that it's my first roguelite, but the reason why I come back to it is because of the variety of the chips. Building a charger that charges instantly, kills instantly, then refills my tank instantly due to Splat Ink recovery is something that cannot be experienced at ALL in the Splatoon series except in Side Order. How about a charger that focuses more on painting the floor while trapping the enemy with Sticky Ink and Ground Ink Damage, then follow that up with Lucky bomb drop and explosion damage for even more ground ink? The possibilities are amazing.

Yo Scott thanks for making this video I’ve been waiting for it since the final fantasy live stream

As someone who cleared the spire with every palette, I gotta say, it gets *so* tedious… I was really looking forward to seeing what it would unlock, but the reward is very underwhelming considering the work you have to put in to get it. One thing I appreciated, however, was the unique gameplay style of Agent 8’s palette. Once you learn how to abuse colour chips properly, the spire becomes stupidly easy. So, having your colour chips restricted is a welcome change of pace.

This really does feel like a mode that would be updated regularly like Salmon Run, rather than some sort of expansion. I wouldn't be surprised if there WAS a roguelike mode added in Splatoon 4, like how Splatoon 3's campaign was based off Octo Expansion. Having another core mode would at least make the next game feel more substantial at launch.

One issue I had was the finale. Unlike OE and base 3, there wasn’t really any build up to the final boss. That on top of the fact that said boss had very generic motivations at first and wasn’t really present in the climb, didn’t really make beating him very satisfying. Like yeah, I know you learn a LITTLE more about his motivations as you reclimb the tower, but I feel like that all should’ve happened before they had their epic finale and credits roll. Not saying I hated everything about him though. The bossfight itself wasn’t terrible and his dialogue was a little funny at times.

Seeing that it's a rougelike I was expecting to fail over and over, but then I just cleared it 2nd try in one sitting.

It has its bad side but side order was pretty fun, and the fanart is amazing. You told me to tell you so my favorite part is probably the smollusk! IT IS ACTUALLY SO CUTE.

I knew this would be the title of the video! thank you Scott for understanding what needed to be done

Agent 8's Palette is the secret boss.

Can i just say i love how you animate the squids? They look so cute and you translated them so well into your artstyle.

3:57 Let’s be honest Marina would love that

Ngl, the one thing that disappointed me was that there the big locker in the middle didn't do anything. It's like they had to scrap a secret final boss idea.

this mode's really fun, but it really really sucks how fast you can complete everything and then lose incentive. the only thing left after finishing a run with the final palette (and you'll be finishing runs on first attempts in 25 minutes once you have a few upgrades) is like. using certain color chips to fill out logs? it really could've used a 50 floor mode with bigger palettes or just SOMETHING

Everything you said is exactly how I feel. Like, Side Order was fun, but it just became repetitive way too fast. And it’s not because I dislike rougelikes, I actually really liked the concept and enjoyed what was there, but overall I don’t see myself replaying it often like intended, neither do I see new people see getting into the game because of it. I’m personally just disappointed in myself for having my expectations so high. If they actually updated in the future though, that’d be awesome, but I don’t see that happening.

gonna be honest, i totally forgot about this part of the dlc, and when i rediscovered it, i was excited for it and enjoyed it a lot, probably just because i don’t normally play rouge like games so the gameplay loop was new to me, and i didn’t watch any trailer for it so i didn’t know what to expect.

I beat it with every palette. Even the last painful one. I'm dying inside.

I love the songs unconscious and Out of Order

I WAS WAITIN FOR THIS VIDEO ALL MY LIFE ‼️‼️

There should be a stage modifier that forces you to change your main via octo expansion weapon selector..

side order reignited my love for splatoon again, im struggling with beating 8s palette with no hacks but im really enjoying it!

I was hoping for agent 4 but I guess Nintendo said we're not eating again today 🫠

in the main game i one trick tri-stringer, so seeing it being praised only for side order is painful (but at least others are having fun with it. i guess.)

I feel like the main problem is that dev team is more focus on how do we keep players in a endless grind instead of how do we keep players hooked or excited about new gameplay and lore we have to offer. Like after your 3rd run in expansion it is like "What can I do to improve my speed just so I can unlock all of the stuff faster." instead of what "How does new weapon change my experience." I felt extreme disappointment that the game was hyping up a big secret boss because there was so much dialogue about having to free Agent's 8 soul and the main baddie saying oh no something big is going to happen if you get all of the pallets cleared. plus we to see that in the Jelleton Field guide we get to see that there is one more spot for where a boss should be. But we get nothing besides same boss you beaten 12/13 times now saying "Feel free to come back and play again now that you did everything." Kinda hate how Octo Shot is both limited based on the amount of hacks but gives you the option to straight up skip floors so the frustrating hard weapon is actually just really easy. Because you can just skip 2/3 of the entire run. When other rougelikes like Crypt of the Nercodancer have the insane frustrating hard character punishes you for trying to cheese the mode plus actually have a different boss ( which is the real conclusion to the story. ) I feel like also with Octo Expansion using your unspent currency on food tickets after completely beating the game is a amazing thing in Splatoon 2 when those items were rare and hard to come by. But not able to do that with Splatoon 3 with Super Sea Snails, Conch Shells, Card Packs, and Fish scales feels extremely backwards. It like they want people to grind endlessly instead of developing new ways for the game to keep the same addicting and fresh gameplay that the other two games provided. Weird side note is that I feel we needed a another new race or something bigger than just new gear and weapon skins. Because it got refreshing suddenly seeing Octolings populating what used to be a Inkling only space. With Octolings being a minor thing over all still added a lot that it made it fun and bring in a joy of re-experiencing the game after being locked away for a few days beating the DLC.

5:04 I knew. I knew it was something off in story revolving around chaos and order, it was missing one thing; Chaos. Like in story when reaching Order and deafeating him, as a program instead of like fucking off, he should've taken the sence of how chaos works and copied it, turning into Chaosisu(a ring to the name thats both random and stupid how chaos should be but-) colors and Throwing your ass back down, not only kinda forcing back into loop, which I thought would be a more pushing way to interact with the mechanic, but you had to be REALLY goo to get there in the first place so it's more about the changes. Chaosisisu procceds to Completely change everything, the hub is now a mangled mess of colors glicthes and whatever he could find, with the residents porprotions and personalities maching so. In the tower now has things that don't really work with a tower, it has a airplanes, Windpipes, Donuts and whatever Random stuff is added to the builiding, which also changes after a reset. or lack there off because Chaossisuis main whole point now is leaning into chaos both showing the benefits of chaos but also Why that extreme aslo sucks, being Anarchy. Showing why order was important aswell. in that you get new jargging to work with, Randomness almost fufilling all of everything you have, are or maybe interact with. This not serves the story while adding a new spin to change the formulia via well addding alot of stuff in it, BUT this isn't perfectly as intely done so because it's too chaotic it adds alot of stuff but due to the lack of order some of it is unplayable. may actually give a person a heartattack. also going up floors sometimes just takes you up or down or straight to the final boss with no addiional upgrades, or one or maybe. It's too complicated but also kinda to bland because it's too much. the evutal point is in the remixed Ebb and Flow in side order, where the one line "chaos AND order" makes more sense. As upon overcomeing Chaossosuisouoiaiosioajiooia, his mama Marina speaks with in the importance of balance aswell, he can't just let himself get dragged into whatever happens because he can control change, atleast some part of it. Without any order of his life he'll just sccumb to whatever takes him away. In an end Chaos and order, will now become his little goop self, turning the tower into a fun and controlled experince, into well a rouglike, It's chaotic varied and whismical But crontolled it's mechanics, abilities and rules to enhance the players or challengers experince, Turning it into a fun testing grounds for anyone to try out. Removing The restrictive Wrath of Tyranny with the Greed and dismay of Anarchy. combine them into a healthy Democracy, the chaos is the people who ar involved the control is what the multiple that get to choose how things work for EVERYONE.(in my opinion) It would've been such an intersting storyline if they'd lean that into the story and gameplay, having the program be taught the value of Order and Chaos while sulifying an experince of a great rougelike.

I love how sometimes the bonus are like don't breath 😂

I think a neat way of adding variety could be through the “memories” thing that the Memverse was meant for. Wether it be providing assistance to other sanitized Octolings like Acht or regaining 8’s memories, it could be a great way to add new bosses (Like fighting a less powerful Inner Agent 3). We know from Octo Expansion that Eight did some time working Salmon runs, so you could add some of those for enemy variety.

Im glad I'm not the only one who was expecting more