History VideoGame / Splatoon3

** Off the Hook would eventually [[RotatingArcs get their time to shine]] in ''Side Order'', but their near-complete absence from the base game is still striking considering the amount of CharacterFocus they got in ''Splatoon 2''. Besides some voice-only cameos in Damp Socks's songs, a handful of locker decorations, and one Sunken Scroll to quickly explain why they aren't around, nobody ever mentions them (not even Callie, Marie, or Cuttlefish, [[TheFriendsWhoNeverHang who they're supposedly friends with]]). Even more strangely, the other idols ''do'' get mentioned during Off the Hook's focus campaign ''Side Order''.

* ShipTease: ''Side Order'' already laid on the Pearl/Marina subtext pretty thick, but it doesn't end with the campaign -- part of the choreography for Off the Hook's new Inkopolis Square song "We're So Back" involves Pearl and Marina giving a MeaningfulLook into each other's eyes before Marina puts her arm around Pearl's waist for a suspiciously long time. Promotional art for their Splatfest song "Suffer No Fools" likewise features Marina heavily leaning against Pearl while putting an arm around her shoulder in a rather intimate-looking gesture.

* ShipTease: ''Side Order'' already laid on the Pearl/Marina subtext pretty thick, but it doesn't end with the campaign -- part of the choreography for Off the Hook's new Inkopolis Square song "We're So Back" involves Pearl and Marina giving a MeaningfulLook into each other's eyes before Marina puts her arm around Pearl's waist for a suspiciously long time.

* FirstEpisodeTwist: The first run of Side Order and the moments leading up to it are more of an introduction to the gameplay systems of the mode than an introduction to the story. [[spoiler:The story actually kicks off when Marina is rescued, after which Order reveals itself and directly takes over, and after Eight wakes up, Marina reveals that the Memverse is a virtual reality through which Order intends on stealing everybody's free will. The gameplay also shifts as Marina is now able to help you, as well the Spire having 30 floors now.]]

* AscendedMeme: "Squidbagging", ie. spamming the swim button, is a concept created by the community as an equivalent to teabagging in other games defeated opponents. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpIFu12L1Go One particular Japanese commercial for this game]] prominently features a player squidbagging their opponents constantly, with the wobbly, sloshy sound effect of repeatedly entering swim form amplified in one instance to really set in the taunting effect.

* RecurringRiff: The boss themes for the tutorial boss, Pinging Marciale, and Asynchronous Rondo all incorporate the Octarian army's "Onward!" riff to varying degrees of explicitness. Fittingly, the tutorial boss is [[spoiler:former Octarian Army engineer Marina]], and the entire DLC's events are [[spoiler:a direct result of the subconscious resentment carried by ex-Octarian engineers living in Inkling society]].

* ContinuityLockout: Compared to other campaigns in the series, which are pretty self-contained lore wise, ''Side Order'' expands heavily on lore introduced in ''Octo Expansion'', such as the effects of sanitization and the mass exodus of Octarian's that occured during ''Splatoon 1'' and ''2''.

* ShiftingSandLand: Splatsville is located in the middle of a desert known as the Splatlands. Two of the multiplayer levels added in this game take place in that outer desert: Scorch Gorge, a newly built arena made of cardboard taped to sheet metal and surrounded by hoodoo-shaped rock formations, and Um'ami Ruins, an ancient Egyptian-like ruins that may have once been a Turf War battle site.

*** The shippiness doesn't end with the campaign either, as part of the choreography for Off the Hook's new Inkopolis Square song "We're So Back" involves Pearl and Marina giving a MeaningfulLook into each other's eyes before Marina puts her arm around Pearl's waist for a suspiciously long time.

** The gag with the Squid Sisters greeting you if you peek in their studio returns if you go to Inkopolis Plaza. Like with Deep Cut, they'll just wave at you normally at first, but after beating ''Return of the Mammalians'', they'll give you a friendly "Stay fresh!" gesture instead. Pearl and Marina will also still wave and pose for you if you peep into their studio in Inkopolis Square, though they don't have a separate greeting for Octolings this time due to Octolings being potential candidates for the new Agent 3.

** The Pearl Drone, if you decide to invest in combat chips for her, will usually help you out in the floors objective, like inking the splatzone or shooting the turbine. She won't, however, help with the 8-Balls, which require careful shooting to maneuver into their sockets, and which her reckless shooting could knock in the wrong direction.

** Certain bonus challenges ask you to keep yourself from using a particular ability for the floor, like not gliding with the drone or using your sub weapon a set amount of times. These aren't instantly failed if you use the ability, but rather drains the membux reward you would receive by completing the floor. It gives just a bit of leeway to perform the ability if absolutely necessary.

** In addition to Agent 8 returning as a protagonist, DJ [=dedf1sh's=] real name is Acht, which is Dutch and German for the number 8. During the final boss, [[spoiler:collecting ''all'' of the color chips gives Pearl enough power to unleash an attack which deals 8888 damage to Order per hit]]. The Pearl Plushie headgear item from Cipher's shop costs 888 Prlz to buy. And the songs for the three midbosses contain words with the O's in them replaced with the Greek letter Theta, which is eighth in the Greek alphabet.

* AscendedExtra: DJ [=dedf1sh=], formerly a background character for ''Octo Expansion'' whose existence was only hinted at in outside materials, is a major character in ''Side Order''.

* TheBusCameBack: After sitting out the main game and simply appearing as vocalists for a new band, Off the Hook returns as the focus of the DLC... and so does DJ [=dedf1sh=] from ''Octo Expansion'', now in a far larger role as a major character and ally. Clearing a first run of ''Side Order'' unlocks Inkopolis Square as an alternate hub with Pearl and Marina chilling in the same studio as always, emphasizing that yep, they're so back. Agent Eight returns as well, once again taking up the role of the PlayerCharacter. Their absence in the base game is explained by them having been brought on Pearl and Marina's tour.

** The Asynchronous Rondo creates Wave Breaker shockwaves if the player is standing beneath its rings and throws Toxic Mist, Torpedos, and Triple Inkstrikes if it sees them in its searchlights.
** Pinging Marciale has an attack where it winds up, charges the player, then explodes. Kind of like a Reefslider, but that it's rolling towards the player before exploding brings to mind the previous game's Baller weapon, which had the exact same modus operandi.

** One example for the whole DLC: during Nintendo Live 2024 Tokyo when Pearl and Marina wrap up their Damp Socks songs, Marina references "that side project [Pearl] said [she'd] help with". As revealed in the Marina dev diaries, the Memverse was that side project.

** The common color tones alongside the palettes reflect their personalities. For example, you wouldn't normally think of a Stringer as a mobility-favored weapon but Shiver has a need for speed, or Big Man having a supportive personality and primarily getting Support chips.
* GameWithinAGame: An unusual case. The Memverse is a VR game designed by Marina that gamifies a process that will help the test subjects of Kamabo regain their memories.

* GreaterScopeVillain: Commander Tartar. It's long dead by the time of ''Side Order'', but the sole reason the place exists at all is to try and undo the damage it did to its test subjects in the Deep Sea Metro.

** The suitably-named Lucky Color Chips will increase the drop rate of items from beating enemies. There's also the Lucky Combo system that further increases the drop rate depending on how many enemies you can beat in a certain timeframe.

* MagikarpPower: Par for the course of a Roguelike, the weapons you choose all start out weaker than their multiplayer counterparts, a few outright lacking key features like the ability to store charge for the Splatcharger. With the right color chips, you'll be able to progressively strengthen the weapons to some truly astounding levels of game break that can make even the Grizzco Weapons look like children's toys. Individual chips themselves also count - slotting a single copy of a chip may have negligible effect, depending on what palette you're using, but slotting many copies (whether it be by pushing past a certain threshold to be useful or [[SetBonus bonuses ramping up with each subsequent chip]] can result in a single type of chip single-handedly clearing floors.
* MatrixRainingCode: Some shots feature glowing gold kana-like glyphs in the ''Splatoon'' "language" scrolling down the screen vertically. Each randomly-generated floor of the tower is generated out of them, moving outward from the elevator.

* MusicalGameplay: The attacks of the WarmUpBoss and FinalBoss are all synced to the background music.

** #0.1 style is a remix of #0 shell from the previous game's Octo Expansion.

* OneSteveLimit: Played with in regards to Eight and Acht (aka [[StageNames DJ dedf1sh]]), with the latter being German and Dutch for "eight".

** While ''Splatoon 2'' had some shippy moments and lines of dialogue of its own, ''Side Order'' is filled to the brim with Marina and Pearl being totally into each other, even to the point of Pearl wanting to "find a quiet spot together" with Marina once their tour is over. One of the least subtle hints is Marina having an... ''interesting'' photograph of Pearl as her desktop wallpaper, though Marina acting jealous towards Acht when she thinks they're flirting with Pearl comes close.

** Inkopolis Plaza wasn't formally called that until ''Splatoon 2'' -- before then, it was just "Inkopolis." The similar name to Inkopolis Square caused many international fans to assume that they were just different boroughs of the same city. In Japanese, the former has always been known as High-Color City, and it is treated as a distinct town in the same metropolitan area as the Square. Apparently the team working on ''Splatoon 3'' didn't get the memo either way, because Inkopolis Square was usually just called "Inkopolis" (on the ''Splatoon'' world map, for instance) until ''Side Order'' released and a distinction was suddenly necessary. This had the side effect of making Inkopolis Square's return in the DLC a bit more of a surprise for international players.

* LostInTranslation: Off the Hook's [[PutOnABus world tour]] is more divisive among international players because Pearl's dialogue announcing it after the [=FinalFest=] was made much less explicit. In the Japanese dialogue, Pearl says that the two are about to "move out into the world"; in the English one, she just says Off the Hook is "GONNA TAKE OVER THE WORLD!" (and some languages don't have an equivalent line at all). Not only is this vaguer, the international scripts otherwise place more emphasis on the two exploring other genres of music -- in fact, the "take over the world" line comes ''right after'' a sentence about breaking into new genres, so many players didn't realize it was ''supposed'' to mean they were going on tour until Marina's Dev Diaries spelled it out. As a result, Off the Hook's tour plot in ''Splatoon 3'' had almost no foreshadowing outside of Japan and wasn't built up as important, causing uninformed fans to bash it before ''Side Order''[='s=] release as a sloppy writing cheat to keep Pearl and Marina out of the picture until ''Side Order'' was ready, rather than the key part of their character arc it was intended to be.

** Sometimes when entering Hotlantis you'll find Harmony playing with an Ultra Hand, a grabber toy made by Nintendo way back in the 1960s. Her playing with the toy also serves as the artwork for her Tableturf card.

*** The Reppin' Inkopolis emote gives each weapon type the same win pose it had in the first ''Splatoon''. Initially, any weapon types that didn't exist in that game just use their regular win animation. Fresh Season 2024 adds new animations for said weapon types for the emote.

* InterfaceSpoiler: Promotional materials for ''Side Order'' tried very hard to hide the fact that you unlock Inkopolis Square as a new hub after completing your first run through the Spire of Order. And it would have been a pleasant surprise... except the Tableturf Battle rivals you can unlock through the campaign are already visible from the Dojo and include the Square's shopkeepers, and the jukebox lists the Off the Hook version of Inkopolis News under "City" (like the Squid Sisters version, which is part of the lobby rotation in the Plaza) instead of "Other". The biggest giveaway is the addition of the Square to the train station menu, though for story reasons, it will take you to the Order Sector instead until you clear the Spire of Order for the first time.

** Pearl and Marina [[PutOnABus are off on a world tour]] for the base campaign, so Sunken Scrolls aside, you'll only see them in person if you scan their amiibo. They do provide the vocals for Damp Socks' tracks in multiplayer matches, however, and [[TheBusCameBack the bus came back]] with the ''Side Order'' DLC.

** Regarding [[spoiler:Eight's unique Palette, because it reduces its Color Chip slots based on your hacks and you can't retry any failed runs with it, you have access to a Floor Skip function to make up for any lost time and if you don't have the Floor Reset hack.]]

* CripplingOverspecialization: Lucky Chips and Drone Chips can be very powerful, but investing too much in them can leave you severely weakened on Danger floors that disable one or both of them.

** Stay idle in outside the Spire long enough, and Pearl will turn back to kid form and hang out on a random perch in the area.
** If you manage to reach the odd pillar in the far left corner of the Spire Lobby which has a platform lip at the bottom, you can find two minimalist pixel art versions of Marina and Pearl's faces on the back of the pillar alongside a Dash Track. You can use the Dash Track to return back to the main platform, or cross over to the opposite side to view more pixel art on the back of the elevator or the opposite-side pillar.

** You can get splatted by the Portals, something you'd have to go out of your to have happen. If somehow this ends a run, Marina and Pearl will comment in disbelief [[EpicFail on how that was at all possible.]]

** Salmon Run shifts don't end early until there is absolutely no way for anyone on the team to get revived: all flying ink bullets must land, all grenades must detonate, and all active specials must expire... except for the Wave Breaker. The Wave Breaker lasts exceptionally long and has a massive area of effect to revive teammates with, so if the exception wasn't in place, throwing down a Wave Breaker to cause a full-party resurrect would be hideously overpowered.

** Any of the gains for movement chips, for filling ink, special, or drone gauge, tend to put on a lot of work for any weapon just because of how much you need to move. While some weapons like ot better than others all of them benefit, especially ink refill since it ignores refill cooldown from things like throwing your sub weapons.

** Any of the gains for movement chips, for filling ink, special, or drone gauge, tend to put on a lot of work for any weapon just because of how much you need to move. While some weapons like ut better than others all of them benefit, especially ink refill since it ignores refill cooldown from things like throwing your sub weapons.

* BoringButPractical: One of the Color Chips just increases your main, sub, and special damage by a small amount. It's not a particularly exciting upgrade, as the more specialized Power chips will give you a much larger damage up, but at the same time, you can never go wrong with dealing a little more damage. Marina even states such, that it's good for if you can't decide on more specialized chips.

* ScoreMultiplier: In the final score tally, you get a Tone Bonus for having at least 2 Chips from the same Tone in a row on your Palette, starting from an additional 200 points. Each subsequent Chip grants another round of Tone Bonus equal to the previous bonus +100 points, so 3 Chips would give you 500 (200 + 300) points, 4 Chips would give you 900 (200 + 300 + 400), and so forth. This makes crafting a build made entirely of a single Tone an incredibly lucrative way to rake in Prlz, as filling the entire Palette with one Tone will give you by default '''84,500 points!'''

** The number 3 manages to sneak in from the main game too. The last upgrade you unlock costs 333 Prlz to buy, three of the headgear items from Cipher's shop cost 333 Prlz, floor selection and vending machine purchases have three options each, the Spire of Order has 30 floors and 3 boss encounters, and all the music tracks for the levels and midbosses incorporate the numbers 1 to 3 in them.

* BraggingRightsReward: The reward for completing a run of the Spire of Order [[spoiler:using Agent 8's Palette with 4 hacks or less activated]] is nothing more than a badge to put on your Splashtag.

* EvilCounterpart: The FinalBoss can use warped black-and-red versions of several multiplayer specials to attack, like the Super Chump, Reefslider, and (unavailable in ''Splatoon 3'') Sting Ray.

** Certain earlier floors in the tower have large translucent crates containing various items kids would like, like toys, plushies, picture books, and a stack of pancakes. While this fits with how an unchanging world of perfect order would be overly focused on the past and nostalgia, it's also a clue that [[spoiler:the true form of the BigBad, Smollusk, is a rogue AI that acts like a bratty child]].

* IdiosyncraticDifficultyLevels: {{Downplayed|Trope}}. Floors are classified as Easy, Normal, Hard, and ''Rigorous.''

* SimpleYetAwesome: The Squid Attack color chip, which turns your Squid Roll into a damaging move. That's all it does, yet it's extremely useful for practically every build. Mobility builds will get a ton of use out of it for having swim speed to use the Squid Roll more often and rush attack to make it deal more damage. Ink-hungry weapons love it since it requires no ink to use (in fact the player can still regenerate ink while Squid Rolling). The charge-reliant Splatling and Splat Charger will appreciate having a quick close-range attack that only needs one Color Chip to be useful. Weapons with poor multi-hit capabilities like Dualies and the Order Shot will enjoy that one Squid Attack can nail multiple fodder enemies with a single use. The high base knockback makes it viable for builds with weak main weapons like Lucky and Drone for holding back a swarm of Jelletons or eliminating them via RingOut. It's generally hard to think of a situation where Squid Attack won't enhance a build.