History YMMV / Splatoon3

* FanartAtFirstSight:
** Upon their introduction, the idol trio Deep Cut, who are handling announcements and Splatfests this time around, received quite a large amount of fan art after their introduction in the Direct.
** While Harmony has always been the most popular (non-idol) Splatband character among fan artists, her lack of an in-game model meant that her popularity was still limited to the most hardcore fans. However, she instantly received a large new bevy of fan art when she was shown off in the Direct, owing to her {{Moe}} design and quirky nature.
** Acht was already an EnsembleDarkHorse their [=Dedf1sh=] persona, but their [[AscendedExtra first-ever physical appearance]] in ''Side Order'' brought with it a huge wave of renewed interest and the fan art to go with it.

** A large part of the fanbase complains about this game having "bad servers" for why online multiplayer can be quite inconsistent. In reality, the game uses peer-to-peer netcode for its gameplay[[note]]not to be confused with reducing the netcode's [[https://oatmealdome.me/blog/splatoon-2s-netcode-an-in-depth-look/ tick rate]], which can actually cause the online multiplayer to be quite inconsistent by receiving and sending data at a significantly slower pace; which can create lag, latency, and the infamous "The connection is unstable" message.[[/note]], so the "server" is the Nintendo Switch of whichever player in the lobby is randomly chosen to host it; if someone's having issues, that's because of either the host's connection or their own connection, not Nintendo's. Players of various shooters typically advocate for dedicated servers for online play for this exact reason, since dedicated servers are typically much more consistent than peer-to-peer.

** Some fans were hoping to learn more about Agent Eight during the events of ''Side Order'', but the plot doesn't explore their character and they're kept as a blank slate.

** Pearl and Marina, who became massively popular additions in the second game after ''Octo Expansion'' explored their characters in greater depth, have little presence in the base game. While the duo did get some snazzy new costumes, their role is purely as one of the many in-game bands whose music plays during multiplayer matches; specifically, they act as vocalists for a new musical group called Damp Socks, building on their stated goal of exploring more musical genres after [=FinalFest=] in ''Splatoon 2''. Outside this and one of the Sunken Scrolls offhandedly mentioning they've "[[PutOnABus leapt to the world stage]]", their only other appearances are on in-game merch and some cereal boxes on the [=MakoMart=] stage. Their return as the main characters of the then-unnamed ''Side Order'' DLC was directly hinted at almost a month before the game's release, easing concerns that the duo had been completely DemotedToExtra, but the lack of any news concerning the DLC for over a year still annoyed Off the Hook fans. Happily, ''Side Order'' would reward their patience with heaps of story that built upon the aftermath of ''Octo Expansion'' on top of giving a peek at what they'd been doing on their world tour.

** Agent 4 is one of the few ''Splatoon'' characters who doesn't make any appearance in ''Splatoon 3''; the only references to them come in the leader of the [[WolfpackBoss Parallel Canon]] taking on their appearance, Marina mentioning that she hired them to handle Memverse security in her dev logs, and the notes regarding their Palette.
** DJ Octavio in ''Return of the Mammalians''. [[spoiler:After falling into Alterna, he isn't seen again until he pulls a VillainousRescue on the player during the final battle, with no explanation for where he ended up after the fall, what he's been doing, or how he was even aware of what's been going on with the main plot. After playing the BigBad for one-and-a-half games, it could've been interesting to establish his unusual situation much earlier by having the DJ aid the New Squidbeak Splatoon in some capacity throughout the campaign, have him react in some way to the apparent death of Captain Cuttlefish (who even he wasn't willing to kill, only capturing him in the first game), or at least have a Sunken Scroll serve as direct foreshadowing.]]
** Some Squid Sisters fans aren't fond of how the "Return of the Mammalians" campaign handles them. In ''VideoGame/Splatoon1''[='s=] Octo Valley, "Agent 1" and "Agent 2" mostly acted as your VoiceWithAnInternetConnection; they had some funny lines and memorable quips, but most of their development was saved for the news and Splatfest banter. ''VideoGame/Splatoon2''[='=]s Octo Canyon kicked things up a notch by focusing Octo Canyon on the relationship between the duo, showing Marie to be genuinely worried and upset by Callie's disappearance [[spoiler:and, it's revealed, brainwashing]] -- culminating in a final boss battle, "Tide Goes Out", that's generally agreed to make up for what it lacks in difficulty with some of the strongest emotional beats in the series. In "Return of the Mammalians", the Squid Sisters are back to being MissionControl, but without any newscasts or chat logs to fill the voids in characterization, they're mostly stuck making commentary or jokes that any character could have, leaving them feeling rather {{vanilla|Protagonist}} compared to other single-player characters, especially for newcomers to the series.

* CaptainObviousReveal:
** The arc villain of the base game's single-player mode is heavily spoiled by the story's themes: [[spoiler:while the game itself kept the mode's title secret until the final battle, [[TrailersAlwaysSpoil marketing made sure the first thing we knew]] about the base campaign was that it was called "Return of the Mammalians." Combined with the player receiving a Smallfry companion, any fan paying the slightest bit of attention knew that there's only one morally ambiguous character with a connection to both mammals and Salmonids. One that many fans of the series had already theorized would be the BigBad of this game due to how many hints ''Splatoon 2'' gave. To its credit, the game knows that veterans were expecting the reveal and doesn't try to hide it for too long, namedropping Mr. Grizz as Cuttlefish's squidnapper and using his VoiceGrunting moments prior during the cutscene that plays after beating the third boss. From there, the mystery is what Mr. Grizz actually looks like and what his motive is, though the former was ''also'' a case of IKnewIt]].

* CreatorsPet: As balance patches rolled out the game, the fanbase began to dread the rise of "Shooter Bias" driving the design direction like it did back in ''2''. The game is host to just as many interesting weapons as it always has, yet the balance team seems intent on making Shooters the strongest, which many fans consider BoringYetPractical to a fault. The biggest example of this is the vanilla Splash-o-Matic kit, which has consistently dominated the competitive metagame once it shifted away from the Sloshing Machine thanks to its powerful synergy with Burst Bombs and its ability to rapidly paint for the very powerful Crab Tank. Despite this, balance patches never touch the Splash-O-Matic itself, only slightly weakening Crab Tank or increasing other specials' ability to damage it.

* DisappointingLastLevel: Some players have lamented that the final challenge of ''Side Order'' isn't nearly as difficult as Inner Agent 3 was in ''Octo Expansion'', as [[spoiler:the Octoshot is one of the easiest weapons to use in the entire game; combined with the fact that ''Side Order''[='s=] difficulty is already quite lax for a roguelite, a Low Hacks run for the badge is very doable for even a moderately skilled player, especially since Eight's Palette offers advantages that other weapons don't such as paying to skip floors outright.]]

* HilariousInHindsight:
** Early in 2022, a hoax claimed there was a QR code hidden in the UI of the Salmon Run Next Wave trailer that revealed the game's release date. While the QR code is there, it's too low-res to actually do anything and the creator later revealed they faked the information. Months later, Nintendo revealed close to ''Splatoon 3'''s launch that one of the new mechanics for [=SplatNet 3=] would involve giving in-game goodies out to players via (what else?) QR codes distributed via social media, Nintendo's website, and other means.
** Several months before the game released, competitive player [=ProChara=] uploaded [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rc4tF_p25S8 a video]] sharing multiple new weapon concepts, among them a charger based on the [[Platform/SuperNintendoEntertainmentSystem Super Scope]] and a blaster that changed firing mode/range when jumping. Sizzle Season 2023 introduced the S-BLAST '92, a [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs blaster based on the Super Scope that changes firing mode/range when jumping]]. The Inklings could also use a modified Super Scope in ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosUltimate'' which also had a long and short range mode for firing.

* ImprovedSecondAttempt: ''Side Order'' improves on some of the criticisms of past ''Splatoon'' story modes:

* SalvagedStory:
** One complaint about ''VideoGame/Splatoon2'''s Hero Mode was Callie having little role in the story beyond being a brainwashed DamselInDistress who initially [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse vanished]] after the credits rolled until a later update. Not only were most of Callie's fans disappointed, some of Marie's fans didn't enjoy it either, as she no longer had [[StraightManAndWiseGuy the energetic wise guy to her sardonic straight man]] to help elevate her jokes, and Sheldon was too {{flat|Character}} for Marie to bounce off. ''Splatoon 3'' not only returns Callie to her role as Agent 1 and gives her and Marie all the back-and-forth banter and sniping their fans know and love, but she also follows you around the hub world in Alterna while Marie and the Captain stay at camp, as if the developers were trying to say, "See? She's actually in this one!"
** A common gripe about Deep Cut is that the trio received very little CharacterFocus and felt underutilized, not least because Anarchy Splatcast had dropped the stage-specific banter in favor of a handful of generic lines concerning Turf War (which also caused many of the new stages to come off as lacking in terms of lore and world-building, making Splatsville feel less full overall than Inkopolis). The 4.0.0 update added quite a bit of new dialogue for Deep Cut to fire off during the newscasts, including the return of stage-specific quotes, bringing them more in line with the other idol groups.

** Barnacle & Dime, released in Sizzle Season 2023. It ''looks'' nice, absolutely, but it has serious design issues emblematic of the problems players have with "Tetrimino" maps. There are no flanking routes, at all, meaning that it's a straight shot from spawn to center and a well-coordinated team can run roughshod over the map. Once a team starts pushing past mid and into the enemy spawn, it can become nearly impossible to fight back against them since the opponents' options are so limited, especially if one of them happens to be running Zipcaster. It's also very small and has little cover, so chargers and other powerful, long-range weapons will dominate.
*** The problems continue into the Tricolor map too, giving defenders a massive advantage and leaving attackers with nowhere to go. The Ultra Signal is on the blocks, requiring you to go on the blocks to get it, leaving you vulnerable to longer range weapons from all sides.

** Pearl and Marina, who became massively popular additions in the second game after ''Octo Expansion'' explored their characters in greater depth, have little presence in the base game. While the duo did get some snazzy new costumes, their role is purely as one of the many in-game bands whose music plays during multiplayer matches; specifically, they act as vocalists for a new musical group called Damp Socks, building on their stated goal of exploring more musical genres after [=FinalFest=] in ''Splatoon 2''. Outside this and one of the Sunken Scrolls offhandedly mentioning they've "[[PutOnABus leapt to the world stage]]", their only other appearances are on in-game merch and some cereal boxes on the [=MakoMart=] stage. Their return as the main characters of the then-unnamed ''Side Order'' DLC was directly hinted at almost a month before the game's release, easing concerns that the duo had been completely DemotedToExtra, but the lack of any news concerning the DLC for over a year still annoyed Off the Hook fans. Happily, ''Side Order'' would reward their patience with heaps of story that built upon the aftermath of ''Octo Expansion'' on top of giving a peek at what they'd been doing on their world tour.
** Agent 4 and Agent 8 weren't mentioned in the game ''at all'' on release. ''Side Order'' partially addresses this by revealing Agent 8 as a returning player character, but Agent 4 would continue to be MIA; the only references to them come in the leader of the [[WolfpackBoss Parallel Canon]] taking on their appearance, Marina mentioning that she hired them to handle Memverse security in her dev logs, and the notes regarding their Palette.
** DJ Octavio in ''Return of the Mammalians''. [[spoiler:After falling into Alterna, he isn't seen again until he pulls a VillainousRescue on the player during the final battle, with no explanation for where he ended up after the fall, what he's been doing, or how he was even aware of what's been going on with the main plot. After playing the BigBad for one-and-a-half games, it could've been interesting to establish his unusual situation much earlier by having the DJ aid the New Squidbeak Splatoon in some capacity throughout the campaign, have him react in some way to the apparent death of Captain Cuttlefish (who even he wasn't willing to kill, only capturing him in the first game), or at least have a Sunken Scroll serve as direct foreshadowing.]]

** With the Inkopolis DLC's addition, many lamented that it didn't also include Inkopolis News. They could have helped give the Squid Sisters more of an opportunity to shine after their characterization was simplified in Return of the Mammalians, retroactively made Deep Cut's then-shallow pool of dialogue for Anarchy Splatcast announcements more excusable (twice as much news dialogue would need to be written), and helped really give more impact to the NostalgiaLevel vibes of Wave 1. Come Inkopolis' launch, your character will just tune in to Deep Cut's Anarchy Splatcast regardless of which hub they're in. The same goes for [[spoiler:''Side Order'', which lets players return to Inkopolis Square after beating it]].
** Inkopolis Plaza [[spoiler:and Inkopolis Square]] don't have a Hotlantis branch, so instead your character uses a computer terminal to contact Harmony remotely and place orders. This didn't help the perceived low-effort nature of Wave 1 among certain fans, with many of them wishing a Hotlantis branch staffed by a whole new character (such as Barry C., the perpetually absent manager of the Splatsville location who Harmony is stuck filling in for) had opened up somewhere in the Plaza to further show how things had changed between games.

** ''Side Order'' itself is well-received, but its short length (owing to its nature as a {{roguelike}}) came off as a letdown to some fans, who would have preferred a more cinematic experience in the vein of the ''Octo Expansion'' or ''Return of the Mammalians'' -- especially considering it was the first fans had seen of Pearl and Marina in-game in nearly 18 months.
* ToughActToFollow:
** ''Return of the Mammalians'' suffered greatly from having to follow up the ''Octo Expansion'', highly lauded amongst the ''Splatoon'' community as possibly the best single-player campaign in the series due to its challenging nature, DarkerAndEdgier tone, expansive world-building and character development for the ''Splatoon'' setting, a jaw-dropping finale, and a ludicrously hard but satisfying final challenge. ''Splatoon 3'' decided not to mess with an obvious winning formula and brought it back for its own base-game Story Mode, but various factors -- its lower difficulty, [[RecycledScript uncannily familiar plot]], more traditional methods of storytelling, [[TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter widely agreed-upon failure to capitalize on its cast]], shorter length, and still-challenging-but-much-less-intense BrutalBonusLevel -- combined to make it a much more contentious experience overall than the ''OE''. While it still has its fans, and few Splatheads will argue against the finale matching its big brother in spectacle if nothing else, those who have played both campaigns will often make a point of how ''Return of the Mammalians'' is "just the ''Octo Expansion'' [[ItsTheSameNowItSucks again but worse]]".
** ''Splatoon 3''[='s=] own DLC campaign, ''Side Order'', is generally considered great in its own right, with many praising its experimental mix of the basic {{roguelike}} formula and ''Splatoon''[='s=] core gameplay and having fun discovering just how broken you can make your Palette; at worst, it's still viewed as a huge step up from ''Return of the Mammalians'' just for taking a risk and daring to be different. That said, many ''Splatoon'' fans believe it still languishes in ''Octo Expansion''[='s=] shadow somewhat, due in part to common criticisms such as lacking the difficulty, gameplay and story depth, and variety that made ''Octo Expansion'' and/or other roguelikes so good. The overall consensus seems to be that it's (fittingly) an 8/10 campaign that comes frustratingly close to standing alongside ''OE'' as one of the series' all-time greats, but doesn't quite hack it.

** The psuedoyms Shiver and Frye use when rap-battling Off the Hook, "Ice" and "Fire", were invented for the European-language translations. The Japanese version just uses their regular names written in kanji.

** Big Man's secret identity is "RANOMAT" in the Japanese version, which is Big Man's Japanese name (Mantaro) but [[SignificantAnagram scrambled up]]. The English version dubs the alias as "Ian BGM", which keeps the anagram aspect, while also sounding more like a name and adding a subtle pun ("BGM" is short for "background music").

* UglyCute: The Smallfry companion, aptly nicknamed your "little buddy", with its big googly eyes, pudgy, jiggly body, and single buck tooth. And it's ''still'' pretty cute [[spoiler:after its transformation into Hugefry.]]

** A mild case in regards to Shiver's hands. Her fingers are given an orange hue as color contrast and to match her eyes, similar to Frye having her fingers be purple. However, to some, Shiver ends up looking like her fingers are constantly covered in dust from orange colored snack chips, providing ample jokes for her "Cheeto fingers".

* UnfortunateCharacterDesign: Fred Crumbs is based on the Japanese dish known as aji furai, which is a butterfly-cut, breaded, and fried horse mackerel. Non-Japanese players do not have that frame of reference: previews of his character prior to Wave 1's release received reactions that [[https://twitter.com/GrizzcoVP/status/1625290557823016960 repeatedly]] [[https://twitter.com/smol_beandip/status/1625368658607493120/photo/1 described]] [[https://twitter.com/SuperiorArtemis/status/1625295244114952193 him]] as a "deep fried ballsack".

** ''Return of the Mammalians'' suffered greatly from having to follow up the ''Octo Expansion'', highly lauded amongst the ''Splatoon'' community as possibly the best single-player campaign in the series due to its challenging nature, DarkerAndEdgier tone, expansive world-building and character development for the ''Splatoon'' setting, a jaw-dropping finale, and a ludicrously hard but satisfying final challenge. ''Splatoon 3'' decided not to mess with an obvious winning formula and brought it back for its own base-game Story Mode, but various factors -- its lower difficulty, [[RecycledScript uncannily familiar plot]], more traditional methods of storytelling, [[TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter widely agreed-upon failure to capitalize on its cast]], shorter length, and still-challenging-but-much-less-intense BrutalBonusLevel -- combined to make it a much more contentious experience overall than the ''OE''. While it still has its fans, and few Splatheads will argue against the finale matching its big brother in spectacle if nothing else, those who have played both campaigns will often make a point of how ''Return of the Mammalians'' is "[[ItsTheSameNowItSucks just the Octo Expansion again but worse]]."

** ''Return of the Mammalians'' suffered greatly from having to follow up the ''Octo Expansion'', highly lauded amongst the ''Splatoon'' community as possibly the best single-player campaign in the series due to its challenging nature, DarkerAndEdgier tone, expansive world-building and character development for the ''Splatoon'' setting, a jaw-dropping finale, and a ludicrously hard but satisfying final challenge. ''Splatoon 3'' decided not to mess with an obvious winning formula and brought it back for its own base-game Story Mode, but various factors -- its lower difficulty, [[RecycledScript uncannily familiar plot]], more traditional methods of storytelling, [[TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter widely agreed-upon failure to capitalize on its cast]], shorter length, and still-challenging-but-much-less-intense BrutalBonusLevel -- combined to make it a much more contentious experience overall than the ''OE''. While it still has its fans, and few Splatheads will argue against the finale matching its big brother in spectacle if nothing else, those who have played both campaigns will often make a point of how ''Return of the Mammalians'' is "[[ItsTheSameNowItSucks just the]] ''[[ItsTheSameNowItSucks Octo Expansion]]'' [[ItsTheSameNowItSucks again but worse]]."

* ContestedSequel: When ''Splatoon 3'' first released, while some players felt it lived up to its predecessors due to new secondary additions such as Tableturf Battle, lockers, Tricolor Turf War, and ''Return of the Mammalians'' being an excellent improvement on Octo Valley and Canyon, others felt it was a step down due to a lack of changes from ''Splatoon 2'', poor map design and balancing, the seasonal update model, ''Return of the Mammalians'' borrowing too much from ''Octo Expansion'', and Deep Cut being underdeveloped while Off the Hook was locked behind paid DLC. This divisive similarity and lack of content died down with post-launch content addressing many player complaints and ''Side Order'' being released to acclaim from most fans. The game, however, remains [[BrokenBase fairly divisive]] due to a number of standing balance and connectivity issues, among [[ScrappyMechanic/{{Splatoon}} a few other reasons]].

** As we all know, Frye is a MemeticLoser who is always given the most awful, least popular Splatfest themes... except, no, not really. Of the game's first 17 Splatfests (counting the Splatfest World Premiere and regional themes separately), Frye's teams were the most popular 5 times, and she's only been third place by a margin of more than 8% twice (Teams Fame and Frye, and the latter just barely so). Using these metrics, the least popular team is actually Big Man's, being most popular only 25% of the time, the least popular by more than 10% four times,[[note]]Teams Scissors, Sour, Bigfoot, and Sunday,[[/note]] and having the least-voted Splatfest team in ''Splatoon'' history so far (Team Bigfoot). The misconception seems to stem from conflating popularity with a guaranteed win, when popularity is just one of the five categories a team needs to score in to win; it's just that popularity is the most visible and least balanced category, so most people blame it for why this keeps on happening.
** Related to the above, the idea that Shiver is winning because of the "Shiver Simps" (ie. the supposed LowestCommonDenominator fans that influence the whole Splatfest's outcome by voting for their favorite idol, Shiver, rather than answering the Splatfest topic) is highly unlikely. While it is true that Shiver usually has the most voted teams, (as of the Friday vs. Saturday vs. Sunday Splatfest) there are only two Splatfests where her team won the whole Splatfest because they also won the popularity vote: Team Rock and Team Gear. In the other 17 Splatfests, (again, region-specific Splatfests counted separately,) Shiver either loses, or wins enough categories for the popularity vote to not influence the final outcome even if it went to the runner-up. Unless there's some way to prove that voting Shiver is linked to winning the other four categories -- which is highly unlikely, given that these categories are based on the skill of each team, and the difference in score percentage is way more narrow than in the popularity vote -- it's very safe to say that Shiver doesn't win because people vote for her.

* ContestedSequel: When ''Splatoon 3'' first released, while some players felt it lived up to its predecessors due to new secondary additions such as Tableturf Battle, lockers, Tricolor Turf War, and ''Return of the Mammalians'' being an excellent improvement on Octo Valley and Canyon, others felt it was a step down due to a lack of changes from ''Splatoon 2'', poor map design and balancing, the seasonal update model, ''Return of the Mammalians'' borrowing too much from ''Octo Expansion'', and Deep Cut being underdeveloped while Off the Hook was locked behind paid DLC. This contested similarity and lack of content died down with post-launch content addressing many player complaints and ''Side Order'' being released to acclaim from most fans. The game, however, remains [[BrokenBase fairly divisive]] due to a number of standing balance and connectivity issues and [[CriticalDissonance numerous]] [[OldGuardVersusNewBlood other]] [[ScrappyMechanic/{{Splatoon}} reasons]].
* ContinuityLockout: Compared to other single-player 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 Octolings from the Octarian world into to the Inkling one that occurred during ''Splatoon 1'' and ''2''.

* ContestedSequel: When ''Splatoon 3'' first released, while some players felt it lived up to its predecessors due to new secondary additions such as Tableturf Battle, lockers, Tricolor Turf War, and ''Return of the Mammalians'' being an excellent improvement on Octo Valley and Canyon, others felt it was a step down due to a lack of changes from ''Splatoon 2'', poor map design and balancing, the seasonal update model, ''Return of the Mammalians'' borrowing too much from ''Octo Expansion'', and Deep Cut being underdeveloped while Off the Hook was locked behind paid DLC. This contested similarity and lack of content died down with post-launch content addressing many player complaints and ''Side Order'' being released to acclaim from most fans. The game, however, remains fairly divisive due to a number of standing balance and connectivity issues and [[BrokenBase numerous]] [[OldGuardVersusNewBlood other]] [[ScrappyMechanic/{{Splatoon}} reasons]].

* ContestedSequel: When ''Splatoon 3'' first released, some players felt it lived up to its predecessors and enjoy the new secondary additions such as Tableturf Battle, lockers, Tricolor Turf War, and ''Return of the Mammalians'' being an excellent improvement on Octo Valley and Canyon. Others felt it was a step down due to a lack of changes from ''Splatoon 2'', poor map design and weapon balance, the seasonal update model, ''Return of the Mammalians'' borrowing too much from ''Octo Expansion'', and Deep Cut being underdeveloped while Off the Hook was locked behind paid DLC. This died down with post-launch content addressing many player complaints and ''Side Order'' being released to acclaim from fans, but the game remains fairly divisive.

* OldGuardVersusNewBlood: Overall, the main game of ''Splatoon 3'' falls more heavily on the new blood side. It's set in a completely different city from the previous two ''Splatoon'' games and features a mostly new cast outside of several series mainstays. It only loosely references the events of previous games, most infamously by [[PutOnABus sending Off the Hook on a world tour]] (information that is only revealed if you find a non-essential item). Gameplay, in general, skews in a more casual direction against the wishes of the game's competitive audience, with flatter, more open maps encouraging the use of long-range weapons. The game's higher ranks are generally easier to attain, with ranks for all modes being merged once again and making it possible to stay in a good group in Anarchy Battle (Series) or grind ranks in Anarchy Battle (Open) and "be carried" (instead of it always shuffling players for ranked battles) and once reached, they lack any mechanic to rank ''down'', not even in S+/X Battle, [[https://youtu.be/r6Qa4VwzBG8?t=416 which in turn causes balancing issues with the game's ranking and matchmaking system due to the resulting very uneven power levels making the X Power range too broad]]. There's also a number of standing balance and connection issues from previous games left unaddressed. ''Return of the Mammalians'' in particular feels like it was aimed at people who had never played the Octo Expansion in ''Splatoon 2''; it has very similar level design, plot structure, difficulty, even the finale is significantly similar. The game's DownloadableContent, meanwhile, is focused strictly on the old guard, allowing players to return to Inkopolis Plaza and Inkopolis Square alongside [[TheBusCameBack bringing back fan-favorites]] Off the Hook and AscendedExtra [=Dedf1sh=] to star in ''Side Order''. Perhaps unsurprisingly, many of the complaints about ''Splatoon 3'' come from the old guard -- meanwhile, new blood players, who don't have experience with older ''Splatoon'' games and are the target audience of the more casual direction, have much nicer things to say about it.

** The Asynchronous Rondo might be the most imposing of the three main ''Side Order'' boss fights, but once you figure out how it works, it's the easiest by far. It has large weak points unlike the Pinging Marciale, and it's a single entity unlike the Parallel Canon, so it can't gang up on you. It lacks a means of immediately putting Eight in danger mode under most circumstances, and while it has a fair variety of attacks, it massively choreographs its most dangerous ones, giving you plenty of time to prepare and get out of the way. You don't have to go behind cover to avoid the searchlights that trigger some of its attacks either, as you can simply hide in your ink or underneath the boss itself. Speaking of, staying underneath the boss is probably the safest and easiest way of fighting it, as while you'll have to contend with it sending waves and the occasional enemy horde at you, that's ''all'' you'll have to contend with. And this is all without getting into the fact that if you don't even have to defeat every layer of the boss. The fight will end as soon as the top-most layer is destroyed, regardless of any other damage you inflict, so you can end the battle ridiculously quick if you have a enough range on your weapon.

** The Asynchronous Rondo might be the most imposing of the three main ''Side Order'' boss fights, but it's the easiest by far. It has large weak points unlike the Pinging Marciale, and it's a single entity unlike the Parallel Canon, so it can't gang up on you. It lacks a means of immediately putting Eight in danger mode under most circumstances, and while it has a fair variety of attacks, it massively choreographs its most dangerous ones, giving you plenty of time to prepare and get out of the way before it starts bombing you. On top of that, avoiding the searchlights is easy to do, since the most straightforward method is ''going under it'', which you can do briefly without it sending waves at you, and even if it does the waves are easy to avoid. And that's all without getting into the fact that you don't have to defeat every layer of the enemy, just the top one, meaning that you can end the battle ridiculously quickly if you're running a long-range weapon with a few Main Range chips.

** Consider yourself lucky if an Xtrawave pits you against a Horrorboros instead of a Cohozuna or Megalodontia. Because it flies, it can't block access to Golden Eggs or problematic Boss Salmonids, and it's low enough to the ground that most weapons can reach it without jumping. Its Booyah Bomb-esque attacks are moderately dangerous... but that's if it can get one off, because [[AttackTheMouth destroying the bomb in its mouth]] (which is what players tend to focus on since it's the only way to deal any real damage to it) will immediately cancel the attack and force it to start recharging from scratch. The bomb's explosion also deals damage per tick and expands outward instead of being a [[OneHitKill one-hit splat]] in a large radius like the Cohozuna's stomp or Megalodontia's bite, so it's easy to escape from relatively unscathed. The Horrorboros never jumps up and out of attack range like the Cohozuna or remains invulnerable for extended periods like the Megalodontia, and it follows a predictable path, so most of the challenge comes from staying in front of the serpent to target its bomb while avoiding Boss Salmonid attacks rather than anything the king itself does.
** The Asynchronous Rondo might be the most imposing of the three main ''Side Order'' boss fights, but it's the easiest by far. It has large weak points unlike the Pinging Marciale, and it's a single entity unlike the Parallel Canon, so it can't gang up on you. It lacks a means of immediately putting Eight in danger mode under most circumstances, and while it has a fair variety of attacks, it massively choreographs its most dangerous ones, giving you plenty of time to prepare and get out of the way before it starts bombing you. On top of that, avoiding the searchlights is easy to do, since the most straightforward method is ''going under it'', which you can do briefly without it sending waves at you, and even if it does the waves are easy to avoid. And that's all without getting into the fact that you don't have to defeat every layer of the enemy, just the top one, meaning that you can end the battle ridiculously quick if you're running a long-range weapon that has a few Main Range chips.

** Before the ''Splatoon 3: Side Order'' DLC had its name officially revealed, fans took to referring to it as "the wedding DLC", since all that was known about it for months was that it would feature Pearl and Marina, two characters that fans love [[LesYay shipping together]]. The name remained popular after ''Side Order''[='s=] release as the sheer amount of [[PortmanteauCoupleName Pearlina]] ShipTease found within (combined with their dance during the performance of their Splatfest song, "We're So Back") makes the idea of Pearl or Marina proposing in the near future more than plausible, with some interpreting Pearl's desire for some "quiet time" with Marina as being just that.

** One point of speculation in the first trailer of ''Side Order'' was that the Octoling character featured in it was a returning Agent 8, based on the fact that the loose theme of the trailer seemed to be memories and abandonment, which would align quite nicely with Agent 8's own story from ''Octo Expansion''. This got confirmed by the second trailer, in which the Pearl Drone calls the Octoling protagonist Eight.

** When Inkopolis Plaza returned to the game as an alternate hub world in the DLC, quite a few players called Inkopolis Square subsequently being unlocked after completing ''Side Order''. This was helped by ''Side Order'' clearly being a twisted monochromatic version of the Square and players noticing that hub selection emphasized traveling to a different city rather than specifically the Plaza. The reveal that Fresh Season 2024 would include new Tableturf Battle cards featuring the ''Splatoon 2'' shopkeepers pretty confirmed it shortly before ''Side Order'' released.

* JustHereForGodzilla: Like prior entries in the series, there are those who are only invested in the single-player campaigns or [[PlayerVersusEnvironment Salmon Run]] over engaging with the main multiplayer modes.
** For ''Side Order'' specifically, the main selling point for many was that it would serve as the [[TheBusCameBack return]] of Off the Hook, who were otherwise DemotedToExtra in the base game. Arguably invoked, as this was also the only thing that was even ''known'' about the DLC for well over a year.

** ''Return of the Mammalians'' has 65 kettle levels and 4 boss battles before the final sequence at [[spoiler:the Alterna Space Center]]. While the boss fights are all mandatory, only four the standard kettle levels are: the four Crater levels. Fuzzy Ooze is the only thing impeding progression across Alterna's main overworld, and the boss kettles don't requiring the player to beat all the other levels on their respective islands like in previous games. Eggs collected in the Crater don't carry over to Alterna, however, so if you don't want to play any Alterna levels get ready to spend time [[https://youtu.be/-znxjnRkOQo?t=628 grinding the Power Egg balloon floating around Squid Sisters Base]], which you can ''barely'' reach from the starting area. Considering this means waiting for a slow-moving balloon to pass by so you can hopefully time and land a precise Smallfry toss[[note]](if you miss, it's actually faster to kill yourself to soft-reset its movement cycle, rather than wait for it come back around)[[/note]], after which you must exit and reenter the campaign so the balloon respawns, then repeat the process? Probably not the most fun thing in the world, but at least you can move to an easier spot to hit the balloon once you collect enough eggs clear out a few patches of ooze.
** ''Side Order'' encourages minimalist runs with [[spoiler:Agent 8's Palette, which gains more Color Chip slots the fewer [[SkillScoresAndPerks hacks]] you have active]]. You can [[BraggingRightsReward earn a special badge]] for your Splashtag by [[spoiler:successfully completing an Agent 8's Palette run with four or less hacks active]].

** From the beginning, the ''Side Order'' DLC was ''quite'' open about pandering to fans of Off the Hook, who lamented that they were OutOfFocus in the base game. When the DLC released, it brought with it an ''enormous'' amount of [[PortmanteauCoupleName Pearlina]] ShipTease, with their dialogue and behavior doing everything just short of explicitly denoting them as a couple, indicating Nintendo was ''perfectly'' aware what many of Off the Hook's fans wanted out of the campaign. (Shiver/Frye is hinted at too, for good measure.)

** The various Sizzle Season 2023 kits caused some players to balk at their reveal; all of them lacked bombs to attack with at range, and since bombs are BoringButPractical many players dismissed them outright. The exception is the Splatana Wiper Deco, which was shown to have Tenta Missiles; the Splatana Wiper had already proven to be quite the powerhouse, so a ton of players started panicking about an actually decent weapon getting the strongest Special in the game. At release, it was generally found that most of the kits weren't as bad as first impressions found, thanks to generally-decent kit synergy. Furthermore, Wiper Deco didn't upset the metagame as much as it was predicted; Splatana Wiper gets its kill power by using it in tandem with the Torpedo, so when Wiper Deco has the utility-based Squid Beakon, it has to use its Tenta Missiles much more wisely since that's its only way to approach reliably.
** One of ''Side Order''[='s=] biggest selling points is that it would be [[TheBusCameBack the grand return of Off the Hook]]... and then Marina failed to appear in both the second trailer and all promotional materials for the DLC, despite them heavily featuring Pearl and ([[UnexpectedCharacter of all characters]]) [=Dedf1sh=]. The immediate assumption from the fanbase was that this was to avoid major spoilers, leading to theories that Marina had either [[DamselInDistress been kidnapped]] or underwent a FaceHeelTurn to be the main villain -- both of which were viewed as being painfully disappointing uses for the character, as it would mean being deprived of Pearl and Marina's character dynamic, on top of just making little sense for the character (to say nothing of such a plot [[RecycledScript being a narrative rethread]] of ''Octo Canyon'', or how it would leave Eight as the [[TokenHeroicOrc the only unambiguously heroic Octoling character]] in the series). [[https://www.reddit.com/r/splatoon/comments/16ityti/my_main_concern_from_the_new_side_order_trailer/ One particular meme of the potential story outcomes]] became popular enough to get over a thousand upvotes on Reddit. Once the actual expansion came out, players quickly found out that the developers decided to TakeAThirdOption: while Marina is indeed a brainwashed BadassInDistress at first, she is only the WarmUpBoss. She's rescued at the end of the fight and acts as your ally for the remainder of the campaign. And while the events of the story are ''technically'' her fault by way of everyone being stuck in a virtual world she created, the villain is an entity that hijacked control of said world for malicious purposes. Needless to say, fans were relieved.

*** Any level with the Stronger Jelletons modifier, which causes all of them to spawn in with their IncreasinglyLethalEnemy effect active. This makes the fight against the hordes a struggle to survive as they constantly bum-rush you; this applies doubly so if you're on Splat Zones, meaning you're a sitting duck as you're waiting for the unmoving objective to slowly tick up. Oh, and did we mention it is often paired with the "Arpeggio Barrage" modifier to bombard you nonstop?

*** Eternally-Vigilant_Soaker-Blockade.Floor. The two gushers utterly ''spam'' Jelletons at you, most notably starting with two Spawning Accordos, and they're located on higher ground that cannot be inked which makes it risky to get up close. The four soakers don't completely block off the enemies, as they leave a hole for the Jelletons to crawl through even when fully inked. This is also a Splat Zones level, meaning you're also going to get Drizzling Capricciosos in your face while the other Jelletons swarm you, likely setting you back at ''best'' and ending your run at worst.

** Pearl and Marina, who became massively popular additions in the second game after ''Octo Expansion'' explored their characters in greater depth, have little presence in base game. While the duo did get some snazzy new costumes, their role is purely as one of the many in-game bands whose music plays during multiplayer matches; specifically, they act as vocalists for a new musical group called Damp Socks, building on their stated goal of exploring more musical genres after [=FinalFest=] in ''Splatoon 2''. Outside this and one of the Sunken Scrolls offhandedly mentioning they've "[[PutOnABus leapt to the world stage]]", the rest of their presence comes via in-game merch and some cereal boxes on the [=MakoMart=] stage. Them returning as the main characters for the then-unnamed ''Side Order'' DLC was directly hinted at almost a month before the game's release, easing concerns that the duo had been completely DemotedToExtra, but the lack of any news concerning the DLC for over a year still annoyed Off the Hook fans. Happily, ''Side Order'' would reward their patience with heaps of story that built upon the aftermath of ''Octo Expansion'' on top of giving a peek at what they'd been doing on their world tour.
** Agent 4 and Agent 8 weren't mentioned in the game ''at all'' on release. ''Side Order'' partially addresses this by revealing Agent 8 as a returning player character, but Agent 4 would continue to be MIA; the only references to them come in the leader of the [[WolfpackBoss Parallel Canon]] taking on their appearance, Marina mentioning that she hired them to handle Memverse security in her dev logs, and the notes regarding their palette.

** While Deep Cut's involvement in the "Return of the Mammalians" campaign was well-received, they spend most of the story in the background [[spoiler:due to beginning the campaign as antagonistic rivals]]. They only come to the fore near the end, [[spoiler:when they pledge allegiance to the NEW New Squidbeak Splatoon and help Agent 3 chase Mr. Grizz's rocket, which still leaves them feeling like {{Satellite Character}}s for the Squid Sisters. They don't even sing in the credits theme "Wave Goodbye"]]. The trio does host Anarchy Splatcast, so interested players can hold off on skipping the broadcasts to listen to their banter, but prior to Version 4.0.0 it was ''drastically'' cut down from either incarnation of Inkopolis News -- all Turf War/Anarchy Battle stages shared the same, small pool of Splatcast dialogue -- and Salmon Run announcements still use only a few generic lines. This limited their characterization to special events like Splatfests and Big Runs, leaving them feeling underdeveloped and vague to some. Even after new Splatcast dialogue was added to flesh out their characterization and the world of ''Splatoon 3'' a little more, the fact that Deep Cut are basically side character in a single story campaign while Callie, Marie, Marina, and Pearl have all acted as the main characters in at least two story campaigns means they still come across as relatively flat.

** Some Squid Sisters fans aren't fond of how the "Return of the Mammalians" campaign handles them. In ''VideoGame/Splatoon1''[='s=] Octo Valley, "Agent 1" and "Agent 2" mostly acted as your VoiceWithAnInternetConnection; they had some funny lines and memorable quips, but most of their development was saved for the news banter. ''VideoGame/Splatoon2''[='=]s Octo Canyon kicked things up a notch by focusing Octo Canyon on the relationship between the duo, showing Marie to be genuinely worried and upset by Callie's disappearance [[spoiler:and, it's revealed, brainwashing]] -- culminating in a final boss battle, "Tide Goes Out", that's generally agreed to make up for what it lacks in difficulty with some of the strongest emotional beats in the series. In "Return of the Mammalians", the Squid Sisters are back to being your personal cheerleaders, but without any newscasts or chat logs to fill the voids in characterization, they're mostly stuck making commentary or jokes that any character could have, leaving them feeling rather {{vanilla|Protagonist}} compared to other single-player characters, especially for newcomers to the series.

** With the Inkopolis DLC's addition, many lamented that it didn't also include Inkopolis News. They could have helped give the Squid Sisters more of an opportunity to shine after their characterization was simplified in Return of the Mammalians, retroactively made Deep Cut's then-shallow pool of dialogue for Anarchy Splatcast announcements more excusable (twice as much news dialogue would need to be written), and helped really give more impact to the NostalgiaLevel vibes that the DLC generally gears towards. Come Inkopolis' launch, your character will just tune in to Deep Cut's Anarchy Splatcast regardless of which hub they're in. The same goes for [[spoiler:''Side Order'', which let players return to Inkopolis Square after beating it]].

** Acht's gender never comes up in-game, but their androgynous design, use of they/them pronouns as opposed to the she/her pronouns they used in ''Splatoon 2'' (and especially in tandem with how Acht is the only non-PreviousPlayerCharacterCameo to use gender-neutral pronouns), and [[spoiler:the rather androgynous, "alternative" style they are seen to have had before becoming Sanitized]] has led many fans to conclude they are a non-binary person who came out between games.

** While the Homing Shots chip in ''Side Order'' can be very useful for taking out nearby enemies when your fire rate is low, it can occasionally veer your shots off-course to attack low-priority foes, or decide to attack Jelletons when you really should be painting the ground instead.[[note]]One or two Homing Shots on the Charger are ''fantastic'' for easily sniping the Parallel Canon enemies during that boss fight, though.[[/note]] Marina points this out in her commentary on the chip.

* AntiClimaxBoss: Fans have speculated that the Site 6 boss -- the last boss most players would fight before the endgame -- may be an intentional BreatherBoss considering that [[spoiler:Big Man]] is a NiceGuy who didn't even want to fight you in the first place. Despite the battle being [[spoiler:a reference to a [[ThatOneBoss notoriously difficult boss]] from ''VideoGame/SuperMarioSunshine'', Phantamanta]], there are multiple factors that make them pitifully easy, primarily the fact that the boss doesn't actually directly attack you often and the Get Sensor making them incredibly vulnerable.

** The Asynchronous Rondo might be the most imposing of the three main ''Side Order'' boss fights, but it's the easiest by far. It has large weak points unlike the Pinging Marciale, and it's a single entity unlike the Parallel Canon, so it can't gang up on you. It lacks a means of immediately putting Eight in danger mode under most circumstances, and while it has a fair variety of attacks, it massively choreographs its most dangerous ones, giving you plenty of time to prepare and get out of the way before it starts bombing you. On top of that, avoiding the searchlights is easy to do, since the most straightforward method is ''going under it'', which you can do briefly without it sending waves at you, and even if it does the waves are easy to avoid.

*** The No Item Drops danger effect can be devastating against builds that focus on item drops, but if you don't focus on them, then the drawback is quite minimal.

** The Reefslider, Ink Vac, and Super Chump Specials all have wide area of effect but are too predictable to get good use out of... except on Splat Zones. Their massive area of effect also makes them really good at inking the entire zone and capturing it in a single move, and some players can get away by just spamming it to paint the zone all the time: even if they die immediately after or fail to get value out of the Special in anything besides painting, it's enough to consistently force the opponent to play around the potential of the Special or risk taking a point penalty.

** Before the ''Splatoon 3: Side Order'' DLC had its name officially revealed, fans took to referring to it as "the wedding DLC", since all that was known about it for months was that it would feature Pearl and Marina, two characters that fans love [[LesYay shipping together]]. The name remains popular after ''Side Order''[='s=] release due to the sheer amount of [[PortmanteauCoupleName Pearlina]] ShipTease found within (particularly Pearl frequently expressing desire for some "quiet time" with Marina, which some fans have interpreted as wanting a chance to propose).

* FriendlyFandoms: Around this time of the franchise's life, a ton of ''VideoGame/MadRatDead'' fans started drawing posts about that game in ''Splatoon 3'''s plaza, something which ultimately culminated in the "[=#MRDSweep=]" of tons of fans drawing fanart of ''Mad Rat Dead''.

** One point of speculation in the first trailer of Side Order was that the Octoling character featured in it was Agent 8, based on the fact that a loose theme of the trailer is that it's oriented around memories and abandonment, which would align quite nicely with Agent 8's story of abandoning the Octarians and losing their memories. This got confirmed by the second trailer, in which the Pearl Drone calls the Octoling protagonist Eight.
** After Deep Cut's first concert was loosely themed around "Return of the Mammalians" and featured the Squid Sisters as guest stars, some fans correctly predicted that their second concert, which was set to debut just under two weeks shy of the "Side Order" DLC, would feature Off the Hook instead.
** Many fans predicted that the Order Sector, the central hub of ''Side Order'', was a virtual location in some sort of {{cyberspace}} from the frequent shots of MatrixRainingCode, emphasis on simplistic polygonal shapes, subtle circuit patterns on certain objects, and Pearl transforming into an AttackDrone with seemingly no in-universe explanation.
** When Inkopolis Plaza returned to the game as an alternate hub world in the DLC, quite a few players called Inkopolis Square subsequently being unlocked after completing ''Side Order''. There were many clues pointing at this reveal that savvy players could pick up on, from the focus of Side Order being a twisted monochromatic version of the Square, to the menu listing for returning to the hub being changed from "Square" to "City" after Wave 1 debuted, to the confirmation dialogue for traveling to Inkopolis Plaza reading "Go to this city?" instead of "Go to Inkopolis Plaza?" (almost as if it were skipping past a menu due to there being only one destination at the time, hmm) -- but one of the biggest was when Tableturf Battle cards of the ''Splatoon 2'' shopkeepers were revealed for Fresh Season 2024 shortly before ''Side Order'' released.

* JustHereForGodzilla: ''Side Order'' sold a ''lot'' of people when it was teased one month before the game released and six months before the formal reveal, simply because it featured the [[TheBusCameBack return]] of Off the Hook, who are all but absent from the base game unless you scan their amiibo. Some people who were interested in learning more about [=Dedf1sh=], a background character from the ''Octo Expansion'', were also intrigued once they were revealed to been [[AscendedExtra promoted to main character]].

** ''Return of the Mammalians'' has 65 kettle levels and 4 boss battles before the final sequence at [[spoiler:the Alterna Space Center]]. While the boss fights are all mandatory, only four the standard kettle levels are: the four Crater levels. Fuzzy Ooze is the only thing impeding progression across Alterna's main overworld, and the boss kettles don't requiring the player to beat all the other levels on their respective islands like in previous games. Eggs collected in the Crater don't carry over to Alterna, so you may think this means a minimalist run would have you playing and replaying the first Alterna level ("Get to Know Alterna, Your Only Choice") to get the 9,200 Power Eggs needed to beeline to all the bosses. Instead, you'll instead find yourself with the time-consuming task of [[https://youtu.be/-znxjnRkOQo?t=628 grinding the Power Egg balloon floating around Squid Sisters Base]], which you can ''barely'' reach from the starting area. Considering this means waiting for a slow-moving balloon to pass by so you can hopefully time and land a precise Smallfry toss[[note]](if you miss, it's actually faster to kill yourself to soft-reset its movement cycle, rather than wait for it come back around)[[/note]], after which you must exit and reenter the campaign so the balloon respawns, then repeat the process? Probably not the most fun thing in the world, but at least you can move to an easier spot to hit the balloon once you collect enough eggs.
** ''Side Order'' encourages minimalist runs with [[spoiler:Agent 8's Palette, which gains more Color Chip slots the fewer [[SkillScoresAndPerks hacks]] you have active]]. You can earn a special badge for your Splashtag by [[spoiler:successfully completing an Agent 8's Palette run with at most four hacks active]].

** From the beginning, the ''Side Order'' DLC was ''quite'' open about pandering to fans of Off the Hook, very few of whom were happy with their role ([[OutOfFocus or lack thereof]]) in the base game. When the DLC released, it brought with it an ''enormous'' amount of [[PortmanteauCoupleName Pearlina]] ShipTease, more than even the ''Octo Expansion'', indicating Nintendo was ''perfectly'' aware what many of Off the Hook's fans wanted out of the campaign. (Shiver/Frye is hinted at too, for good measure.)

** A common gripe about Deep Cut is that the trio received very little CharacterFocus and felt underutilized, not least because Anarchy Splatcast had dropped the stage-specific banter in favor of a handful of generic lines concerning Turf War (which also caused many of the new stages to come off as lacking in terms of lore and world-building, making Splatsville feel less full overall than Inkopolis). The 4.0.0 update added quite a bit of new dialogue for Deep Cut to fire off during the newscasts, including stage-specific quotes, bringing them more in line with the other idol groups.

** Background [=NPCs=] in multiplayer maps have a noticably lower framerate for their animation. Normally this isn't an issue since they're not the focus of gameplay, but trailers tend to include zoomed-in panning shots of them in all their low-framerate glory, such as in the Chill Season 2022 trailer where it focuses on a jellyfish bathing in an onsen and you can practically count the number of frames per second they move at with one hand.

** The audience in Bonerattle Arena is rendered as 2D sprites of Lesser Salmonids, which is understandable since there are a lot of them and any more detail would risk causing lag with the amount of moving creatures onscreen at any given time (never a welcome sight in Salmon Run due to a GameBreakingBug). This is common in many video games, including Nintendo's own ''VideoGame/MarioKart'' series from ''Double Dash!!'' onward. Problem is, the Salmonid sprites are animated at about 4 FPS and relatively close to the stage, meaning they suffer from the same issues as the background jellyfish in certain PVP stages -- and some of them, particularly the Cohocks, have visible light outlines that make them look crudely copy-pasted into the scene.

** One of ''Side Order''[='s=] biggest selling points is that it would be [[TheBusCameBack the grand return of Off the Hook]]... and then Marina failed to appear in both the second trailer and all promotional materials for the DLC, despite them heavily featuring Pearl and ([[UnexpectedCharacter of all characters]]) [=Dedf1sh=]. While there were little details here and there that hinted Marina would still play a major role, fans who enjoyed Off the Hook for their character dynamics (or for {{shipping}} reasons) couldn't help but feel a little burned. In fact, the immediate assumption from the fanbase was that this was to avoid major spoilers, leading to theories that Marina had either [[DamselInDistress been kidnapped]] or underwent a FaceHeelTurn -- both of which are viewed as very poor storytelling decisions that make little sense for Marina's character arc.[[note]]The former is unpopular because it would remove the agency of a much-beloved character who is known to be [[TheAce quite skilled in multiple fields]] and would be too close to a RecycledScript of the Squid Sisters' arc in the second game; the latter is not only considered too much of an AssPull for a character who has pulled a HeelFaceTurn in the past and whose closest act of "villainy" in modern times is thinking [[EvilIsCool fictional villains are cool]], it's been noted to have the uncomfortable effect of ''proving Inkling society right'' for treating Octarians as AlwaysChaoticEvil (when taking into account that the second most prominent Octoling character in the games is a greedy AwesomeEgo thief with shifty morals, this would leave Agent 8 as [[TokenHeroicOrc the only unambiguously heroic Octoling character]] in the series)[[/note]]. [[https://www.reddit.com/r/splatoon/comments/16ityti/my_main_concern_from_the_new_side_order_trailer/ One particular meme of the potential story outcomes]] became popular enough to get over a thousand upvotes on Reddit. Once the actual expansion came out, players quickly found out that the developers decided to TakeAThirdOption: while Marina is indeed a brainwashed BadassInDistress at first, she is only the WarmUpBoss, is rescued at the end of the fight, and immediately becomes an important and helpful ally for the rest of the expansion. In fact, it's not a stretch to call Marina ''the'' main character of ''Side Order''. And while the story is ''technically'' her fault, her Memverse project (which has an entirely noble purpose) was hijacked by a different entity for malicious purposes. Needless to say, fans were relieved.

** ''Side Order's'' FinalBoss also has an attack where he launches back-to-back Reefsliders at you. While this is easy enough to avoid if you catch the text box warning and have an escape route, it can quickly end your life if you get hit since you not only take massive amounts of damage but will also likely be stuck in a large pool of enemy ink. What truly makes this attack awful is if he uses it when you're right next to him, something he's particularly fond of doing when he's close to defeat, as you'll have even less time to react before the Reefslider explodes on you.

*** Cruel_Sisyphean_Eight-Shaped.Floor, a name that is especially appropriate on Splat Zones. Two zones on a figure-eight-shaped narrow pathway, with Drizzling Capricciosos constantly spawning in to paint them with impunity. The zones are far apart so you'll constantly be running back and forth to splat the Capricciosos and retake each zone, only to leave the other one wide open to be captured again. Enemies spawn en masse from gushers at the bottom (where {{Mook Maker}}s are hard to reach) and at the top (right in your way on the best path between the zones). If you have the misfortune of running into a "Danger!" modifier, this stage can turn from merely tedious and frustrating to downright virtually impossible.
*** Any level with the Stronger Jelletons modifier, which causes all of them to spawn in with their IncreasinglyLethalEnemy effect active. This makes the fight against the hordes a struggle to survive as they constantly bum-rush you; this applies doubly so if you're on Splat Zones, meaning you're a sitting duck as you're waiting for the unmoving objective to slowly tick up. Oh, did we mention it can be paired with the "Arpeggio Barrage" modifier to bombard you nonstop?

** Pearl and Marina became massively popular additions in the second game after ''Octo Expansion'' explored their characters in greater depth, so it's natural they'd return for the third, right? While the duo did get some snazzy new costumes, their role in the base game (as some feared) is purely as one of the many in-game bands whose music plays during multiplayer matches; specifically, they act as vocalists for a new musical group called Damp Socks, building on their stated goal of exploring more musical genres after [=FinalFest=] in ''Splatoon 2''. Their only appearances in base ''Splatoon 3'' (not counting amiibo) are in one of the Sunken Scrolls, which offhandedly mentions they've "[[PutOnABus leapt to the world stage]]", on Damp Socks' album art, on a few locker decorations, and in a very obscure cameo on the [=MakoMart stage=] -- the latter three of which reuse artwork from elsewhere in the series. Their return as the main characters of the then-unnamed ''Side Order'' DLC was directly hinted at almost a month before the game's release, likely to ease any concerns that the duo had been completely DemotedToExtra, but the heavily protracted wait for said DLC meant this was small comfort for many of their fans. Happily, ''Side Order'' itself rewarded Off the Hook fans' patience with heaps of CharacterFocus and development, plus an advancement of their arc from the ''Octo Expansion'' and a peek at what they'd been doing on their world tour.
** Agent 4 and Agent 8 weren't mentioned in the game at all on release. This partially changed when Agent 8 was revealed to be the main protagonist in ''Side Order''; unfortunately, Agent 4 is still MIA. While the map of Inkadia released by the developers shows Agent 4's original hometown, indicating the devs certainly haven't forgotten about them, they don't appear in person at all in either ''Return of the Mammalians'' or ''Side Order'', with only the leader of the [[WolfpackBoss Parallel Canon]] taking on their appearance and Marina hiring them to handle Memverse security in her dev logs.
** DJ Octavio in Return of the Mammalians. [[spoiler:After falling into Alterna, he isn't seen again until he pulls a VillainousRescue on the player during the final battle, with no explanation for where he ended up after the fall, what he's been doing, or how he was even aware of what's been going on with the main plot. After playing the BigBad for one-and-a-half games, it could've been interesting to establish his unusual situation much earlier by having the DJ aid the New Squidbeak Splatoon in some capacity throughout the campaign, have him react in some way to the apparent death of Captain Cuttlefish (who even he wasn't willing to kill, only capturing him in the first game), or at least have a Sunken Scroll serve as direct foreshadowing. Unlike Pearl and Marina, no DLC seems to be planned to clear things up on what happened to Octavio.]]
** While Deep Cut's involvement in the "Return of the Mammalians" campaign was well-received, they spend most of the story in the background [[spoiler:due to beginning the campaign as antagonistic rivals]]. They only come to the fore near the end, [[spoiler:when they pledge allegiance to the NEW New Squidbeak Splatoon and help Agent 3 chase Mr. Grizz's rocket, which still leaves them feeling like {{Satellite Character}}s for the Squid Sisters. They don't even sing in the credits theme "Wave Goodbye"]]. The trio does host Anarchy Splatcast, but prior to Version 4.0.0, it was drastically cut down from either incarnation of Inkopolis News -- all Turf War/Anarchy Battle stages shared the same Splatcast dialogue -- and Salmon Run announcements still use only a few generic lines. This limited their characterization to special events like Splatfests and Big Runs, leaving them feeling underdeveloped and vague to some. Even after new Splatcast dialogue was added to flesh out their characterization and the world of ''Splatoon 3'' a little more, the fact that the Squid Sisters get three single-player campaigns to themselves and Off the Hook gets two while Deep Cut is in one (and not even as main characters) means they're still relatively flat.

** More along the lines of a perfectly good ''joke'', but some players were disappointed that [[spoiler:if you looked into Deep Cut's studio while still in the middle of "Return of the Mammalians", they don't glare at you or make threatening gestures, even though they're supposed to be fighting you.]]
** Some Squid Sisters fans aren't fond of how the "Return of the Mammalians" campaign handles them. In ''VideoGame/Splatoon1''[='s=] Octo Valley, "Agent 1" and "Agent 2" mostly acted as your VoiceWithAnInternetConnection; they had some funny lines and memorable quips, but most of their development was saved for the news banter. ''VideoGame/Splatoon2'' kicked things up a notch by focusing Octo Canyon on the relationship between the Squid Sisters, showing Marie to be genuinely worried and upset by Callie's disappearance [[spoiler:and, it's revealed, brainwashing]] -- culminating in a final boss battle, "Tide Goes Out", that's generally agreed to make up for what it lacks in difficulty with some of the strongest emotional beats in the series. In "Return of the Mammalians", the Squid Sisters are back to being your personal cheerleaders, but without any newscasts or chat logs to fill the voids in characterization, they're mostly stuck making commentary or jokes that any character could have, leaving them feeling rather {{vanilla|Protagonist}} compared to other single-player characters.

** With the Inkopolis DLC's addition, a perfectly good opportunity to bring back Inkopolis News appeared. They could have helped give the Squid Sisters more of an opportunity to shine after their characterization was simplified in Return of the Mammalians, retroactively given Deep Cut's shallower pool of dialogue for Anarchy Splatcast announcements more excusable (twice as much news dialogue would need to be written), and helped really give more impact to the NostalgiaLevel vibes that the DLC generally gears towards. Come Inkopolis' launch, your character will just tune in to Deep Cut's Anarchy Splatcast regardless of which hub they're in. This is still the case even after [[spoiler:''Side Order'' let players return to Inkopolis Square a full year after the first wave]].

** The Big Runs have been a little more ''underwhelming'' than a lot of people initially expected in terms of presentation. Sure, the ambience in the hubs is incredible, but people expected a lot more terror and panic, since the Big Runs are historically known as terrifying events where the Salmonids swarm the land to slaughter anyone in their path. They also don't seem to have quite as much prominence as Splatfests, since they typically replace them as a the monthly event. Instead, while the Big Runs are still treated as major, they're not considered ''that'' big a deal; everyone in-game seems to either take them in stride, either being mildy annoyed that the Salmonids are invading a part of Inkopolis/Splatsville or [[BloodKnight outright eager to take the fight to the Salmonids]] -- a line of dialogue for the Barnacle & Dime Big Run even states that the mall ''stays open'' during the infestation, and only part of it is cordoned off due to the Salmonid swarms. While still an interesting detail that highlights how inkthirsty modern Inklings and Octolings have become, it does feel like a bit of a letdown to some.

** "Color Pulse (2024)" is a much heavier remix of the original than "City of Color (2023)", from the lower-pitched synths to Pearl's different rapping style, which drew some criticism from fans who were attached to the older version of the song and don't appreciate it being tinkered with to such a degree and/or feel the new, more laid-back tone is inappropriate for Splatfests.

** The new rendition of ''Color Pulse'' has recieved many a criticism for changing a lot of the song, to the point where it's almost a different vibe entirely. There have been many edits of the song, with subtitles like "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yafOiS-SUdo Color Pulse 2024 if it was actually good]]" and "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLO8z5JZOsk Color Pulse '24 if it wasn't ass]]."

* CriticalDissonance: Critics generally take a positive view of ''Splatoon 3'', deeming it a worthy successor to ''Splatoon 2'' that builds on the first two games with fun bonuses and memorable new characters of its own. Fan reception is mixed; while casual fans tend to agree with critics, many longterm fans view it (exclusively or not) as a lukewarm MissionPackSequel and the weakest link in the series. These hardcore fans decry the slower update cycle, stagnant {{Metagame}}, power disparity between {{high tier|scrappy}} and {{low tier|letdown}} weapons, not receiving a new Ranked/Anarchy game mode like previous ''Splatoon'' games, the repetitive and disliked stage design direction, and poor if not worse netcode than prior games. The objective improvements ''Splatoon 3'' does offer, such as Replays and the updated Salmon Run, are often argued to not justify a separate $60 release and that, while nice additions, leave the core game with the issues mentioned before. Even the DownloadableContent sparks debate among fans, with the Inkopolis Plaza wave criticized as lackluster nostalgia bait, and Side Order's long development going quiet [[TrailerDelay for months]] (and controversially rendering Off the Hook OutOfFocus for almost a year and a half). Compare ''Splatoon 3''[='s=] [[https://www.metacritic.com/game/switch/splatoon-3 83]] metascore (which is shared with ''2'') to its user rating of just 68 (the lowest in the series, 16 points below ''2'').

* 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''.