#The tl;dr on this is I'm at that goofy stage where I don't have enough skill to back up my ideas

[amedeono]

oops kind of forgot I have this blog!

[bucketsquid]

After like 10 failed runs, finally beat Side Order's main story, yay. Thoughts under the cut, tl;dr at the bottom.

Yeah, it's good. I really enjoy roguelites, I've been playing Binding of Isaac since it was released in 2011, 100%'d it and then immediately picked up Rebirth when it dropped and have a good 1000+ hours across different versions of it; if that says anything about my love of the genre and the style of game, I don't know what does.

My first immediate criticisms are "there's not enough variety in bosses, and there could be more stages", but that's really... it. I guess there could be more enemy types, since there's a lot of Octarians and Salmonids to get inspiration from, but I can see why they wouldn't want to overlap too hard with other game modes, and every enemy has to be kill-able by every weapon type. I'd love to see bosses from previous entries replicated here, though, even as just "corrupted memory" versions or something... we more or less got the Octowhirl back, so I'd love to see stuff like the Octomaws and Octo Oven come back in remixed flavors.

But that's about it for actual gameplay critique. The ability to customize your experience with hacks is really nice, it plays well into the gameplay loop and makes the game more accessible for people who don't like roguelite gameplay. I play it strictly with 1 life and no continues ever, so that keeps it spicy for me personally. The different palettes remind me of how different weapons work in Salmon Run: they change your priorities, approaches to challenges and general mode of play, and that's a really good thing.

The feeling of creating a good or wacky build, and then being able to crush situations where your build works, is definitely there. That's one of my favorite things about Isaac: the glee of putting together some really stupid items that together cause gamebreaking or at least very player-skewed situations, and Side Order does that perfectly. And even when you do dominate, there's still Danger conditions that can throw you for a loop, or you might struggle against xyz boss due to your palette.

So yeah, for $20? Pretty good gameplay experience. I'm not sure I enjoy it more than Octo Expansion's weird goofiness and stage design, but it has way more replayability overall. OE was a one-and-done for me, clear all the stages + story mode + Inner Agent 3 then go back to finish all the stages again with all the weapons. It was an incredible experience, but I can't see myself playing it a ton more outside of just revisiting the story and aesthetic/funky stage design. Side Order will have me coming back again and again until I've 100%'d it and gotten all the Prlz exchange items, though.

I think it's going to be hit-or-miss for people who enjoy one-and-done experiences vs. the roguelite experience, though. The grind and self-challenge and experimentation isn't for everyone, and they might feel disappointed once they finish a palette or two. But I'm enjoying it a ton.

As for story...

I'd put it at "structured better and more unified than Splat3 story mode, but weaker than Octo Expansion". It was a very nice follow-up to OE, it reminded us that there's living Sanitized Octarians + Octolings and went "hey, yeah, we can save these people actually" and that's really nice. It established more about Eight and their bond with Off the Hook, dug more into Marina's life and psyche and relationship with Pearl, and gave us more context about the Octarian Shogunate, all of that is great. Acht was a big surprise from the start, and getting to know them + their story was an absolute treat, even if I wish they had actually done more during the main story... I think that's excusable in-universe because they're still recovering and are injured until the end, but ehhhh. But character writing was great, we got a lot of small details and backstory that I enjoy a lot, and also they/them Acht yeaaahhhhhhhh

It wasn't the dark and political story that Octo Expansion was + left us wanting more of, but I think it's a mistake to compare Side Order to OE, really. It's impossible not to do, but you have to look at them independently, and for what Side Order set out to do, yeah, it's good. It's a short story mode focused on a few people and one of their big dreams to save people, tied into a roguelite mode; that's pretty different from the "underground conspiracies that tie into the big picture" main-story-mode-on-steroids Octo Expansion. I think that there could have been more elevator dialogue and lore tidbits, because you can tell the writers were having a lot of fun with that.

The visual design and its direction are fantastic. It really pushes a visual narrative of "coral reef bleaching from pollution" crossed with neurobiology imaging, it fits perfect with the antagonist's aims and the art+design team did a great job with that. The way things get creepier and more distorted the further up you get in the Spire is great! It's all very consistent and coherent and feels distinct from everything else in the series so far, so props.

And all the music, as usual, are fucking bangers, both for the instrumentals and tracks with vocals. I'm looking forward to snapping up the soundtrack for this one.

tl;dr

It's not perfect but I'm getting my money's worth of gameplay and having a lot of fun. The setting/visual themes are fantastic, the music is really good, the story is different than the norm but not bad and focuses a lot on character development.

Try not to compare the story and setting to Octo Expansion, because they're doing different things. If you have Splat3 already and enjoy roguelite gameplay + character lore (feat. the lesbians and a "new" friend!), I think it's worth the $20 pricetag, especially if you 100% it.

[battybiologist]

I went to see Wonka (2023) with exactly zero expectations of it being any good. I was pleasantly surprised. TL;DR: A good musical, a good kid's movie, not flawless, but very entertaining and sincere.

For starters, the characters are surprisingly endearing. Willy is nothing like the enigmatic and charismatic-yet-aloof bringer of wonderthat is Wonka in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, instead being a kind and eccentric visionnaire. The magician/showman aspect of this iteration makes sense, even if it is a quite large departure from his original character, and makes for a charming musical protagonist, and the new sad backstory is simple and tropey, but still capable of being moving.

He would not be a good Willy Wonka if he didn't have a downtrodden kid to wow with his colorful creations, and Noodle fills those shoes pretty well. The writers put their own spin on that archetype by making her a full-on foil to Wonka, contrasting his optimistic naïveté with her cynical savviness. Her big number, "For a Moment", about temporarily forgetting her sorrow after she meets her Manic Pixie Dream Business Partner, is also quite touching, and even tragic at one point, seeing how hardened she is because of her poor lot in life.

The Scrubbers are also neat. Not much to say about them, but I like them, especially Benz, because you know I love myself a gruff-yet-loveable no-nonsense woman. They all get their "where are they now" epilogue in the credits, and it was a neat touch that I'm glad was there.

The biggest surprise was Lofty, the Oompa Loompa in the movie. First of all, thank God they used the 1971 design, and thank God they removed the racism of the original book and 2005 movie. Lofty is a fun wildcard figure, not on Willy's side, but also not opposed to him. He's treated with a lot more dignity than I'd expected, being portrayed as competent, well spoken, and even condescending, while allowing him to be a funny little guy, and the result is nice.

Enough about characters, a musical without music is simply not a musical. The ambient music is quite good, but the real surprise was the numbers. I expected something like The Greatest Showman, where almost all the songs don't feel musical-y at all, but again, I was pleasantly surprised. You could not remove any song from the film without making it or the songs worse, which shouldn't feel as good as it does.

Special mention to the movie's showstopper, "You've Never Had Chocolate Like This" - I love its narrative structure, the staging is at its most inspired, taking advantages of the strengths of films (different shot angles, clean edits, more complex sets) while imparting the grandiosity of musical theatre, and the music is whimsical and catchy.

It really feels like the filmakers understood the assignment. The setting is a goofy and cartoony city where chocolate is as attractive as meth, as it should be for a kid's movie and a musical with such an eccentric premise, and the movie has a pretty good grasp of its pathos (again, shouldn't feel as good as it does, but here we are)

However, I do have quite a few hangups about the movie. For starters: the directing/staging is very much standard blockbuster musical fare well executed, the aesthetics are polished but incredibly safe, the overall plot is almost cookie-cutter, and I wish there were more practical effects (as always).

The villains are also quite lackluster. The priests are a little bit funny, the diet-Thénardiers are believably despicable, and Fickelgruber, Prodnose, and Slugworth, the three color-coded businessmen that run the Chocolate Cartel, are a fun reference to the original book, but they're not much more than that. Slugworth is the one that gets the most texture (notice I didn't say depth), but even then, he's far from a selling point. I appreciate the vaguely anti-rich sentiment, but when I, a noted Villain Song Enthusiast, find the villain song of the movie, "Sweet Tooth", boring, you've messed up.

Speaking of villains, the worst flaw of the movie is the police commisioner. He starts out as a relatively fun anti-villain, and you know I'm always down for a movie being even lightly anti-cop, but he gradually becomes nothing but a vehicule for very mean-spirited and fatphobic jokes, which is especially cruel considering none of the other chocolate addicts are treated the same way by the movie

(and also makes calling him a pig frustratingly conflicting for an anti-cop, anti-body shaming person such as myself).

To top off the negative criticisms, I don't get why this movie needed to be a Willy Wonka movie. I alluded to it earlier, but this Willy is hardly similar to any adaptation of Willy Wonka. Really, outside of a couple little winks and "Pure Imagination", the movie would be better as an entirely original story about a chocolatier-alchemical wizard trying to achieve his dreams.

But again, I know studios are very stupid about new ideas, because they want to paint all over them with an already established IP, so I'll instead be glad that talented filmmakers got the opportunity to make a fun movie with a bit of a misleading title

Since I've drifted back to praising the movie, I'll conclude this way too wordy opinion piece for a movie I probably wouldn't had bothered to see were I not invited by my friends with a practical recommendation: If you want your kid to see a great movie for their age that's entertaining and doesn't condescend to them, Wonka (2023) is a good recent pick.