This is one of the biggest surprises the Sonic franchise has thrown at me. A Sonic murder mystery visual novel? For free? In this economy?

If you're looking for a head-scratcher like Danganronpa or Ace Attorney you won't find it here, which is fine, this game isn't trying to be one. The strength of this game lies on having these characters interact in a more down-to-earth setting, with the player character serving as a perfect contrast to this crazy cast by being "ordinary" in comparisons, while still being a worthwhile character that I personally became fond towards.

There's some small gameplay segments during interrogations with a more classic Sonic gameplay, they happen every time the player character needs to collect their thoughts to prepare an argument. They are a good change of pace even if they interrupt the flow a bit, their implementation reminded me a bit of some mechanics you'd see in the Ace Attorney games, where they abstract a stressful situation into a minigame.

Regarding the graphics and the music, they are amazing. The comic book art style perfectly fits the tone of the story, and there's something about the color palette of these drawings that is just perfect. The music is really jazzy and fits every situation, you can feel that Ace Attorney (yes, again) inspiration coming through in the interrogation music, and they nailed it.

This game is awesome, if you either like visual novels or would love to see the Sonic cast in a different and fun setting you HAVE to play this.

An incredible adaptation of Splatoon to the roguelite genre. Reaching the top of the Spire of Order is an extremely satisfying experience, and the return of fan favorites Off the Hook and Dedf1sh are the cherry on top.

I was expecting a bit more of a challenge, as I beat the main story on my second run (third if counting the tutorial). It's also a bit disappointing there isn't much variety on the level objectives.

But, there are a LOT of level variations, and a good variety of weapons with their respective "upgrades" so every run feels extremely fresh. There have to be some crazy Color Chip combinations I haven't tried yet.

I'm going to work on the post-game content, and it seems it's gonna take a long while, trust me on this one. Don't let my "3 and a half hours played" steer you away from this expansion, if you can't get enough of Splatoon, it's 100% worth it.

UPDATE 04/18/2024
I took it a bit leisurely, but I finished it some days ago, I'm writing this after processing my thoughts on it a bit.

I took around 15 hours to complete the Spire with every weapon. It's an estimate, as I was playing the other modes in between.

The lore tidbits spread throughout Marina's Dev Diaries are pretty cool, they tie back into Octo Expansion and everything we knew about Pearl and Marina's world tour until this point. They were an excellent motivation to keep climbing the Spire and find the next one.

I still wish there was a bit more to do in Order Central, and that the game explored the newly introduced characters better. There could still be a bit more variety in the level design and objectives, but I feel I'm satisfied with what I got here.

I hope Nintendo doesn't drop this game mode in the next game and really fleshes it out, this expansion has everything it needs to become one of the most addicting games ever.