Alterna Citizen Program M-00: Init (System Noise)

→ Soundtrack announcement post
→ Some credits “revealed”

Game info: Inkipedia
Listening: YouTube (single video), extracted audio

Credits

Sound: Toshiyuki Sudo, Shu Tamura, Toru Minegishi, Ryo Nagamatsu, Tomohiro Imura, Shiho Fujii, Kota Okumura, Yumi Takahashi, Kairi Hamada, Isami Yoshida, Asuka Hayazaki, Masato Ohashi, Yuki Ito

In modern times there’s not particularly much (if any) overlap between composers and sound designers in Nintendo games, people who do music always do music and people who do SFX always do SFX, so based on previous games, these folks’s likely roles are:

Music: Toshiyuki Sudo, Toru Minegishi, Ryo Nagamatsu, Shiho Fujii, Yumi Takahashi, Kairi Hamada, Asuka Hayazaki, Masato Ohashi
SFX/voice editing: Shu Tamura, Tomohiro Imura, Kota Okumura, Isami Yoshida
unknown (brand new person): Yuki Ito

Info

Alright we’ve finally caught up pretty much on GameFAQs song nominations, so let’s get to this thing. Side Order is a roguelike shooter mode where you climb a tower of thirty random rooms with a specific weapon and try not to die. The heart of the soundtrack and the vast majority of what’s available in the in-game jukebox are fifteen combat room themes and seven boss themes, but there are also a bunch of cutscene themes and more ambient music for non-action areas.

A note about the odd song titles, since I’m going to be referencing the format when talking about lines of related songs: for a room theme title like “je2ting,” the word indicates which of five possible objectives the room has, in this case being to kill specific enemies that run away from you, and the numeral indicates whether you’re playing in the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd set of ten rooms.

This DLC has a bit of a digital computer world aesthetic to it: there are a bunch of glitchy and Matrix-code-esque transitions and effects, and there are simpler environment and weapon models with more muted and monochromatic textures. All of the stage themes and half of the boss themes are assigned to a new in-game band, named Mnemonic Clouds in Japan and Free Association everywhere else. Both the idea of a computer process and the references to memory/consciousness play into the music concept for the stage themes, as explained by sound director Toshiyuki Sudo in a Japanese interview with Famitsu:

As for the big picture, the lower level songs were ones giving the feeling of “someone’s nostalgic memories,” but as you move to the upper floors, it feels like an “excessive orderliness” cut them into small pieces and roughly sorted them. The concept was to create an arrangement with a certain kind of distorted feeling to it.

So the lower floor themes (the ones with “1” in the titles) are generally IDMy, a little similar in style to the music from the Splatoon 2 DLC, Octo Expansion, though to fit in with the theme of memories, they tend to be a bit disjointed and chaotic comparatively. As you progress to the “2” version you’ll hear a lot of the same instrumentation and phrases, though even more disjointed and with more glitch and other electronic effects. Then the final “3” versions are the most corrupted, often getting a bit intense or sinister in a way the earlier versions don’t.

And it’s some of the most insane of music ever produced by Nintendo’s sound team. They threw IDM into a blender with typically good Nintendo compositions, uncommonly cool production and audio design, and a healthy scoop of quirky bits, with each of the five objective lines incorporating some unique elements like strangely-filtered piano or djent-y synth chugs or Contra-esque FM prog. And the result is this absolutely deranged nonsense that I haven’t stopped thinking about for two months. What the fuck, Nintendo.

The rest of the soundtrack unfortunately doesn’t ever really get close to that level. As mentioned, Free Association was also responsible for four of the seven boss themes, though these are a lot more straightforward or “normal” EDM/IDM compared to the stage themes; I do really like one of them, but I generally find them a lot less interesting. Side Order also features four brand new songs by the two main artists of Octo Expansion, Off the Hook and Dedf1sh. Off the Hook is my favorite of the series’s main idol groups, since their competitive mode music from Splatoon 2 edges a bit toward hip hop soul, and Dedf1sh did a bunch of weird experimental electronic stuff for Octo Expansion, but the new songs are all EDM pop this time around and I don’t particularly like any of them.

The ambient cutscene and area themes get pretty good though; they’re actually a bit reminiscent of the more lowkey and darker music from Octo Expansion, but with a bit cooler sound design. Unlike all the combat themes, we don’t have official titles for most of these since they weren’t added to the jukebox; I’m hopeful for the release of a Splatoon 3 ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK -Octotune2- sometime soon for the full soundtrack and also all the additional music that’s been added to the base game in the past year.

Recommended tracks:

• “#0.1 style” is a remix of a cool 7/8 track from Octo Expansion that adds a beat to put it into 4/4 and drops a bunch of random sounds on top of it, including some strange beeping at 0:36 and 0:55 that don’t sound like they’re mixed properly into the song but are actually coming from real life somewhere is that my phone ringing

• ❖ “Tower Foyer” plays briefly in the weapon test area before your initial run through the tower and has a bunch of ploonking that reminds me a bit of Myst-like ambient music; this is made up of a bunch of positional audio SFX so this version is just kinda assembled by the person who ripped it

• ❖ “Order Sector (Intro Clear)” plays in the outside area after you’ve cleared the initial run but before you’ve beaten the game and is kind of a corroded, bitcrushed version of the full version you hear after you beat the game; this one also has some positional audio going on

• “rout1nes” was used prominently in a trailer and has a really cool percussion loop

• “jest1ng” starts off sounding like a complexly-layered Mario desert theme (Shiho Fujii?) before going full clown mode at 0:21

• “je2ting” I’m including so you have a comparison for how a track gets shredded from version 1 to version 2 and also happens to be my favorite track in the DLC; I love the Chimeratio-esque FM stabs at 0:21 and smashing at 0:40

• “2ouvenir” is from the music line that feels the most like someone’s nostalgic memories cut into small pieces and roughly sorted by an excessive orderliness

• “d3molish” is the climax of the synthdjent-y music line, and while this one doesn’t really have the chugs of the first two versions of the song, this is definitely the hardest version to count along the beat to

• “jitt3rs” has weird piano and someone trying desperately to make a phone call before they’re surrounded by skeleton fish and mercilessly pummeled to death

• “CΘld StΘrage” is the breakcore boss theme with the good chord bit at 1:02

(tracks marked with a ❖ have unofficial titles)