Splatoon Raiders is a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it, as I said in my review last month, although a deluge of other games I was excited about prevented me from engaging much with its post-game content. Part of that post-game is something called Bottomless Buffet, essentially an “endless” mode with increased difficulty in which you must survive floor after floor after floor of challenging enemies, collecting a certain number of Power Eggs from kills on each floor before time runs out. Bottomless Buffet’s floors quickly become intense, so most players probably won’t see much more than the 100 needed to reach the true end of the game. In theory, the Bottomless Buffet should be bottomless, meaning an infinite number of floors to keep splashing across if you’re dedicated enough. In reality, there is a limited number: 1000. And someone has finally completed the 1000th floor, reaching the bottom of the so-called “Bottomless” Buffet. An incredible feat for which they received absolutely nothing. This feat was shown in footage posted to YouTube by 新月, who documented nearly two and a half hours of repeated attempts to beat Bottomless Buffet’s final challenge: floors 998, 999, and 1000. If you haven’t played much of the Splatoon Raiders finale, most of these attempts probably look like a giant disaster. What you need to know is that 新月 is basically using a popular build that allows them to suck up all the enemies in one place, deal a lot of damage to them in the stack, and then hover over them, both to avoid damage and destroy the larger ones with a clip (aka a sniper rifle) for big damage. They have the Speed Tank turned on and a Jump Bomb, a Torqscrew, and a Blast Boot as equipped devices. The jump bomb (with modifiers to increase jump height) is what allows them to fly, the Torq screw sucks up all the salmonids and helps propel the player upwards, and the explosive bomb is used to freeze the salmonids on the stack. It looks like a mess, but it’s pretty good and effective. Although they overcome several failed attempts in this video, their last attempt leaves them clearing the 1000th floor with 11 seconds to spare. Unfortunately, other than the chat completely losing its mind when 新月 finally surpasses 1000, there is absolutely no reward for achieving this. Sure, there’s the usual EXP and a hoard of rare weapons you’d normally collect by doing difficult floors like this, but there’s no title, costume, or dialogue that acknowledges what this player has accomplished. Apparently, there is absolutely no reason to clean the 1000th floor, a task that seems completely brutal and thankless if you are not the first person to do it. So congratulations to 新月, and a warning to everyone else: if you’re doing Bottomless Buffet in Splatoon Raiders, it’s okay to stop at 100. There’s a bottom for the apparently misnamed Bottomless Buffet, but there’s nothing down there except salmon and pain.
