Figured i’ve write down my thoughts on the DLC for Pokemon Scarlet/Violet, i said it would take me a while because i wanted to wait for patches before even considering paying for the expansion pass, alongside any news on Pokemon Legends ZA, which i will cover in an EXPRESSO review soon enough and will do a full lenght review at my own leisure.
I’m gonna do a single review because unlike with Pokemon Sword/Shield, the DLC content is actually structured to be two parts that follow up on each other, instead of unrelated new locations in the map with their contained story and actitivities, but i’m gonna split the review in two, for the sake of argument and critique more than utilitarian observation that – once again – it not like you can pick and choose to buy either part; if there is DLC for a Pokemon game, you either buy it all or none, this has been the recent trend for the Game Freak developed mainline titles so far.
Before that, i will comment that i honestly i barely notice whatever the patches have done, aside from less crashes and weird glitches, but i was already lucky on that regard, and i haven’t revisited thouroghly the main base game world and its locations to notice any big change or fix, apparently there are less NPCs in some hub areas or cities now in order to improve framerate, which is pathetic. It is.
BUT overall aside from slightly more stability, the game’s plethora of technical issues, quirks or deficiencies are basically the same, nor that it was reasonable to expect DLC to fix that, there’s just so much you can actually, realistically do, without basically redoing from scratch the entire thing.
Pokeballs still do not fall to the ground and just do the catching animation routine mid-air or worse, regardless, as they always did, geometry can be iffy even when your legendary pokemon mount has learned to climb, Wingulls still run at a zoatrope framerate, etc.
So let’s discuss the story.
The first part of the story expansion (collectively titled “Treasure Of The Area Zero”) is The Indigo Mask, which has the protagonist do a school trip/exchange with the japanese themed mountainside village of Kitakami with the story basically being a reversal of the Momotaro folktale (minus the Momotaro, kinda), with the locals celebrating this legend during summer via a traditional festival, complete with masks for kids, food stands, temple player, all of that matsuri shizzle and frizzle.
As with previous DLC areas/content, Kitakami reintroduces a good chunk of Pokemon that were not available in the base game, alongside new story pokemons (the Momotaro’s trio of animal friends being the most notable) and some new evolutions for older pokemons, like Sinistea.
To be honest while i liked the new characters and the small japanese mountainside village, i feel like the story content of the first part to be a bit lacking, like i was expecting it to continue a bit more, with the whole Momotaro thingie kinda “too resolved” by the end, while it would have been reasonable for some stuff to come back.
At least after doing the main story content of the area, but apparently there’s nothing in terms of side quests tied to the story or characters, it just says “to be continued”.
So fittingly the second part of the expansion, called The Indigo Disk, picks up with some of the main characters from The Indigo Mask having undergone a change, especially the younger sibling of the main sibling duo, Kiki, who has definitely gone the “competitive toxic gaming” route, personality and hairdo wise, and now studies/trains into an exclusive institute-academy, actually an exchange-joint academy situated in Unova and called “Blueberry Academy”.
i like the new characters you meet in the institute/academy, some nice designs, and i like the new university being a hi-tech facility connected to a gigantic sub-oceanic terrarium split into 4 biomes, and i do like the little school storyline but i feel the final venture into a yet unknown level of the Area Zero.. just feels rushed, come on, like they didn’t have to capitalize on what should have been an important story point… which still IS important, but it just feels like it coudl have used more stuff to do and find when we revisit the area.
There are in-game achievements/trophies specific to the gigantic terrarium, which net you a new kind of currency that is needed to access the academy’s Elite Four (more on that later) or can be used in the common league room to buy various ugrades or cosmetic accessorie for the hang-out.
And yes, the new academy is that having an Elite Four of their own, each with a small, different trial, like the main S/V game, there are more reintroduced Pokemons spread among the not-small 4 biomes that most of the submerged institute is made of. As in, you can visit the twin istitute in a similar fashion to the one in the base game, but the bulk of the DLC takes place in the biomes.
The aforementioned in-game achievement system if nothing else incourages fuckin around the biomes doing stuff like raid or farming material via autobattles.
The biggest new thing introduced in the Indigo Disk isa new pokemon Teratype, Star, via the new legendary, Terapagos, which is basically rainbow baby Gamera, and that pleases me immensely.
Actually, it’s a new Teratype, the Astral/Star/Stellar teratype, and like the final act of The Indigo Disk part of the expansion, sound better on paper and kinda underwhelming or rushed, like it could have used more time and more content to be better flesh out.
Honestly the Astral teratype is disappointing, because even after finishing the game and getting the tutorial explanation on its usage… i didn’t actually get how it works.
It’s already strange to basically have the game explain the feature to you when you would think it would have been done organically taught facing Terapagos, but even when the game does go “here how it works, you dumb ass”…. the explanation doesn’t properly explain shit.
Like, how it actually works this teratype?
I’ll tell you, since the game doesn’t really do a decent job explaining such a thing.
Basically the Stellar Teratype works by powering up ANY type of move, but only once for type during the fight (unless it’s used in a Tera Raid), and the Tera Blast move does extra damage to Terastalyzed pokemon regardless of what Tera Type they have, but pokemons using the move while themselves being Terastalyzed will suffer a debuff of ATK and ATK SPD, and the Stellar Teratype itself basically means the original type/s of the pokemon aren’t “overwritten” by the Teratype, with Stellar working as “jack of all trades/tera buffet” of sorts.
So it sounds like it could have made for some interesting competive strategy, but i will never know, to be honest, as ain’t got the time and the “’tisms” required.
In terms of post-game, the Grape uni has a bit more stuff to do, with expanding the options of the League Club (including a music player, unlocking more features for easthetic and photographic purposes), inviting Gym leaders from Paldea there, spending the points to unlock more features for photo modo, facilities-like, new types of pokemon spawning in the Bio Terrarium.
The better and most important thing you can unlock is is unlocking a free form flight mode for your mount legendary, now always available and not just for the checkpoint ring timed races challenges, which is quite neat.
finishing the second part of the expansion also unlocks more story content in the Kitakami location…. if you have got a mistery berry item via Mystery Gift, which was deliberatly not made available immediatly (despite being present since Part 2 of the expansion got released) until mid January 2024. The mistery gift has no expire date so it has been made avaialable undefinitely, but it’s absurd not only that Nintendo did this, that it also “kinda needed” to do it.
I mean, not that absurd when most players do keep skipping any plot deliberately by mashing A at every turn, then complain for not having ANY context… but it’s still kinda weird they did it this way. Until you realize they don’t want early spoilers leaking, but still…
Regardless, yes, there is an epilogue that reunites all the main characters and closes off all the storylines, main one plus the expansions two-parted thing/characters, but it requires to do some stuff , which do include getting the Mystery Peach item via Mystery Gift (which was made available after some time via patch and Mystery Gift function), obviously complete both stories of the expansion… but also compete at least once in the Academy Ace Tournament which takes place in the school, this i feel isn’t quite obvious since the quest itself almost completely related to the DLC content, especially the first part that does take place in the new Kitakami area…
regardless, the epilogue itself it’s a short story closure that takes places in the Kitakami area and most importantly concludes the whole “evil Momotaro fable” thing… does it?
I mean, one figured there would be more to it than the ending of that part of the expansion does/reveals… but for better or worse (as in the Kitakami storyline in itself didn’t have to wait for a software patch and a mystery gift item to be completed), it doesn’t. this is just this self-contained epilogue that brings together the main characters of all storylines for a silly quest about mochi hypnotizing people into dancing, that serves to introduce one last special/quasi mythical Pokemon, Pecharunt, curiously in the area where the Momotaro reverse story happens but NOT tied to it.
Overall, the expansion was nice but it just felt rushed too, like more could have been done with the storylines and expecially the locations, i would have preferred if they did either did more with the 2 part storylines and dual locations or did offer more variety in the DLC content like Sword/Shield did. I’m glad i didn’t pay full price for it, but i did enjoy it for the most part.
I would love to say that Game Freak has learned something from it…. but i doubt it, though well, it’s most likely the Pokemon Company calling the shot and deciding that for Pokemon Legends ZA they weren’t even gonna wait for the game to be out to start pushing preording 30 bucks DLC which we don’t know anything about, just that will grant the player some cosmetic items at launch and then next year the actual expansion, which will feature dual Megaevolutions for Raichu…
So pretend to be surprised.
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