The recent arrival of the Pokémon Scarlet and Violet DLC – The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero Part 1 The Teal Mask – was a fairly quiet release, but here’s our review to give you more on the merits of the paid update. It follows on from the success of the previous Pokémon DLC, The Isle of Armor and Crown Tundra for Sword and Shield, so there was a lot to live up to.
The Teal Mask sees you traveling to Kitikami for a trip with the Academy to learn more about the Pokémon there. It doesn’t take long to reveal the mystery and folklore that has shaped the culture of the village and you get swept up in it as you try to uncover the truth.
AdvertisementYou’ll meet a couple of Blueberry Academy students and their teacher, who will act as your guides to Kitikami. This links in with the next part of the DLC, The Indigo Disk, which will take place at Blueberry Academy and is set to launch on the Nintendo Switch later in winter, 2023.
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Story review
AdvertisementAt its core, the story for the Pokémon Scarlet and Violet DLC Part 1 works well, giving us a mystery to uncover with lots of Japanese village folklore heritage and culture behind it. There’s a good setup and the characters combine to set the scene for an interesting adventure.
However, the story elements feel pretty short and the end of it all comes too early and all too easily if you’ve got a decent Pokémon team from your time playing Scarlet and Violet. We’ll cover this in more detail with our content review below, but we were definitely hoping for more.
AdvertisementIn terms of our story review, there could have been more twists and turns in the plot with a bit of misdirection and more threads to follow. There’s also very little in the way of character backstory for a number of the key people that you’ll meet, which is a bit of a missed opportunity.
That being said, there are some fun moments along the way, including the Mask Festival, the trio of hero Pokémon and the mythical threat that hangs over Mossui Town, your base of operations in Kitikami. The link to part 2 of the DLC, The Indigo Disk, builds in a continuation in the story a little, which should work well when we review the whole package later in the year.
Content review
As mentioned above, the story content of the Pokémon Scarlet and Violet DLC is pretty short and probably won’t trouble you too much in terms of challenge. This means that you can get through it all in under a day with relative ease, which is a bit of a let down.
There are literally no puzzles to solve along the way and it’s just a case of following the map markers, battling the opponent and moving on to the next objective. This continues right the way to the end of The Teal Mask and it’s a development that feels like a massive departure from what makes Pokémon so fun to play.
When you look back on previous gems in the series, there was a lot more challenge and plenty of memorable moments that took time and effort to work out. A sleeping Snorlax blocking a route, a missing gym leader to find, an ice maze to make it through, boulders in the way, a move that you’ll need to track down, or a locked Team base to figure out how to get into.
However, the Pokémon Scarlet and Violet DLC has nothing like this and it’s worse off for it. The main game was pretty light on puzzles too, but it at least had a couple like how to make it into the crater and the false Dragon Titan quest.
AdvertisementThe puzzles and mysteries made you think and work to try to get a solution, giving you the reward when you understand what it is you need to do. There’s very little of that here and it follows a trend of slightly lower challenge and less puzzles in Pokémon games in the move towards an open world era.
It’s a similar story with battles in general. You no longer need to battle your way through a host of trainers to do anything. Instead, you just follow the map markers with no barriers in sight and the game is less memorable as a result.
There is more to the Pokémon Scarlet and Violet DLC content than the story, though, and this goes some way to make up for it. You get a cool new addition to the camera functionality with the selfie stick and there’s a quest line with a character called Perrin to photograph wild Pokémon to make use of this.
Although, when you do the orienteering mission for the main story quest, just after you get the selfie stick, the game takes the photos for you. It’s another example of the action being on rails or auto-pilot, which should have been augmented to give you some time with the new camera functionality.
AdvertisementIn addition to the selfie stick and Perrin quests, there’s also a new mini game mode called Ogre Oustin’, which sees you riding around on your Legendary Pokémon from Pokémon Scarlet and Violet to collect Ogre Baloons. It’s OK, but not so entertaining that it works on its own.
The redeeming factor is that you can earn mochi to increase the base points of your Pokémon, which is well worth the effort. You can also receive Fresh-Start Mochi, which you use to reset the base points of your Pokémon’s stats, so it definitely comes in handy.
There’s also a host of returning Pokémon to catch with one of the best being Milotic, which you come face to face with early on in the DLC story. There’s also the Blood Moon Ursulana to hunt down with the Perrin side arc, so it’s definitely got a good Pokédex for your to fill after the story is done.
Location review
Pokémon Scarlet and Violet DLC gives you a whole new island to explore in Kitikami, which is a little smaller than Paldea, but still a good size. It’s clearly inspired by small town Japan with rolling hills, a craggy mountain in the center, and a little precinct in Mossui town.
AdvertisementHowever, the features of the countryside are just a little too underwhelming to stand out too much. The rice paddies are a nice touch, but they’re small and don’t feature as much as they could. A stack of them building up to the mountain at the heart of Kitikami would have looked impressive, but instead there’s just a small number of them outside of town.
The sharp teeth that make up the side of the mountain look cool, but other than that there really isn’t all that much to write home about. There just isn’t that much in the way of features to stand out, which continues the slightly underwhelming review notes.
It’s all well and good having a new Pokémon playground to run around in, but if it’s just a bit empty and lacking in features then it doesn’t inspire a great deal of play time. If you compare it to something like The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom, where every move is a moment of discovery and wonder, it just falls a bit flat.
The other big drawback is the lack of environmental variation. There’s a green vanillan-ess to is that could have been changed dramatically with some simple environmental transitions. We know that this is going to be a deeper feature in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet DLC Part 2, The Indigo Disk, with its quartered biomes, but it would have been cool to get a bit more in Part 1 as well.
Graphics review
AdvertisementIt’s fair to say that the graphics could be better, but that was sort of the case for the main game and didn’t take away too much from the experience. Again, it pales in comparison to TotK, despite the fact that they both sort of work in a similar way.
Graphics aren’t everything, though, and they’re not really the main reason that we all play Pokémon games. It’s also fair to say that the graphics have been getting better with the transition to console gaming on the Nintendo Switch, compared to the old hand-held titles.
Pokémon Legends Arceus was the biggest leap forward and Pokémon Scarlet and Violet works in a similar way. However, the lack of refinement and location detail means that it lacks the impact that we were hoping for.
Pokémon Scarlet and Violet DLC Part 1 The Teal Mask overall review
All-in-all, the Pokémon Scarlet and Violet DLC Part 1 is hopefully a product of building to something special in Part 2. It’s hard to review it in isolation, because the cost of the DLC includes both parts, so it might be a better overall package in the end.
However, as things stand, we weren’t really impressed and there were far more drawbacks than there were memorable moments, and that’s what great games are all about. The frustrating thing is that it really wouldn’t have taken that much to take what we have and turn it into something special.
Add in some cunning puzzle work, more environmental variety and features, a slightly more involved main story quest and maybe a variety of mini-games to go with Ogre Outin’ and you’d have a great title. A little more development for the legendary Pokémon introduced in the DLC wouldn’t have gone amiss too.
Pokémon Scarlet and Violet DLC Part 1 The Teal Mask review: 70%
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