Kieran... my man..

This is it, huh? No more real content after this for Pokemon Scarlet.. WHY IS TIME GOING SO DAMN FAST AHH-

Anyway, I really enjoyed this. I'm going to admit something that I had probably already mentioned before but - I haven't played all the Pokemon games, yet. And here I am calling myself a fan... I will get to them I promise!!

The reason I mentioned that is because I haven't played Gen5 games yet.. so uh, imagine my surprise when I figured out the Battle themes for Pokemon and the Trainer were from the original Black and White games lol
If only I could also feel how nostalgic everyone else were

Anyway, the story was great!! The characters were charming as usual - especially Kieran and Lacey. The things you can do after is meh, too much damn effort for the BB points lmao
I really do like that they brought back Legendaries yet again for us to catch! And they FUCKING HAVE THEIR ORIGINAL STYLE THEMES with them.. that is so epic.

I keep getting off-track. Yes, the DLC is good but then it drops so whatever. A nice bow to a really off-putting game in the franchise.. like it's good in story and perhaps battle elements but damn do the bugs/how ugly it looks will forever haunt this title..

Better than The Teal Mask. I enjoyed the story but the finale felt very segmented from the rest of it. I loved how the trainer battles were all competitively built. BBQs are very fun to do with friends but if you don't have any it can suck to grind them all. Overall this DLC is an extension of the paradoxical feelings I have for the base game: Very fun core gameplay loop and gets a lot of things right, but is held back hard by horrible performance issues. Really hoping the reception to this game brings about development changes for the series in the near future.

Around 80% of the whole DLC content is in this second part, and it delivers as expected. Of course, performance issues of the base game are still there, but what's new is fun: especially the new, more challenging double battles and all the stuff you can do with friends, such as group tasks (which are required to capture all legendaries) and the Syncro Machine, which also spotlights some cool Pokémon animations, which seemingly were a main focus in this DLC. The story is a bit predictable, and sort of average for a Pokémon game. I didn't end up really loving any of the two siblings, but the Elite 4 were fun to meet. Overall a fun DLC, I wasn't expecting anything too grand and it isn't, but I still liked it. Maybe not worth its price tag, but it gets close.

This second half of the expansion (which is moreso about 70% of the entire expansion) is such an incredible experience. It wraps up Scarlet and Violet's plot in a great way and made me remember all over again how much fun going through Scarlet was, minus the technical issues. Is it worth $35? Absolutely not. As much as I love this expansion, this should have been how Scarlet and Violet released. Hell, if GF put as much effort into the next generation of games as SV + DLC and sold it as a $70 Switch game, I'd actually say it would be a good deal, but unfortunately the company is under such huge time constraints (and just straight up money hungry) that it simply isn't possible for them to do it anymore.

Probably the best bit of scarlet and violet content, although it is unfortunately still connected to a very flawed product so it's unable to really flex what it does have and even then there's still plenty of stuff that's a bit annoying. BBQs are a neat idea but most of the missions they made are either boring or time consuming and require little player input. The focus on double battles was fun but it did cause some issues with my team since my team as whole was made for singles and not doubles which is something I can imagine being more annoying for some who don't want to switch out their team. But there was enough interesting stuff here to get a passing grade from me. Is it worth playing through all of SV to reach? NO. But if you did make it that far you at least have a.. slightly better time in store for you.

"Kieran will never go hard."

SPITS CEREAL

*This review will contain spoilers, but I think the story is predictable enough that no one will care, and I will also warn before I get to them

This update genuinely shocked me with how much content was added. Seven new Pokemon, over a hundred returning Pokemon that weren't already in the game, a new Pokemon League, the story (although, barely one at all), a brand new location, quests that give you new customization options and cosmetics, the ability to invite major characters to a club and interact and battle them, three new sidequests for the base game friends, including a subplot for Team Star, way more new clothing items, a new ability for Koraidon/Miraidon, an update to the school's tournament, and probably even more things I'm forgetting. I might not be selling it well here, but there really is so much added here that I didn't want to stop playing; it's safe to say that the majority of the money you're spending for this game's DLC is for The Indigo Disk.

I definitely have complaints, though. The new quests, BBQs, are a good addition on paper, but with how grindy and minimal they are, it's extremely unfun. The points gained through quests can be used to complete sidequests and inviting special characters from Paldea to talk, battle, and trade. That's fine and dandy, but to get everything that requires BP, you need roughly 28K of the stuff (I calculated), and that is just so, so rough considering how few points you get for each quest. Take a picture of a Pokemon swimming, 20 points; defeat a wild Pokemon by Terastalizing, another 20 points; catch a wild Pokemon 20 points. Does this sound fun? No? Well, sorry, you're gonna be doing that for hours and hours and hours if you want to do everything. After doing ten quests, you'll get a bigger one that'll reward you with 200 points. That might sound good, but it's still so much grinding it out, and it's hard to keep track of ongoing quests without just looking at the menu for it every two minutes. The most efficient way to grind up points, and how I'm sure they intended it, is to do multiplayer. Every quest counts for all players involved, has increased points, and there are another set of even bigger quests that give a lot more points. It does go way faster, but it really sucks that you really have to play with other people in order to not spend your pre-retirement life grinding out points. There is potential with the quest system, but it needs fine-tuning to be good.

Secondly is kind of a "me" issue. While there are over 100 returning Pokemon, the selection is actually rather shallow in practice. Of these returning Pokemon, 72 of them are the starter Pokemon. Just personally speaking, I've used almost all of the starter Pokemon so much that I have no interest in using them in the games anymore, so that takes the available Pokemon to under 100 Pokemon, and by a decent margin. Then, eight of the remaining ones are version exclusive, so might as well cross off four of whatever version you're playing if you can't trade with people (not to mention the trade evolutions, but those can still mostly be caught). This left very little Pokemon to choose from, especially if you also don't like to repeat types. I still managed alright - I decided to use a gift Pokemon from Teal Mask, and a Dipplin so I could use the new evolution, and I had already planned on using Milcery, so I only needed three other spots filled. I know this won't be an issue for most people though, a lot of people love reusing their favorites, even if that means using Cyndaquil for the 47th time in their life, but it is somewhat annoying for me.

(Spoilers moving forward, but it's nothing you wouldn't expect)

The story is, in true Scarlet and Violet fashion, non-existent until the end. Well, ok, that's not entirely true. This expansion continues the events from The Teal Mask where Kieran wants to take revenge on the player character by beating them in a League Champion battle, and to get to that point you must defeat the Elite Four members of Blueberry Academy. So... basically just the bog standard story of Pokemon in general. But wait, after you beat the Champion, you now go on a sudden adventure to Area Zero to discover its secrets with your friends. So... basically just a copy of Scarlet and Violet's base game. But here it's even more out of nowhere as, up until the end, there was barely any reference to Area Zero, nor the idea that you'd be going back there, nor does it really feel like it fits with the rest of the adventure. This is just fundamentally the same story of the base game, but with a new location and characters; which to be fair, the characters were what you cared about from the main game, not really the story. But still, seems like a weird way to wrap it up.

The final issue is one that permeates all of Scarlet and Violet: the performance issues. The game ran poorly to begin with, and then with Teal Mask the game would turn into a slide show if you jumped in water, and now with this expansion there are some circumstances in which the game will freeze entirely for up to ten seconds (or so it felt when I had it happen). Scarlet and Violet's performance seem to just get even worse as time went on. To be completely honest, though, the bad performance is something that never bothered me too much. Perhaps I'm too forgiving, but if I find a game fun, I can put up with slowdown, and I find this game fun. I also sincerely hope nobody actually thought the performance would be any better with this update.

Soooo that was a lot of complaining, which might make the rating of 4/5 stars seem weird. But in all honesty, those flaws are all things I either expected or didn't mar my enjoyment of the DLC too much; the first issue is really only for completionists, and the rest I more or less expected would be a factor. In the end, The Indigo Disk did what I wanted it to and way more: (mostly) end the stories of the characters I loved, brought in new amazing characters, and added a ton of new content. More content than I expected at all. The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero ended up kind of being a mini Scarlet/Violet 2 and... I can't say that isn't what I wanted, because I find this game so incredibly charming and fun and I'm very excited to see what's next.

I guess you could say that the true Hidden Treasure of Area Zero were the friends we made along the way...

Better than the first DLC for sure. Game still feels very incomplete and generally lackluster but I enjoyed most of this campaign and the new content it adds is fun enough. This reinforced for me that Pokemon absolutely needs a level-cap option or something. I overleveled by complete accident in this DLC and it felt really lame going from fairly difficult even fights to total pushovers. My experience with the campaign shouldn't suffer because I dared not to blitz through the entire story immediately.

They finally made a good pokemon experience. I didn't think it was possible. When I played this DLC expansion, I didn't think "It's good but..", I just thought it was enjoyable.

The music is good as always. The music is always phenomenal in these games so it's no surprise, but the final boss theme and wild battle themes especially were great.

When I played the DLC I used pokemon that were on par and sometimes below trainer levels, and with that being said, the DLC is challenging. I didn't use a hyper-optimal team, I just used an amalgamation of my in-game teams and new pokemon I caught in the terrarium, but I felt I used actual strategies, and the games tough. I can imagine a more casual fan who has less mechanical knowledge would probably have to grind to near max level. Luckily because i'm an untouchable video game messiah I was able to beat all my fights at the same level.

The fights were honestly just mechanically interesting. opponents used cheap stuff like intimidate and stuff. Kieran uses a VGC style Incineroar.

The new section below area zero is honestly just a bit of a letdown. No new pokemon to catch is the real reason, unless you want to count Carbink, but unless that thing has some weird scientific name I don't care. The final boss is phenomenal though. It's quite possibly the best final boss the series has ever had actually, although really the only competition is like N and Ghetsis.

Kieran is probably also the best mainline pokemon character, maybe ever? He just has a really satisfying arc and you honestly feel bad for him even when he's being an ass. I still dislike that we lied to him about Ogerpon in the first DLC, because I wouldn't of and my character is supposed to be a self-insert, but I can live with it if it means I get to fight him with Ogerpon and see him just get all pissed off at me.

Overall just a great pokemon experience. I will likely replay the game next year in order to play both DLCs simultaneously with the story rather than just slapping it on top. That is clearly how Kitakawmi is supposed to be played anyways. Perhaps my overall opinion on the base game will go up.