This review contains spoilers
Upon booting up the game for the first time in over a year the game managed to shock me again with its terrible performance. Has it gotten even worse, or did I just forget about it?
Maybe not the DLC's fault since it's a base game problem, but surely you should fix your base game before doing DLC in the first place.
As far as The Teal Mask's unique aspects go, it's fairly fun, pretty much as "more of the same game" as you could expect. It doesn't really invite any new features beyond one mini-game. So if you liked the base game and wanted more, here it is. If you didn't like the base game and wanted improvements, well here it isn't.
One thing I think Pokémon DLC will always struggle with is a set difficulty. The Pokémon games are always known for being easy, but at least the main games are attempting to scale with you. DLC is just like "Well the player has finished the story but now they could be anywhere from level 50 to level 100" and thus it is impossible to make a one size fits all challenge. If you do the DLC before finishing the main game then this one does have a more appropriate level curve, albeit one that seems very accelerated. The DLC without story completion starts at level 12 and ends at level 38, whereas post-game it starts at around level 60 and ends at 76. I can't speak for how well the non-post game level curve works (though it would make the main game an absolute joke if you did this first), but 60-76 is just so random. I think if you went straight from the end game to this, it'd be about to scale, but in the year it took the DLC to come out many players had grinded up a lot more. Either you purposefully reset your team to an appropriate level, losing the mons you spent a year connecting with, or you just steamroll the thing. It's a huge problem Pokémon will always have with this kind of DLC method.
The story itself is Pokémon levels of fine. You can get attached to the new legendary, which may make catching and using it on your team that much more meaningful than most times legendary's are caught.
I do love that Ursaluna gets its own little story AND a completely unique form. We need way more non-legendary Pokémon getting special versions like this.
I also like how Ogerpon's battle worked, acting as more of a boss rush with all 4 of its masks in a row.
Unfortunately they don't do much to address my issue of the world just being kind of bland. 90% of Kitakami present is just empty fields and mountains. There's one main cave, and a bunch more smaller pocket-sized caves. They're full of a bunch of useless items scattered all over, and wild Pokémon. Exploring them isn't not fun exactly, but it also doesn't feel very rewarding or exciting. If you're the kind who likes to catch everything then this dex adds about 100 new ones to do that, so each new "area" in the game is mostly just a chance to find and catch new stuff, otherwise what else are you gonna do? Pick up all the potions and Pokéballs?
At least areas now have unique names instead of "West Province (Area four)".
I'm not asking for like an entire substory and a minigame for every area, I just like the parts that stand out more. Even the apple field here is one of the "good" ones to me, because it makes the wild encounters like Ekans slinking beneath the apple trees feel just a little more "if Pokémon existed in a human world" and less "here's an empty desert area with rocks everywhere, there's ground Pokémon all over". I guess in many ways that also comes down to the fact Pokémon barely do anything when roaming the field though - the idea of Ekans beneath trees (some of which have Applin's in) isn't really expanded upon in the game itself, it's more the interactions it implies.
Basically pretty much on par with the main game for the amount of content relative to the price point.
Maybe not the DLC's fault since it's a base game problem, but surely you should fix your base game before doing DLC in the first place.
As far as The Teal Mask's unique aspects go, it's fairly fun, pretty much as "more of the same game" as you could expect. It doesn't really invite any new features beyond one mini-game. So if you liked the base game and wanted more, here it is. If you didn't like the base game and wanted improvements, well here it isn't.
One thing I think Pokémon DLC will always struggle with is a set difficulty. The Pokémon games are always known for being easy, but at least the main games are attempting to scale with you. DLC is just like "Well the player has finished the story but now they could be anywhere from level 50 to level 100" and thus it is impossible to make a one size fits all challenge. If you do the DLC before finishing the main game then this one does have a more appropriate level curve, albeit one that seems very accelerated. The DLC without story completion starts at level 12 and ends at level 38, whereas post-game it starts at around level 60 and ends at 76. I can't speak for how well the non-post game level curve works (though it would make the main game an absolute joke if you did this first), but 60-76 is just so random. I think if you went straight from the end game to this, it'd be about to scale, but in the year it took the DLC to come out many players had grinded up a lot more. Either you purposefully reset your team to an appropriate level, losing the mons you spent a year connecting with, or you just steamroll the thing. It's a huge problem Pokémon will always have with this kind of DLC method.
The story itself is Pokémon levels of fine. You can get attached to the new legendary, which may make catching and using it on your team that much more meaningful than most times legendary's are caught.
I do love that Ursaluna gets its own little story AND a completely unique form. We need way more non-legendary Pokémon getting special versions like this.
I also like how Ogerpon's battle worked, acting as more of a boss rush with all 4 of its masks in a row.
Unfortunately they don't do much to address my issue of the world just being kind of bland. 90% of Kitakami present is just empty fields and mountains. There's one main cave, and a bunch more smaller pocket-sized caves. They're full of a bunch of useless items scattered all over, and wild Pokémon. Exploring them isn't not fun exactly, but it also doesn't feel very rewarding or exciting. If you're the kind who likes to catch everything then this dex adds about 100 new ones to do that, so each new "area" in the game is mostly just a chance to find and catch new stuff, otherwise what else are you gonna do? Pick up all the potions and Pokéballs?
At least areas now have unique names instead of "West Province (Area four)".
I'm not asking for like an entire substory and a minigame for every area, I just like the parts that stand out more. Even the apple field here is one of the "good" ones to me, because it makes the wild encounters like Ekans slinking beneath the apple trees feel just a little more "if Pokémon existed in a human world" and less "here's an empty desert area with rocks everywhere, there's ground Pokémon all over". I guess in many ways that also comes down to the fact Pokémon barely do anything when roaming the field though - the idea of Ekans beneath trees (some of which have Applin's in) isn't really expanded upon in the game itself, it's more the interactions it implies.
Basically pretty much on par with the main game for the amount of content relative to the price point.