This review contains spoilers
While the first DLC expansion was a great time revisiting the albeit buggy world of Paldea and visiting the Kitakami section, going into this second DLC chapter was actually exciting.
Heading into the outskirts of the Unova region by visiting the Blueberry Academy, battling the BB League Elite Four and becoming Champion there to dethrone the radish head that is Kieran, whilst also exploring the depths of Area Zero to find Terapagos. This was all incredibly fun to play through, especially the Terapagos fight at the very end.
The DLC's main area this time is the Terarium in the underwater dome at the academy, allowing you to travel through four biomes to catch Pokemon and fill out the new Pokedex here. Along the journey, you'll spend time doing Blueberry Quests, BBQs for short, that net you BP to upgrade your league club room, add more Pokemon spawns in each biome (mainly the starters from gens 1-8), and even an Item Printer that can give you any item or Poke Ball based on what materials you give it and the BP for them. If you're going for everything, do the BBQ's in multiplayer as they net you so much more in comparison to doing them solo.
Alongside that, in the postgame, you can also invite anyone over from Paldea such as gym leaders, your friends from the main game, or the elite four members. While it doesn't offer you much, it was a fun addition to the DLC, where you can trade Pokemon with them, or even battle them for rewards. One thing I most definitely didn't expect was a new type to be added for combat, but only locked through Terastallization; the Stellar type. A new type since gen 6! It was alright when exploring and battling with it, but in Tera Raids, they are the best possible type to have.
Another new set of additions were the ability to control your leading Pokemon, which was admittedly charming at first, but afterwards, why do that when auto-battles are more quicker to do. Plus this also kills shiny Pokemon whereas auto battles don't. Yikes. One big change I welcomed was the ability to fly with Koraidon. Huge game changer for transport and exploration easily.
Lots of returning Pokemon which were great to see, including the GOAT Whimsicott. But also some new ones here too, much more than Teal Mask had which was a huge improvement. Notable ones were Archaludon, Hydrapple, and the four Paradox Pokemon. But on top of that, I already mentioned the starters, and in the postgame, you can also hunt 25 legendaries from the franchise. Big downsides are that you can't shiny hunt for the legendaries, which is incredibly lame, and you can't catch every legendary. In comparison to Sword & Shield's DLC, where everyone was available, this is missing a few like Zacian & Zamazenta, Zygarde, Yveltal, Xerneas, and the Ultra Beasts.
If anyone is wondering if the DLC is worth it, now that I've played both packs, it's a neat addition to play if you could bare through the hiccups gen 9 has. Once again, frame rate and pop ins were not fixed, so there's that answer if you hated that. But this isn't done because, as of the time I'm writing this, an epilogue has been announced for the base game and the DLC, so this is truly not over.
Heading into the outskirts of the Unova region by visiting the Blueberry Academy, battling the BB League Elite Four and becoming Champion there to dethrone the radish head that is Kieran, whilst also exploring the depths of Area Zero to find Terapagos. This was all incredibly fun to play through, especially the Terapagos fight at the very end.
The DLC's main area this time is the Terarium in the underwater dome at the academy, allowing you to travel through four biomes to catch Pokemon and fill out the new Pokedex here. Along the journey, you'll spend time doing Blueberry Quests, BBQs for short, that net you BP to upgrade your league club room, add more Pokemon spawns in each biome (mainly the starters from gens 1-8), and even an Item Printer that can give you any item or Poke Ball based on what materials you give it and the BP for them. If you're going for everything, do the BBQ's in multiplayer as they net you so much more in comparison to doing them solo.
Alongside that, in the postgame, you can also invite anyone over from Paldea such as gym leaders, your friends from the main game, or the elite four members. While it doesn't offer you much, it was a fun addition to the DLC, where you can trade Pokemon with them, or even battle them for rewards. One thing I most definitely didn't expect was a new type to be added for combat, but only locked through Terastallization; the Stellar type. A new type since gen 6! It was alright when exploring and battling with it, but in Tera Raids, they are the best possible type to have.
Another new set of additions were the ability to control your leading Pokemon, which was admittedly charming at first, but afterwards, why do that when auto-battles are more quicker to do. Plus this also kills shiny Pokemon whereas auto battles don't. Yikes. One big change I welcomed was the ability to fly with Koraidon. Huge game changer for transport and exploration easily.
Lots of returning Pokemon which were great to see, including the GOAT Whimsicott. But also some new ones here too, much more than Teal Mask had which was a huge improvement. Notable ones were Archaludon, Hydrapple, and the four Paradox Pokemon. But on top of that, I already mentioned the starters, and in the postgame, you can also hunt 25 legendaries from the franchise. Big downsides are that you can't shiny hunt for the legendaries, which is incredibly lame, and you can't catch every legendary. In comparison to Sword & Shield's DLC, where everyone was available, this is missing a few like Zacian & Zamazenta, Zygarde, Yveltal, Xerneas, and the Ultra Beasts.
If anyone is wondering if the DLC is worth it, now that I've played both packs, it's a neat addition to play if you could bare through the hiccups gen 9 has. Once again, frame rate and pop ins were not fixed, so there's that answer if you hated that. But this isn't done because, as of the time I'm writing this, an epilogue has been announced for the base game and the DLC, so this is truly not over.