Pokemon Scarlet & Violet: The Indigo Disk DLC review - Almost a treasure

Part two of Pokemon Scarlet & Violet's Hidden Treasure of Area Zero DLC, The Indigo Disk, is the follow-up to the Teal Mask, and it surpasses its predecessor. Although the trip to Blueberry Academy does beat the adventure in Kitakami by a mile, the final Hidden Treasure expansion is still a diamond in the rough. 

Nevertheless, the expansion's finale is much more capable of satisfying trainers both old and new.

Under the sea...

Away from the lush green lands of The Teal Mask, The Indigo Disk goes bigger in multiple ways whilst continuing the story of where the end of the former left off - meaning you'll need to have at least beaten the first DLC as well as the base game's campaign. 

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Once again called up to take part in the student exchange program, The Indigo Disk sets you off to Blueberry Academy: an underwater, battle-obsessed school in Unova where your new friends from The Teal Mask, Carmine and Kieran, hail from. 

The big appeal of this new academy is the Terrarium, a large map of four different weather biomes - Savannah, Coastal, Canyon, and Polar - each containing collections of the Indigo Disk's Pokedex of over 230 Pokemon, many of which are only now available in Scarlet & Violet for the first time. 

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Whilst you're exploring the Terarium to catch new Pokemon and take on quests, the actual story is in two parts: one being where you take on Blueberry Academy's Elite Four made of the best students before rematching with new champion Kieran, who is also still dealing with his personal drama that's seeped into the rest of the school.

Then, the second part is where you finally get to discover the DLC's namesake Hidden Treasure of Area Zero. Without going too heavy into spoilers, this final journey ties up what you've gone through with The Teal Mask and the earlier events of Indigo Disk.

Glitchy fun

Running about the Terrarium is how you'll be spending a lot of your time - for better or worse. On one hand, it's heaps of fun dashing around each biome and bumping into returning Pokemon from older games, especially if you've done your best to avoid trailers or early coverage so you're going in fresh.

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Even when I was free to explore after the first 15 minutes, I felt like a kid in a candy store running into the nostalgic early-gen favourites like Rhyhorn, Doduo, and Venonat, with hundreds more still to find.

Compared to the Teal Mask, The Indigo Disk puts a much bigger emphasis on catching new Pokemon and trying them out for new strategies with a focus on double battles. This makes you feel, at least in its early hours, a theme-park-level of excitement wondering what you'll encounter next and how you could work it into your team.

Whereas The Teal Mask's environments felt one-note and slightly barren, the Terarium's broader range of environments and even more diverse range of Pokemon did help mix things up - keeping that classic Pokemon sense of adventure going for a while longer. 

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On the other hand, all of that enjoyment is once again dampened by Scarlet & Violet's infamous bugs, lacklustre performance, and glitchy behaviour. Any longtime players of the base game and The Teal Mask can expect to tick off the same offenders: frequent short-distance pop-ins, the choppiest of frame rates, and lots of stuttering. 

The third time is not the charm when it comes to its technical hiccups - especially when they're so obviously on the surface - and I've long given up on Scarlet & Violet performing anywhere near decent before some hopeful upgrade on the next Nintendo Switch.

An Elite cast

Fortunately, The Indigo Disk does a better job of offsetting the game's technical drawbacks than The Teal Mask did thanks to its engaging features, story, and characters.

As well as Blueberry Academy's Elite Four creating a more colourful cast with their eccentric personalities, they'll also make for some of the most challenging battles you've had in Scarlet & Violet altogether.

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Not only does getting through these story-based battles require more strategically built teams and careful thinking, but they're even more suspenseful when incorporated into double-battles. 

Are they the hardest battles in the Pokemon series? No. But they're the most difficult since the Pokemon Black & White days, making the experience far more rewarding when you topple each opponent. 

Altogether, the Elite Four work great as a decent build-up to the final face-off with Kieran. Similar to the Teal Mask, his arc of mental health issues led by an inferiority complex does pan out more or less as one might expect - given one minor twist. Nevertheless, it still wraps up rather nicely. 

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The only real gripe I have with the story is how little time is dedicated to the Hidden Treasure of Area Zero. Considering it's the name of the entire DLC, this 'hidden treasure' only comes into the mix during the last hour of gameplay.

There's also what feels like a wasted opportunity to tie things more into the final events of the main game and the Terastallization phenomenon at the root of it all. Instead, the Indigo Disk feels far more self-contained when its narrative could've had a much larger impact.

Back to the grind 

Even if The Indigo Disk's ending might leave you narratively wanting, there's still plenty more to do after the credits roll that mostly feels worth your time.

Alongside hunting a cavalcade of returning Legendaries, taking on past Gym Leaders and other base game trainers by inviting them as special coaches, getting to play as your own Pokemon with the new Synchro Machine, or even just better exploring by being able to properly fly now, you'll most likely be gripped completing Blueberry Quests - or BBQs as they're called. 

Essential for earning BP, The Indigo Disk's pretend school currency, completing BBQs is how you unlock extra features by performing certain feats like catching Pokemon of a certain type, picking items off the ground, taking photos, or auto-battling numerous times.

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At first, this can be quite fun. After a while, however, the novelty can wear off when you realise not only the bulk of the main quests are quite repetitive, but the awarded BP for each is so low (10-40 BP) that you're in for a massive grind fest.

That frustration only grows when you realise that the BP you need to add new Pokemon to the biomes - most notably past-gen starters like Bulbasaur, Torchic, and Oshawott - require a whopping 3000 BP each. That's 12000 BP if you want to collect them all.

Yes, you can earn higher amounts of BP by coordinating with other players online by completing group quests, but those who prefer to play solo will be stuck spending hours slaving away at repetitive quests, just to get over the huge barrier to entry needed to get some of their favourite past Pokemon and complete their Pokedex.

The Verdict

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Although continued technical issues and the grinding of its quests can be irritating, the finale to the Hidden Treasure of Area Zero expansion makes its imperfections far easier to ignore by doing more to excite all manner of players. Whether you love catching Pokemon or simply want more challenging battles, The Indigo Disk marks a clear step up from The Teal Mask and ties a nice bow around the whole package.

Despite not exactly being the treasure its name implies, it still has enough sparkle to keep Pokemon fans happy.

4/5

Reviewed on Nintendo Switch. Review code provided by the publisher.