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Description
POKEMON: SCARLET & VIOLET - THE HIDDEN TREASURE OF AREA ZERO: THE TEAL MASK.
Developed by: Game Freak.
Published by: Nintendo and the Pokémon Company.
Genre: JRPG.
Rated: U (Suitable for everyone).

Pokémon Scarlet/Violet base game review: www.deviantart.com/randomdc3/a…

As far as Pokémon regions go, Paldea is a truly confusing landmass. You have a region that's supposedly based on Spain and Portugual, but the architecture looks more like central Europe, it has Legendaries themed around Chinese mysticism and now the DLC's dropped all the pretences and said: "Fuck it! Let's go back to Japan!" I look forward to the next generation of Pokémon that's set in Mexico but features Russian buildings, Germanic Legendaries and the DLC takes place in Canada!

I think it's a safe bet to say Nintendo and Game Freak basically know jackshit about Spanish and Portugese culture, as Unova and Galar (in my opinion) remain the only regions not based on Japan that don't come across as "a piss poor interpretation of a landmass the author's clearly never fucking been to!"

Cultural critiques to one side, I can say the first volume of Pokémon: Scarlet & Violet - The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero has been a lot of fun. The introduction of a brand new Pokédex to catalogue 200 more Pokémon (both old and new) does keep the experience fresh and involves a new story that is a step up from the base game's narrative, but won't exactly be setting the world a blaze in the originality department.

Because there's no subtle way to discuss this, I'd like a moment of your time to address the crystalised elephant in the room. For a DLC called "The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero" you don't actually enter said location and it's not even the main focus. In fact, beyond one small throwaway remark at the beginning of the DLC, Area Zero isn't really mentioned at all. The tour guide lady basically says: "This holiday resort is incredible, exciting Oh and there's a giant deity Turtle within the heart of Paldea, but isn't Japan amazing!?"

That would be like if I made a DLC for a WinneBobble game entitled: "The Origins of Vazul," but when you boot it up it's actually about Dom's sexy adventures in Mexico. Don't know why I've mentioned Mexico twice in this review. Maybe I'd just like a Mexican/Mayan themed Pokémon game?

Okay, to be fair, the DLC does explain a rather loose connection to Area Zero in that the titular Teal Mask contains jewels that are the same mineral found in Area Zero. This is a justification for how the new Legendary Pokémon, Ogrepon is capable of terastallizing with four unique forms. Neat, but the recurring question I kept asking while dealing with ogres and angsty melodrama was "what the fuck does any of this bullshit have to do with Area Zero?"

Who knows? Maybe the Indigo Disc will stick the landing and tie this all together. Kinda doubt it, mind you, but we'll see.

Now that I got that out of my system, let's go over the DLC properly. It introduces a brand new region called Kitakami which is set miles away from Paldea as the Protagonist is there on a school field trip. I'm perfectly okay with this, because it's better to have a new location in the Pokémon world, rather than try to shoehorn a very Japanese village into a Spanish inspired region. For a smaller map to explore, Kitakami is very vibrant, colourful and offers a fresh coat of paint to Scarlet/Violet's very-so-so design choices.

I will warn you up front that if you have a team consisting of level 100 Pokemon, you are going to win every single fight with little resistance. It was sort of hilarious that a trainer boasted to being "the strongest in Kitkami!" yet they had level 56 Pokémon on hand. Meanwhile, I had a team with a combined level of 600 and I powderised their pets within seconds. This was like Mr. Perfect Cell Vs. Hercule shit right here: One slap and it was over.

The story can take you roughly three to four hours, but I spent most of my time roaming the new wilderness and taking in all the sights. I had this fear they'd kick me back to Paldea the moment the DLC story concluded, but thankfully, I'm still able to snoop around and catch the remaining ten Pokémon I need to finish off the Kitakami Pokédex (at time of writing).

EDIT: Now done so and it wasn’t really worth it.

We're introduced to a few new characters; mainly a brother and sister duo who you'll spend most of your time with. Carmine and Kieran can sadly be filed away in the big old filing cabinet entitled "one-note rivals." I'm sorry, folks, but Gary-Motherfucking-Oak was the pinnacle of Pokémon rivals; with his smug attitude and incredibly punchable face, every attempt since him tends to devolve into two categories: Possible love interest and whiny emo brats.

Carmine starts off as a potential rival with her snooty "filthy fucking outsiders! bakana gaijin desù yo!" bullshit, before backflipping into "notice me, senpai" and batting her eyelashes by the time the credits rolled. She’s an okay character and I did warm up to her in the end. However, if the DLC was longer, they could have given her much needed development.

And then there's Kieran, a character who broke the land speed record of going from sympathetic rival, to insufferable emo twat within the span of four hours. He represents some of the worst aspects to ever come out of a Pokémon antagonist not seen since the days of Black and White.

This all centres on the fact that he's basically got a crush on Ogrepon and slowly begins to resent the fact the protagonist is a better trainer overall. When Ogrepon decides she'd like to join the protagonist on their adventures, Kieran goes all Shawn Mendes by vowing to "treat her better than we can!" Even his own sister looks at him and all but says: "Motherfucker, are you serious right now?"

One absolute thrashing later, he channels his inner Virgil by combing his hair back and vows to become stronger than the Protagonist. If you cup an ear and listen, you can faintly hear Infinite's theme from Sonic Forces playing in the background while he has his little psychotic breakdown at the end. He's not even the main antagonist of the DLC, but he might as well be when compared to the Loyal Three, who have the combined personality of a Jacob's cream cracker.

So the basic gist is the villagers of Kitakami are told that Ogrepon is the villain and the Loyal Three saved their ancestors from its evil. However, in a plot twist about as predictable as a sunrise, it turns out it was the other way around and the Loyal Three were the evil shitheads all along. I know this DLC is based around a Japanese mythology story, but all I could think of was that one episode of the Simpsons where it turns out Jebediah Springfield was a lying, two faced son of a bitch.
A big problem with this setup is the fact that Pokémon cannot talk, so most of the narrative setup is delivered by characters reacting to anything they do. Without the human's providing colour commentary, all they do is communicate in a bunch of throat noises and unintelligible drivel not even Scott Steiner would say out loud.

Beyond that? All their contributions boiled down to stealing three of Ogrepon's masks, you kick their asses twice, put them in Pokéballs and you'll never think of them again. At least Groudon and Kyogre had more of a narrative build than these three bellends. In fact, you could replace them with Ed, Edd & Eddy and have the same desired result... Actually, I tell a lie. That would have been far more entertaining! Tell me you couldn't picture the Eds trying to scam the villagers into believing Ogrepon is evil, just so they can get enough money to buy a whole mountain of jawbreakers?

The only other story content involves a freelance photographer called Perrin trying to snap a photo of a very rare Pokémon at night. It’s a brief experience and you are rewarded with a Hisuian Growlithe for your troubles, but again, if the DLC was a bit longer, we could have had a decent side story of hunting down five mysterious urban legend Pokémon instead of one.

And finally, the game does have a few graphical hiccups. The main culprit here is the game will chug like your mum at a sailor’s convention. Character animations will move slowly and battles can take a fraction longer due to having to load a lot of data at once. While you’ve got me talking about battles, this isn’t directly about the DLC, but the next Pokémon game needs a feature to disable battle animations. This became increasingly annoying during Tera Raids when I’m trying to twat the target down within a time limit and the battle animations drag on and it’ll play the same “was paralysed” animation four times for each Pokémon when it could just do them all at once.

No wonder nobody likes working for GameFreak. Their design philosophy hasn’t evolved since 1996.

(Conclusion)
Pokémon: Scarlet & Violet - The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero: The Teal Mask (try saying that three times fast) is an improvement over the base game’s mixed content, but I was left wanting more by the time the credits rolled. For a four hour long expansion, it delivers what it promises, but not something you’d drop full price for in the long run.

Again, has bugger all to do with Area Zero, but I guess “The Fannying About in Kitakami” wouldn’t have looked good as a title?

Description
POKEMON: SCARLET & VIOLET - THE HIDDEN TREASURE OF AREA ZERO: THE TEAL MASK.
Developed by: Game Freak.
Published by: Nintendo and the Pokémon Company.
Genre: JRPG.
Rated: U (Suitable for everyone).

Pokémon Scarlet/Violet base game review: www.deviantart.com/randomdc3/a…

As far as Pokémon regions go, Paldea is a truly confusing landmass. You have a region that's supposedly based on Spain and Portugual, but the architecture looks more like central Europe, it has Legendaries themed around Chinese mysticism and now the DLC's dropped all the pretences and said: "Fuck it! Let's go back to Japan!" I look forward to the next generation of Pokémon that's set in Mexico but features Russian buildings, Germanic Legendaries and the DLC takes place in Canada!

I think it's a safe bet to say Nintendo and Game Freak basically know jackshit about Spanish and Portugese culture, as Unova and Galar (in my opinion) remain the only regions not based on Japan that don't come across as "a piss poor interpretation of a landmass the author's clearly never fucking been to!"

Cultural critiques to one side, I can say the first volume of Pokémon: Scarlet & Violet - The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero has been a lot of fun. The introduction of a brand new Pokédex to catalogue 200 more Pokémon (both old and new) does keep the experience fresh and involves a new story that is a step up from the base game's narrative, but won't exactly be setting the world a blaze in the originality department.

Because there's no subtle way to discuss this, I'd like a moment of your time to address the crystalised elephant in the room. For a DLC called "The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero" you don't actually enter said location and it's not even the main focus. In fact, beyond one small throwaway remark at the beginning of the DLC, Area Zero isn't really mentioned at all. The tour guide lady basically says: "This holiday resort is incredible, exciting Oh and there's a giant deity Turtle within the heart of Paldea, but isn't Japan amazing!?"

That would be like if I made a DLC for a WinneBobble game entitled: "The Origins of Vazul," but when you boot it up it's actually about Dom's sexy adventures in Mexico. Don't know why I've mentioned Mexico twice in this review. Maybe I'd just like a Mexican/Mayan themed Pokémon game?

Okay, to be fair, the DLC does explain a rather loose connection to Area Zero in that the titular Teal Mask contains jewels that are the same mineral found in Area Zero. This is a justification for how the new Legendary Pokémon, Ogrepon is capable of terastallizing with four unique forms. Neat, but the recurring question I kept asking while dealing with ogres and angsty melodrama was "what the fuck does any of this bullshit have to do with Area Zero?"

Who knows? Maybe the Indigo Disc will stick the landing and tie this all together. Kinda doubt it, mind you, but we'll see.

Now that I got that out of my system, let's go over the DLC properly. It introduces a brand new region called Kitakami which is set miles away from Paldea as the Protagonist is there on a school field trip. I'm perfectly okay with this, because it's better to have a new location in the Pokémon world, rather than try to shoehorn a very Japanese village into a Spanish inspired region. For a smaller map to explore, Kitakami is very vibrant, colourful and offers a fresh coat of paint to Scarlet/Violet's very-so-so design choices.

I will warn you up front that if you have a team consisting of level 100 Pokemon, you are going to win every single fight with little resistance. It was sort of hilarious that a trainer boasted to being "the strongest in Kitkami!" yet they had level 56 Pokémon on hand. Meanwhile, I had a team with a combined level of 600 and I powderised their pets within seconds. This was like Mr. Perfect Cell Vs. Hercule shit right here: One slap and it was over.

The story can take you roughly three to four hours, but I spent most of my time roaming the new wilderness and taking in all the sights. I had this fear they'd kick me back to Paldea the moment the DLC story concluded, but thankfully, I'm still able to snoop around and catch the remaining ten Pokémon I need to finish off the Kitakami Pokédex (at time of writing).

EDIT: Now done so and it wasn’t really worth it.

We're introduced to a few new characters; mainly a brother and sister duo who you'll spend most of your time with. Carmine and Kieran can sadly be filed away in the big old filing cabinet entitled "one-note rivals." I'm sorry, folks, but Gary-Motherfucking-Oak was the pinnacle of Pokémon rivals; with his smug attitude and incredibly punchable face, every attempt since him tends to devolve into two categories: Possible love interest and whiny emo brats.

Carmine starts off as a potential rival with her snooty "filthy fucking outsiders! bakana gaijin desù yo!" bullshit, before backflipping into "notice me, senpai" and batting her eyelashes by the time the credits rolled. She’s an okay character and I did warm up to her in the end. However, if the DLC was longer, they could have given her much needed development.

And then there's Kieran, a character who broke the land speed record of going from sympathetic rival, to insufferable emo twat within the span of four hours. He represents some of the worst aspects to ever come out of a Pokémon antagonist not seen since the days of Black and White.

This all centres on the fact that he's basically got a crush on Ogrepon and slowly begins to resent the fact the protagonist is a better trainer overall. When Ogrepon decides she'd like to join the protagonist on their adventures, Kieran goes all Shawn Mendes by vowing to "treat her better than we can!" Even his own sister looks at him and all but says: "Motherfucker, are you serious right now?"

One absolute thrashing later, he channels his inner Virgil by combing his hair back and vows to become stronger than the Protagonist. If you cup an ear and listen, you can faintly hear Infinite's theme from Sonic Forces playing in the background while he has his little psychotic breakdown at the end. He's not even the main antagonist of the DLC, but he might as well be when compared to the Loyal Three, who have the combined personality of a Jacob's cream cracker.

So the basic gist is the villagers of Kitakami are told that Ogrepon is the villain and the Loyal Three saved their ancestors from its evil. However, in a plot twist about as predictable as a sunrise, it turns out it was the other way around and the Loyal Three were the evil shitheads all along. I know this DLC is based around a Japanese mythology story, but all I could think of was that one episode of the Simpsons where it turns out Jebediah Springfield was a lying, two faced son of a bitch.
A big problem with this setup is the fact that Pokémon cannot talk, so most of the narrative setup is delivered by characters reacting to anything they do. Without the human's providing colour commentary, all they do is communicate in a bunch of throat noises and unintelligible drivel not even Scott Steiner would say out loud.

Beyond that? All their contributions boiled down to stealing three of Ogrepon's masks, you kick their asses twice, put them in Pokéballs and you'll never think of them again. At least Groudon and Kyogre had more of a narrative build than these three bellends. In fact, you could replace them with Ed, Edd & Eddy and have the same desired result... Actually, I tell a lie. That would have been far more entertaining! Tell me you couldn't picture the Eds trying to scam the villagers into believing Ogrepon is evil, just so they can get enough money to buy a whole mountain of jawbreakers?

The only other story content involves a freelance photographer called Perrin trying to snap a photo of a very rare Pokémon at night. It’s a brief experience and you are rewarded with a Hisuian Growlithe for your troubles, but again, if the DLC was a bit longer, we could have had a decent side story of hunting down five mysterious urban legend Pokémon instead of one.

And finally, the game does have a few graphical hiccups. The main culprit here is the game will chug like your mum at a sailor’s convention. Character animations will move slowly and battles can take a fraction longer due to having to load a lot of data at once. While you’ve got me talking about battles, this isn’t directly about the DLC, but the next Pokémon game needs a feature to disable battle animations. This became increasingly annoying during Tera Raids when I’m trying to twat the target down within a time limit and the battle animations drag on and it’ll play the same “was paralysed” animation four times for each Pokémon when it could just do them all at once.

No wonder nobody likes working for GameFreak. Their design philosophy hasn’t evolved since 1996.

(Conclusion)
Pokémon: Scarlet & Violet - The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero: The Teal Mask (try saying that three times fast) is an improvement over the base game’s mixed content, but I was left wanting more by the time the credits rolled. For a four hour long expansion, it delivers what it promises, but not something you’d drop full price for in the long run.

Again, has bugger all to do with Area Zero, but I guess “The Fannying About in Kitakami” wouldn’t have looked good as a title?