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Mouthful of a title… TWO. Originally this was meant to be posted either on or a day or too after the 23rd of December but then TPCI had to go an announce an epilogue which released on the 11th of January. I kind of felt as a result that I needed to at least play that first, which good job ‘cus it does cap off the game!
A non-spoiler tl;dr: I enjoyed it! It has performance issues to no-one’s surprise but the story and music is great.
If you thought Part 1: The Teal Mask post was full of spoilers, boy howdy get ready for MORE. There’s absolutely no way to avoid talking about The Indigo Disk without some spoilers, especially as I theory-crafted in The Teal Mask post.
I’m gonna start with whining, sorry! However I will establish here that The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero in it’s entirety is an excellent extension to the base game.
Sadly this does mean it has all those flaws too. Performance is as bad, or worse, in the DLC compared to the base game though admittedly in Part 2 there wasn’t an area as laggy as the Crystal Pool in Part 1.
From Part 1:
Hopefully Part 2 they’ll optimise on this but I’m not holding my breath.
Yeah that didn’t happen past me! Good job on tempering your own expectations. I’m gonna shove my comments about this under a spoiler tag ‘cus I already whined about it in Part 1, and y’know what? You’ve probably seen plenty of others complain about it too so. I will summarise it this way though: I blame The Pokémon Company and Nintendo, not Game Freak, for under-baking games. TPC holds the IP rights and establishes tie in media such as the anime and timelines associated with that, and Nintendo publish the games meaning they frankly as a publisher should be pushing back on games they’ve had to apologise for. Game Freak may be poorly estimating their workload, but there are other parties which hold weight to say “no that’s too tight”.
ANYWAY performance and IP handling complaining aside. Scarlet & Violet, along with The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero has a fantastic story, nearly rivalling Pokémon Black & White and Pokémon Black 2 & White 2 in my opinion! They set out to tell a coming of age story, be it finding someone you can test yourself against or help those you care about, which is still a plot line in the DLC. However SV also sets out to tell another story, that throwing away the concerns of others to obsession leads to ruin, and in the DLC that continues with Briar and Kieran. There is fantastic writing and some genuinely good cutscenes with excellent direction to them!
This… sadly is also to the game’s detriment. Much like Piers “singing” songs in Sword & Shield, it’s all silent. Not a single voice line, nothing at all. With older pokémon games this wasn’t an issue, even with the Piers misstep, SwSh and PLA didn’t outright feel like it was held back by not having voiced lines because 90% of story in those games is delivered like this:
Little text boxes that the player progresses by themselves while all the characters just stand around. Lines that are still delivered in RPGs today with little to no voice work, maybe at most a “hmmmm” or a “ah” or a “oh!”. However Game Freak put in more cutscenes in to SV that aren’t just “an event” like a pokémon reviving or some STRANGE HAPPENING, no. They put characters in with lines and dynamic actions… (This video is a spoiler to the story but honestly it’s barely one ‘cus it’s mostly just a title drop paired with information you’d have guessed from the key art anyway!)
This is so, flat without voice work as the character is clearly practically yelling in excitement about the events that are occurring! There are not just one or two scenes like this in the whole of the base game and the DLC, but a lot of them. If Game Freak wish to continue this excellent trend in their story telling then they, along with The Pokémon Company, need to look in to getting voice work sorted for at least these scenes. If DeNA can get them for a gacha game, I’m sure TPC could shell out for some in their flagship product as well.
Moving on from the story, I do actually like the key characters introduced (or built upon) in The Indigo Disk! Drayden especially they really did a great job on ‘cus he’s not just scheming nor is he actually a bad guy, Crispin is a lovable dork, Lacey just wants the best for others and Amarys is lovely no matter what cold exterior she puts on.
The music is great, I was legitimately not expecting them arrange Unova themes! I know Blueberry Academy is situated officially in Unova but I expected them to have an original theme like the Kitakami battles did! Instead no, I get treated to my favourite my favourite trainer battle theme in the whole series.
You have no idea how excited I was as soon as I heard that opening, I knew from the first 5 seconds alone what it was gonna be and was still kind of expecting a fake out. BUT NO. YEEEEEEEEEEEES. It’s not a straight arrange mind, they added in a little melody to it too. The wild pokémon theme is Unova, the entire Terrarium contains mutltiple arranges of the Unova’s route themes and there’s even a secret track in there too~
Regardless of the technical issues, it’s clear that Game Freak do care about what they’re making. Their current focus on characters over the standard formula (kid journeys to get 8 gym badges, some people are bad, at badge 7 you defeat them and meet a/the legendary pokémon of the region, then you go do the 8th gym and finish off the main story with the Pokémon League of that region), not wanting to set up an evil team who wants to destroy everything (Team Star are just kids who were bullied) and then when they want to throw references to older stuff they can make it shine. And no I don’t mean blatantly either, I mean sometimes it’s just a little thing like this
If you know you know!
Honestly the fact they care this much probably makes the kinda shoddy state of the games worse but I digress.
The final part of the story down back in to Area Zero is great, seeing other characters reactions to something a lot of players would consider normal now (who else reading this when setting up Pokémon for the 7☆ raids has IV trained against Florettes in Area Zero for Special Defence IVs? I know I have!), especially as your character keeps having to not mention what was in “the mysterious room” (no time machine for you Briar!). The whole bit leading up to the fight with Terapagos has all these great moments, but then THIS happens and I still can’t get over what a fantastic scene it is.
Then all this caps out on what I now consider the best battle theme of the game, track that takes parts of Area Zero‘s melody, parts of the Tera Raid theme, and hell even part of Battle! (Zero Lab). Battle! (Stellar Terapagos) is genuinely this theme that just builds on itself and aaaaaaaa that entire battle is so good. Again, Game Freak have gotten good with their story telling to the point where they can do it in a battle and build on it with music, now just add on these moments with some voice acting direction too!
Also if you’re this far, Terapagos’ cry is the Terastraliztion SFX, you’re welcome for that tidbit of knowledge.
Now this is where in December I’d start writing some post-game points, my final thoughts, looking at my part 1 theories except… oh no is that… MOCHI
: )
Anyway the epilogue which you need to access via using Mystery Gift > Via Internet (no Nintendo Online Subscription needed) was a good little cap off to the narrative part of the game. It was great to finally see the original co-stars interact with the DLC co-stars, especially Arven reaching peak-clingy and Penny being peak gay.
What, you didn’t think I’d bring this up?
It’s finally a decent event with a new mythical again! We’ve not had that since… oh god was it really Black 2 & White 2???? Damn. Well we get a little story that is kooky, a little creepy with the connotations behind it, and a boppin’ battle theme. It also resolved some extra bits of story for the Part 1 DLC involving Ogrepon and the Loyal Three! It’s actually mostly told behind the scenes in context but the hooks are there! Pecharunt is a jerk, surprise! At least they also have an excellent theme too, what you already heard it? Naw it is different in the same way Kyurem’s is to Zekrom and Reshiram’s~
Do you see it up there? Barely?
I didn’t think too much of it in the game but it did move separately to the rest of the loyal three. It’s Pecharunt! It took control of the Loyal Three with the toxic chains they wear to take the masks! And then a long time later Pecharunt attempts to redo the plan to take the power for itself. Neat!
Here’s what the full image looks like btw, thanks to Bulbapedia!
“Unknown Figure” at the time but it’s something that didn’t even occur to me. Again, Game Freak showing their care to the stories they’re building and I hope they continue with it! It’s a cute little story and I’m glad they got to tell it.
Also I didn’t have Ogrepon or the Loyal Three on hand in the battle, but the battle has unique effects for those in the final battle versus Pecharunt. Ogrepon gets angry at Pecharunt, rightfully recognising it as what killed their friend with the Loyal Three, meanwhile Pecharunt gets angry seeing you command the Loyal Three. Tiny touches again, but cute!
From here we just have all post game content. There’s a bit more than usual to sink your teeth in to compared to Sword and Shield too!
Firstly, while not a “post game” thing, you can upgrade the regions in the Terrarium to unlock previous starters in the wild. Yes, no one time chances or trades, all gen 1 to 8 starters just running around as wild pokémon, neat!
Additionally Cyrano unlocks the ability to call “special coaches” from Paldea, which let you initially rebattle the gym leaders.
Who else do you think I’d invite first???????
But also the school teachers, your friends once the Epilogue is done, and then eventually the Elite Four. Which is something that was missing of the base game, and while I’m not happy it’s hidden behind the DLC, I’m glad it at least we got it finally, especially as they added in the Elite Four which had no-refights at all beyond Hassel and Geeta in the Academy Ace Tournament (speaking of, that’s higher levelled now after catching Terapagos). Fun fact: Nemona’s team in the DLC progresses with the DLC too! In Kitakami she’s added some Kitakami pokémon, and as a special coach she’s added some Blueberry pokémon too!
Do keep in mind that in inviting Nemona to Blueberry Academy you have just unleashed an uncontrollable battle monster upon them
As is tradition they added in almost all the previous legendary pokémon to the game as field encounters. I say almost ‘cus Snacksworth, the character that gives you the “treats” that lets you encounter them, apparently never met any Sinnoh legendary (assumedly because you can get them easily in Legends: Arceus and Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl), Zacian, Zamazenta and Cylarex (but you can get Kubfu so I’m not sure it being on mascot status for gen 8???). They handled this “well”, they’re tied to the little quests you can do for BP (Blueberry Points, not Battle Points) and unlock per ten solo ones you do. However you can obtain the opposite version’s by doing group quests with other players online/locally in a friend circle… which is kind of a draw back as that can be a pain to set up (especially “Make a 4☆ sandwich”) but at least it has stopped outright version locking of legendaries for these two games.
From there, there is one final thing you can do and maybe get some final story details. I’m not going to give you too many details outside of a spoiler box but… Maybe go to a place where you can possibly talk to the dead…
The final thoughts are this: The DLC now it is complete is worth playing! There are sadly a chunk of performance issues as well as some other decisions that set back the base game too, but overall I think it’s worth it! I had a great time with it!
“DO what about those part 1 theories?” oh right yeah.
- Resolution to Kieran’s story arc – Yup! That happened as I expected! Wasn’t expecting him to Master Ball steal a legendary though.
- Carmine wants more battles – Also correct! 1 & 2 were the easy ones though…
- The crystal pool will involve contacting Heath or AI Sada/Turo – I was… partly right here. You can encounter Pre-Time Machine Sada/Turo and cause the events of the game. No Heath or AI though!
- Briar herself enters Area Zero – Yup! I was spot on there.
- Briar herself leans too far due to her obsession to find Terapagos – She is the cause of Terapagos going berserk by egging Keiran on to Terastralize Terapagos.
Honestly I don’t have much less to theory on here that I haven’t already or you’d learn from playing or watch someone else play it! Pity we don’t find out more about the Time Machine and also this:
