Hands-On with Pokémon Scarlet/Violet's "The Indigo Disk" DLC

It’s been less than 2 years since the initial reveal trailer for Pokémon Scarlet & Violet debuted. In that time, discussion on these games has been a bit mixed across the board. Depending on who you speak with, these two games represent the absolute best of the series, or the absolute worst. We here at GoNintendo presented an opinion somewhere in the middle, if not closer to the former when the games launched just last November. Now, nearly a full year into the game’s life, arrives the second and final DLC expansion for the two titles, The Indigo Disk.

Nintendo was gracious enough to send us an invite to preview the new content in this DLC, and all told it’s left a better impression than the first DLC, The Teal Mask, which we gave a generally positive review as well. That being said, the event itself was great. My session was a little bit later in the day, which ended up working out as I ran into a few friends scheduled for the same time I was. Real life activities aside, we were all invited to try out the new content so let’s talk about that!

The Indigo Disk is certainly designed as companion content to the first expansion, made especially apparent by certain characters from Kitakami making their return once again, such as Carmine. I already loved her character in her debut during The Teal Mask, and getting to see them on their “home turf” was a real treat, too. She’ll chat you up pretty early in the main quest line, and in Carmine’s case she’ll even challenge you to a battle! Her sassy quips remain the same as ever, though her team might be a bit stronger than some (me) remember.

During my time with it, Nintendo reps were kind enough to warn me that this DLC is made up to be more of a “post-game” experience than The Teal Mask was, meaning both wild encounters and trainer battles will be significantly harder than they were in the main game, even compared to The Teal Mask. For example, during my session I saw a few wild encounters with Pokémon hovering around level 65. In addition, the trainer battles I encountered not only had the advantage of even higher levels than wild encounters, they also had what felt like competitively built out teams that managed to actually wipe out my team on one occasion! My Nintendo rep and I had a good laugh over trying to work together through that fight.

Among the biggest standouts over the course of my play session was the map itself. Blueberry Academy has to have a stellar finance team of some sort, as made evident by the game’s new setting ‘The Terrarium’. Featuring four evenly divided biomes, The Terrarium is not only a larger map than Kitakami was, it’s also more varied, made possible by the four different biomes contained inside it. I only had the time to explore the tropical locales and a small portion of the snowy area, and left with a feeling of wanting to see more. In addition to the change in scenery, Nintendo also mentioned to me that each area does have a few extra secrets for players to explore (some of which I did see), but you’ll just have to wait for the full release to learn more!

Lastly, The Indigo Disk does boast a few new Pokémon designs and regional variants, my favorite of which being Archaludon. It’s by far one of the goofier designs of the bunch, and that makes me love it even more. Furthermore, for the lore masters, there’s the topic of Terapagos, the mysterious new Pokémon who seems to be in some way related to the new Terastal phenomenon.

Questions related to this Pokémon will have to wait, though, as that pretty much concluded the scope of my demo session time!

All in all, The Indigo Disk left a better overall impression on me than The Teal Mask did. As much as I enjoyed The Teal Mask, the only issue I had with it was that it felt a bit too short. Not only does this new DLC seem to broaden the horizons a little bit in that regard, it also seems to be aiming for tying some of its narrative back to the base game’s lore with the introduction of Terapagos!

This is only scratching the surface of what’s to come in this next DLC expansion, and what we got to experience left such an impression that it’s only made us even more excited for what’s in store come December 14th when we’re playing the real deal!

Huge thank you to our friends at Nintendo for inviting us out to this event to preview The Indigo Disk!