The Indigo Disk DLC Promises a Respectful Farewell for Pokémon Scarlet And Violet

A year ago, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet were released in tumultuous states. Technical difficulties, a likely result of the rushed development of the series, had seemingly reached a tipping point for a number of players, who felt like the games’ poor performance, frequent bugs and fidelity had been allowed to slip far beyond the realm of acceptability. Nonetheless, a new region, new Pokémon, a reformed structure and more won out and Scarlet and Violet have gone on to become some of the best selling titles on the Switch and the series as a whole. Though the games have been patched more heavily than most Pokémon titles, Scarlet and Violet remain mostly as they were: functional even if they appear otherwise. In the year since, Scarlet and Violet have also been expanded on with various DLC expansions, beginning with this summer’s The Teal Mask and concluding with the upcoming release of The Indigo Disk. After some time with the latter, it’s safe to say that the final story addition to Scarlet and Violet won’t be the one to deliver the game from its troubles, but at the very least it seems like it’ll send these middling installments off in a celebratory way. 

The Indigo Disk builds off of the first expansion and sends players to the Blueberry Academy, a hybrid school and lab sitting in the middle of the ocean. The presumed nature of the player’s transfer here from Scarlet and Violet‘s Naranja Academy is to further unearth the secrets of Area Zero, the mystery quite literally at the heart of the Paldea region and the end of the base game. Within the titular disk lies the school and terrarium, which is the main setting of the events of The Indigo Disk. Here, a slew of biomes are reproduced to house a variety of Pokémon, including the starters from previous generations and regional variants that aren’t native to this generation, like Alolan Exeggutor, who I had to capture as part of my first class and quest in The Indigo Disk. During this opening slice of the game, I was let loose to explore the terrarium, but admittedly found very little different from Scarlet and Violet‘s existing foundation here. Some structures that appeared to be constructed from digital blocks dotted the landscape, but otherwise gameplay here was much the same as it’s been for the past year.

While I didn’t quite encounter the hiccups that Scarlet and Violet have been known for, The Indigo Disk did show that very little else has changed. Textures are just always popping in at random, and Pokémon seem to as well. A Trapinch the size of an ant that I swore was not in my path suddenly appeared and forced me into a battle I didn’t want to partake in as I was speeding towards on objective. Landscapes and people on the horizon still have this unflattering fuzzy quality to them. Those hoping that DLC might’ve helped alleviate some of these issues will be sorely disappointed to find that it’s business as usual in The Indigo Disk.

Exploring did little for me in my time with Indigo Disk in part because it suffers from some of the same issues that plagued the base game, namely that there’s a shortage of points of interest to make the otherwise plain lands more exciting to see. While I was afforded a short time with only one biome, I can’t say that there was anything to it that you haven’t come to expect from Pokémon by now. The thrill of the final DLC will likely come from finding new and old Pokémon that you couldn’t previously acquire in Scarlet and Violet and partaking in the Blueberry League.

The Blueberry League consists of the school’s very own Elite Four, a challenge well known to most Pokémon players as the final obstacle before becoming the champion of the current region. In The Indigo Disk, the Blueberry Elite Four have been reworked into a series of trials that players must complete before culminating in a fight against the respective trainer. As the final part of my preview, I was able to take on Amarys, one of the Blueberry’s Elite Four, and her corresponding trial. Her trial introduced one of The Indigo Disk‘s quality-of-life features: the ability to fly in the open world. Koraidon or Miraidon (the legendaries that you can ride around on the base game) gain the power through the trial, after which they presumably get to keep it. 

Amarys’ trial had me don my now flying legendary companion in a fairly straightforward time challenge through rings of Magnemites. The only challenging part of the trial might’ve been adjusting to uninverted flight controls, a note the Nintendo rep in my demo made sure to pass on before I made a complete fool of myself in front of them. With that over relatively quickly, Amarys and I moved to an arena where we fought in a heated double battle that I wound up losing. Though I’m a little rusty, having played very little Pokémon lately, she proved to be a worthy challenge, which I’ve rarely found to be the case in recent Pokémon installments. Even the endgame and DLC of Pokémon Sword and Shield left a lot to be desired as far as difficulty is concerned, which made losing a fight in The Indigo Disk actually refreshing. Though I’m not at liberty to say what composition of Pokémon I lost to, it was a pitched battle that called for more strategy than I was able to employ due to my aforementioned rust. Even then, I was able to trade blows with her fairly well, especially with a team that was made for me for the sake of the demo, whittling her down to what I believe were her final two before getting utterly wiped.Terastalizing, the gimmick of the generation that bolsters attack types and even changes some Pokémon’s type entirely, played a key part in my defeat; I think I terastalized my own Pokémon at the wrong time and Amarys didn’t. If Amarys’ fight is any indication of what to expect from the rest of the Blueberry Elite Four, I’m tentatively excited to take on an appropriately difficult challenge in Pokémon for the first time in a really long time.

There’s even more to The Indigo Disk that I wasn’t able to see. For example, we know that the starters are in the DLC, but I didn’t get to see them. Though I spent most of my time in a tropical biome, there are other environments and Pokémon I didn’t get to see that I really want to. Terapagos, the legendary Pokémon at the heart of The Indigo Disk, and the 19th Tera type that accompanies it went unmentioned in my preview, and so both remain as active mysteries to uncover. Suffice to say, if you’re a fan who’s been into the mystery-heavy lore of Scarlet and Violet, this does feel like a necessary conclusion. For more straight-laced Pokémon fans, the DLC simply looks to deliver on more of what you’ve come to expect from the series. Even if Scarlet and Violet came out in rough shape, The Indigo Disk at least aims to make the most out of that foundation and end with a bang before moving onto the next generation of Pokémon adventures when it releases on Dec. 14.

Moises Taveras is the assistant games editor for Paste Magazine. He was that one kid who was really excited about Google+ and is still sad about how that turned out.