Pokemon Teal Mask DLC Review
Hello everyone, and welcome to Media Musings! Today, we are finally covering the Pokemon DLC! Well, half of it anyway. For obvious reasons, we’ll cover the Indigo DIsk AFTER it comes out. Today, we’re covering everything about the Teal Mask portion of the DLC.
Honestly, I wasn’t really excited for this at first. I didn’t really see much to be interested in, and the most exciting part of it was figuring out I could have more Pokemon Violet content. There wasn’t much fanfare around it, and I wasn’t even interested in the legendaries and such.
That being said, wow, this was way better than I thought it was going to be. I enjoyed almost every aspect of it, and I’m going to talk about why. Also, go ahead and take your spoiler warning now. I’m going to be discussing a whole lot of details in this DLC part.
Alright, let’s start with the story. You and some other unimportant students go to the land of Kitakami for a school trip. You meet up with some students from Blueberry Academy, Carmine and Kieran. You have an orienteering mission to visit all of the signboards with history on them.
Most of the signboards discuss an ogre who terrorized the village, and some pokemon called the Loyal Three fought off the ogre and saved the village while sacrificing their lives. Eventually though, you figure out the ogre, or Ogerpon, was not actually harmful.
The true story was that the Loyal Three ended up stealing three of Ogerpon’s masks as well as killing Ogerpon’s owner. Ogerpon attacked the Loyal Three there, and the villagers only saw that attack. So, the villagers thought the Loyal Three were the heroes. When you learn that, you end up lying to Kieran about the whole thing which leaves him mad. Then, after the Loyal Three somehow revived, you have to protect Ogerpon from them while proving her innocence.
Alright, let’s talk about the story in general first. So, this is a pretty good plotline. I absolutely love it when Pokemon makes a legendary likeable. Most of the time, they just throw a Pokemon in as some kind of present, which ends up making them forgettable. Sometimes, they even fail at giving Pokemon attention in the movies, which leaves Pokemon such as Volcanion and Zarude completely forgettable. I don’t know anyone who even cares about these Pokemon. The DLC does a really good job at making these Pokemon memorable. I’ll discuss more about these Pokemon later.
The story is pretty good! It’s interesting to learn about kinds of legends from the Pokemon world, and figuring out the truth about it. Unfortunately, the story is less freeing than the main game. They don’t even let you pick what order to read the signboards. I still got pretty invested in it all. It felt like a good storyline from the anime, and that’s good in my book. The story was leagues better than the Isle of Armor DLC from Sword and Shield, and even a bit better than the Crown Tundra.
I won’t lie and say there weren’t a few holes in the story though. For one thing, the lack of freedom is the most upsetting in Kieran. I, and many others, wanted the option to be open and tell the truth to him. Sure, he knew already, but that doesn’t mean we should be jerks to him. It’s kind of frustrating that we weren’t allowed to tell him in the first place. There really wasn’t even a reason why. Even the grandfather after telling the story said he would tell it to Kieran one day. Why couldn’t it have been now?
Another, much smaller nitpick would be a part of the true Ogerpon story. Apparently, in the beginning of it, Ogerpon and her master were so ugly that everyone hated them. Really? Maybe I’d believe people being a bit freaked out about Ogerpon if there weren’t a thousand pokemon! Many of which are way uglier than Ogerpon is! Ogerpon is actually a pretty tame design! It doesn’t matter that much, but it does kind of bother me.
Finally, and the most obvious confusion, is the Loyal Three reviving. Kieran punches the Loyal Three shrine, and that somehow… makes them revive? Huh? It was very much implied that these Pokemon were dead, but they came back for no apparent reason. Maybe it’ll be explained in the Indigo Disk, but I kind of doubt it.
That all being said, I did enjoy the story a lot. It was nice, sweet, and very enjoyable. Maybe not as good as the main game storyline, but still very solid.
Let’s talk about the characters for a moment. Most of them don’t really matter here, so I’ll only cover a few important ones.
First up is Carmine. She’s the pushy, confident sister of Kieran. She Is definitely one of those characters that you either consider entertaining or obnoxious. She has a ton of energy and can be passionate or funny at times. However, she’s kind of a brat to nearly everyone. Even some people around town constantly apologize for her behavior.
She excuses Kieran’s behavior later on as ‘teenage angst’, even though she caused most of his problem in the first place! I have mixed feelings about her. She’s definitely fun and entertaining, but her behavior makes it hard to enjoy her company all the time.
Next is Kieran. This is the big one, as he’s the largest focus of this story. He turns from a sweet, shy guy to someone who’s bitter and almost depressed. All because of the lies of Carmine. And also the player, because we’re forced to withhold details from him. This is like the only time the game ever forces you to be mean instead of nice. The only kind option it even lets us have later on is apologizing.
Anyway, back to Kieran. He absolutely loves the ogre, thinking of it as a cool hero and sad outcast. Kieran really desires to be friends with Ogerpon, which… doesn’t pan out too far. The lies start when the player and Carmine meet Ogerpon at the festival, and she drops her mask. We pick it up and she runs away. Soon after, Kieran shows up, and Carmine lies to him, because she thinks he’ll be left out or something if he found out. Kieran assumes we were making fun of him in the process.
Kieran overhears the true story, so he gets more upset the more we lie to him. Him being upset is completely understandable. Carmine is an outright bully to him a lot of the time, but he starts to not care later on. Throughout the story, Kieran gets more upset. Even when he meets Ogerpon, Ogerpon prefers the player instead of him. At the end, Kieran wants Ogerpon so much that he battles you for her. Of course you win, and Kieran holes himself up in his room soon afterward, not even coming to say goodbye. In fact, the last moments of the DLC story is him vowing to get stronger and beat us. Yep, this DLC ends on a cliffhanger. I really don’t mind it though.
Poor Kieran is such a sad character. He starts off so kind and sweet, but I just feel worse and worse for him as the story goes on. We can’t even do anything about it. I just wish there was a way for the story to allow us to be kinder to him. Carmine can be a jerk, I’m fine with that conflict. But something just feels wrong when we’re forced to be a part of it too. That being said, he’s one of my favorite characters in the game so far, and I can’t wait to see what he’s like in the Indigo Disk.
There’s Perrin too. She’s technically a sidequest character, but she has enough personality to be here. She’s a photographer who’s losing her motivation. Her mission is to catch the Bloodmoon Beast, which is a new form of Ursaluna from Legends Arceus. She ends up being very entertaining and passionate, and I love that. Sure, it’s just a small sidequest, but it’s definitely worth it to get to know the character and catch the Ursaluna. If you get 150 Pokemon in the Kitakami dex, that is.
Finally, there’s Briar. She’s not really that important, but the story sets it up so she’s implied to be important later on. She’s looking into Terapagos (the mascot pokemon for the Indigo Disk), and she keeps wanting permission to investigate Area Zero and the Tera Crystals. Just thought I’d put her here. I may be talking a lot more about her once the second part comes out.
Now, let’s talk about the new Pokemon! There’s only a couple of Pokemon here, but I’m okay with that. Most of them are pretty interesting!
First off is Dipplin, a new evolution of Applin. It’s based off a candy apple, which I find pretty cute. It has a kind of interesting ability and a signature move. That being said, it’s probably my least favorite new Pokemon. It’s just a slightly better Applin, even in design. It’s just alright.
Next, there’s Poltchaigeist and its evolution, Sinistcha. This one got a bit of attention from Pokemon before its release, even releasing a short about where it came from and how it works. Apparently, it’s some kind of spirit of a tea master? The whole thing is that its matcha can drain life energy from others Honestly, it’s a pretty good design. I even like their designs more than the original Pokemon they’re based off of. Sinistcha and its signature move, Matcha Gotcha, are surprisingly good as well. Pretty solid Pokemon.
Next is the Loyal Three: Munkidori, Okidogi, and Fezandipiti. I remember seeing them before launch of the DLC and thinking they were super ugly and kind of weird. Now, I realize why. They were the bad guys all along. They’re all pretty interesting, and they kind of have their own personalities. Munkidori’s cocky, Okidogi’s a brute, and Fezandipiti is charismatic. Huh, usually trios don’t really get their own personalities. Their types are kind of misleading too, but I’m okay with that. Even if Fezandipiti is a bird that isn’t flying type.
I kind of like them. Not a huge fan of Munkidori, but I think the other two are really good designs. My favorite has to be Fezandipiti. It just looks the nicest. They’re pretty cool, and I love their ability, Toxic Chain.
Next is Bloodmoon Ursaluna. This one is the prize for completing the sidequest. This thing is really cool! I don’t even care that it’s bipedal now, it’s cool! It looks like some kind of mummy, and it’s intimidating as all get out. I love it! The ability is slightly overpowered, but I think it still works. I absolutely love this over the original.
But I have saved the best for last! Ogerpon. I honestly did not like this Pokemon at first. It was just some kind of weird leaf thing, it was nothing special! But oh, how wrong I was. I feel like the moment the mask dropped and I saw its adorable face, I knew it was going to be my favorite. She’s so unbelievably sweet! She’s timid, and I love her little outcast story. She’s not all scared either. This Pokemon’s not afraid to fight when she has to. Remember, she straight up murdered the Loyal Three at first.
I love most of her forms, I love her story, and now I’m very attached to this Pokemon. Most people who play the game wanted Kieran to just take Ogerpon, even though that wasn’t an option. Me? When I heard Kieran wanted Ogerpon, I was ready to beat him up. Legitimately, Ogerpon is one of my favorite Pokemon in all of Paldea. We all love Ogerpon here.
Alright, now we can move onto the gameplay! Just to make it clear, I decided to go into this with a team of entirely new Pokemon from the DLC. I ended up having a much better and harder time because of that, and I feel like it’s more enjoyable that way. Just wanted to let you all know before I go into difficulty and such.
Kitakami is way smaller than Paldea. I feel like we all expected that. Still, it ended up having many interesting areas! They found a way to make most environments extremely unique, and I appreciate them for that. There’s a lot of Pokemon to be found, and most of them look very nice! They finally made Ekans slither. This is the best day of my life.
Some people apparently were having lag troubles and crashes in Kitakami? That was odd to me, as I didn’t experience any technical issues while I was there. There weren’t much bug fixes unfortunately, but the PC box icons now load faster! Nice, one good change is better than no change!
There were many battles here. Some of them were harder than others (looking at you, Ogre Clan), but I like that. There’s variety in the difficulty. Honestly, the main game battles for me weren’t that hard. Not even Ogerpon, who you fight four times without healing while she’s terastilized. I’d say the battles were about a moderate difficulty for me. I didn’t really encounter too much trouble.
I like the small changes the DLC brought, like adding more tera shards in raid dens and giving you a Sinnoh starter. That was neat. Plus, they also had a minigame called Ogre Oustin’. Not much to talk about, that’s just a meh distraction. Shiny Munchlax is a cool prize though.
I think that’s about it? Wow, this one was a long one. I guess I really can talk about Pokemon all day. Anyway, I enjoyed the DLC a whole bunch! There were issues, but they were mostly minor. I really loved my time there! Everything was nice, and I got everything I expected from the Teal Mask and more! I’d rate it an 8/10. I can’t WAIT for the Indigo Disk to come out. You better believe I’ll cover it when it does.
Update: The Indigo Disk Review (Medium Link) is here! Check it out when you can!
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