Pokémon Scarlet and Violet they were probably the most discussed (and questioned) video games of the entire series. A pair of titles flagellated by many Technical Problems who had to respond present at least with the contents, which therefore explains why many fans were “waiting for it” Game Freak for the first of the two DLCs of Scarlet and Violet: The Turquoise Mask. Will the fathers and mothers of Pokémon have managed to make amends? Let’s see it together!
How is the first DLC for Pokémon Scarlet and Violet?
Once you download the DLC and restart Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, the game reopens with a phone call. Calling us is prof. Zim who tells us that they have been selected for a sort of school trip together with other students. Zim introduces us Rheaa teacher from the Blueberry Institute who, according to her, is in Unova, a line of dialogue that has obviously sparked speculation about the upcoming remakes of the fifth generation games, but it is not the only gem of lore in the DLC and the next we’ll cover it shortly.
Returning to the plot events, we go to Nordiviva and meet a couple of brothers: Rubra and Riber. Rubra, her older sister, is a shrewd coach with a very strong character, while Riber, her younger brother, is a fairly shy boy and practically opposite to her sister in terms of personality. Both personages they have one good evolution over the course of the DLC with many nuances, some potentially unexpected. It will be with them that we will discover the truth about legend relating to three Beniamici and the ogre Ogerponthat is, the 4 main Pokémon around which much of the narrative of this first part of the DLC revolves. The Turquoise Mask however, it is not only what it tells, but also what it offers, and a decidedly long discussion could be opened on this point.
Let’s start with a premise: The Turquoise Mask can be played at any point in the adventure, also parallel to the main game, and consequently Nordiviva adapts to the player’s progress in the adventure in Paldea. However, if you finish the game, as you might have done if you have owned the game since day 1, what happens? Generally the level of wild Pokémon and trainers will be high but not that high, on the contrary. The levels in question they start from just under 60 and then finishing just above 70, this means that if you have a good team at level 100 you go over the DLC like a steamroller. Would it have been appropriate to add an additional level of scalability? Maybe yes, but how?
Pokémon Scarlet and Violet have as the last plot boss fight a fight against a team at level 66 for 5/6 and with a signature Pokémon at 67 as the sixth member, so it is assumed that the player, if he has done a minimum of post game, have a team at least at 70-75 if not even at 80. Starting around level 60 would objectively be little regardless, even if we got there at 68-70, so why not raise the bar a little? After all, even if there were 2-3 levels of deviation against us, but even if there were 6, there would certainly be no shortage of means to fill the gap and get back on track, between Rare Candy/XP and methods to level the team quickly. The Turquoise Mask therefore is likely to be relatively little in the way of difficulty and, which also applies to the main game, if you want to take it for a sense of challenge you are simply making the wrong investment, unless you are new to the game. The real gist of the gameplay is also in this case track them down and capture them allwhich remains the strength of the series and also obviously of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, but in this chapter perhaps a little more.
Exactly as happened with the main game, also in the DLC The Turquoise Maskhave Pokémon in the overworld can add a great deal to the sense of pleasure in discovering which ones will be catchable. The Pokémon are then treated very carefully in terms of behavior, and they have some habits specific to the typology to which they belong. Details already present in the main adventure, such as the Water Pokémon that sometimes stay on the ground and sometimes go for a swim, or like the Flying Pokémon that rest on the roofs like real birds, which frighteningly increase the immersion, which unfortunately is scourged by the technical sectorwhich we will evaluate later.
In terms of game activities there isn’t much content, we could say that the bulk is entrusted to the main storyline of the DLC. The only real secondary activity is a quest given to us by Litha, a photographer who claims descent from the Hisuians. If you have played Pokémon Legends Arceus you will know that these are the people of Hisui, that is, the “ancient” version of the Sinnoh region when it was not yet called that. Indeed, the girl is very similar to Damon, the Regent of Team Diamond in Legends, and it is almost certain that the lineage she speaks of is connected to Damon’s family tree.
Litha also has Hisui’s Growlithe in tow and at first glance it is almost impressive to see it, in theory they should have become extinct, yet she has one with her (or rather two, the other is given to us at the end of the quest). It’s not even Hisui’s only Pokémon that survived up to that point, but we won’t go into specifics to avoid spoilers. Just think about it Litha wants to find him but would like our help. To start the Litha quest you must have registered in the Nordiviva Pokédex at least 150 species, but we won’t necessarily start from scratch. A fair number of Pokémon present in Nordiviva are also native to Paldea, so if you start the Turquoise Mask DLC after finishing the game you will probably have already registered many (if not all) of the natives of Paldea, so you can concentrate on getting to 150 with the remainder.
Be careful, 150 does not correspond to the entire Dex of Nordiviva, so “100%” is not required to complete the Litha quest. Finally a small one was inserted minigame in which, on the back of your Miraidon/Koraidon, you must collect a certain number of Mochi in time, at the end of which we will receive a different quantity of the latter based on our performance. THE Mochi they are used to add EVs to your Pokémon (those who play competitively will understand) and one in particular completely resets all their statistics, and God only knows how much this last one in particular was needed.
Another point in favor of the first DLC of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet is also a significant improvement regarding Level Design. Nothing that screams miracle, it tends to always be a fairly basic map and slightly less anonymous than Paldea, but Monte Orco is a very good idea, both outside and especially inside. He manages to characterize Nordiviva very well, but even without his presence it is reasonable to expect something more.
Unfortunately there is no room to hope for a further improvement in the second DLC, indeed the clips shown so far seem to testify to a terraformation very similar to that of Paldea, but it is too early to judge it. However, a gem on the map made us smile, but we won’t spoil anything for you. A small note in closing is precisely the one on the completion of the Dex, and it fully connects with what was said about balance. Basically It’s very easy to avoid tricky catches on late-stage Pokémon like Vikavolt, simply capturing the previous evolutionary stages and evolving them with a couple of candies, given that they are all found from around 57-58 onwards. Another problem, yet another, if more attention had been paid to the balancing of the game, perhaps leaving the basic stage Pokémon wild at low levels to at least give rise to doubts in the player as to how much more convenient it was to also capture the evolution or whether it would be more convenient to train the previous stage. As things stand now, we literally have no reason to consider hard catches, and it’s truly a shame. The only slightly more difficult catch comes only at the end, but the concept remains: more could and should have been done.
The technical sector is practically as before
Since it is a DLC for Pokémon Scarlet and Violet It’s okay that the graphics are the same, for better or for worse it’s still the same game. However, an improvement in performance was desirableimprovement absolutely not received and which ruins the immersion sometimes in a light way and sometimes in a really heavy way. THE framerate drops they abound although there are many fewer glitches and bugs compared to the base game on day 1 (and thank goodness, ed.) however we cannot ignore that even on an even smaller map of Paldea and with less content there are certain problems, that the titles struggle very much to maintain a stable framerate. Unfortunately at this point we fear that this problem will never really be solved, barring miracles.
They were improve not a little instead PvP battles, with a much more refined and pleasant dynamic direction. There remains the problem of the shot which sometimes does not capture all the Pokémon present on the field if the dimensions do not allow it, and we hope that a solution to that too will be found as soon as possible, however the gaming experience in battles against other players has improved.
Personally speaking – I realized this at the Special Championship Event in Barcelona – having some more directing solutions It made it less monotonous and heavy visually all those rounds. Also improved a lot Teracristal Raid, which, net of some residual problems, are not nearly as bad as before. The sync between the various moves, and in the succession of turns, has improved a lot, but some small uncertainties have remained, light years ahead of what they were before but still not 100% perfect.
These technical improvementswhich we wanted to point out for the sake of completeness, are however part of the base update of the game and no need to buy the DLC to take advantage of it, also to avoid unpleasant misunderstandings.
Ultimately, is the first DLC for Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, The Turquoise Mask, worth it? If you liked the base game you will also appreciate this DLC, and we believe that above all on a narrative level – even more than in the rest – Game Freak is going in the right direction. Very similar to the best episodes of the anime in many ways, a slightly more mature narrative for othersbut still it is only part of what is offered.
The rest is very mixed, inadequate balancinga level design that is well done but at times still too basic, little variety of content in addition to the existing onesand always the same ones serious technical problems. Considering that The Turquoise Mask really relies heavily on lore and narrative, and that the strengths are actually those, then we can say that the aim is achieved reasonably well, but nothing more. All that remains is to wait for the release of the second and final DLC, hoping that as many of the remaining problems as possible will also be resolved (and there are quite a few).
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