Scarlet in Kitakami - a first look at the Pokemon Scarlet/Violet Expansion Pass
Announced all the way back in February as a part of a Pokemon Day showcase, the first half of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet’s DLC expansion pass recently released. Staged as a field trip to the Japanese-themed Kitakami region, is now the time to return to Pokemon on the Switch?
I won’t hide it, I haven’t played Pokemon Scarlet or Violet in months. For the first three or four weeks after the games launched I really couldn’t put them down; despite their flaws both in performance and visuals the open world called to me, ultimately being fun and refreshing entries to the series. Since then though other great games have cropped up, and I’ve even been putting time into revisiting older Pokemon games. It really feels as though this DLC is dropping out of nowhere despite the build-up from the official pages. Before we dive into my experiences, I do just want to touch on how I plan to lay this out. With this being the first half of a two-in-one package, I decided against doing a full review. For DLC in particular, value plays a significant part in whether or not I would generally recommend something, and when you only have one part of a package you can only buy as a set, it’s difficult to come to any reasonable conclusions on that. Instead, we have this post as a bit of a taster that looks at what’s available now, that’ll be followed by a full review of the Expansion Pass when its second part comes out later in the year. With that out of the way, let’s jump right in!
When you first load into the game, you’re greeted by a phone call from your teacher and Pokemon Professor Jacq. Every so often your school of choice runs a joint field trip with Blueberry Academy for a select few students by raffle, and by sheer coincidence (and definitely not influenced by Jacq getting his cut of the DLC money), you’ve been selected to go! After a brief conversation with the trip’s supervisor, a somewhat interesting Blueberry Academy teacher named Briar, you’re on your way to the distant region of Kitakami to learn their history and join in the seasonal Mask Festival.
Your arrival is somewhat unceremonious, but does a good job in setting the larger theme of the DLC. Greeted by a winding path amidst rice fields, you head towards the region’s sole inhabited settlement, the close-knit Mossui Town. Out of the gate you get a great rustic and rural feel, along with a certain sense of isolation. This mountainous region feels cut off from the rest of the world, valuing tradition and community, and this plays into the story, simple though it otherwise may be. I appreciate the setting, but it doesn’t quite do enough to get you past the shock of coming back to Scarlet and Violet as a whole. I mentioned earlier that I hadn’t played these games in months, and it was in this walk to Mossui Town where I really felt the impact of that. The low-resolution graphics are still here, giving this Japanese aesthetic a distinctly Disaster Report feeling. I could easily work past that if the framerate were anything close to stable, but it isn’t. I’ll only mention it here because after an hour or so you do adjust to it, and there is a lot to enjoy once you do. It really does make that opening stretch difficult though.
The plot quickly starts to unravel, and while it is distinctly simple, I did find myself enjoying it. You join with a pair of Blueberry Academy students, Kieran and Carmine, to explore Kitakami and learn the history of three guardian Pokemon by looking at signs and shrines dotted around the region. Through these interactions you learn of the new legendary Pokemon Ogerpon, while giving your two companions time to develop a little bit. Their character development arc does end up feeling a little bit rushed, but it is a story that’s not yet finished. I’m hoping they’re rounded out a little in the second part, with there being a bunch of fun speculation around certain parts of what we’ve seen so far.
In terms of gameplay you can think of this as an expansion to the Path of Legends pathway of the main game more than anything. Outside of the region to explore, you get a series of titan battles to enjoy, wrapping up with a gauntlet of four back to back titan-esque fights. If there’s one big shame here, it’s that these battles just don’t offer any kind of challenge if you're joining with an endgame save file. This is actually a bit of a surprise to me given the DLC does in fact scale to your progress in the game. If you happen to head to Kitakami right at the start of your game, you’ll be facing opponents around Level 12, going all the way up to the 70s and 80s if you’ve conquered all there is to do beforehand. While I do think battles shouldn’t be obscenely difficult in an otherwise-accessible game like Pokemon, I do also believe these endgame titan fights shouldn’t be ended in one or two hits. This is especially noticeable when the game gives you a partner for the fight, who just ends up standing there cheering you on. You can of course scale your team down a little bit, but with no way to know exactly how strong your opponent is going to be, it’s a rough guessing game.
With the main story cleared I set my sights on fully exploring what the region had to offer. In terms of a Pokedex, you’re looking at 200 entries to populate with 101 of them being new or returning Pokemon, and 99 of them being perviously-accessible in Paldea. 101 Pokemon were enough to keep me occupied for a good number of hours, and I enjoyed hunting them down, though Pokemon Home is now accessible if you want to rush to complete the Pokedex out of the gate. While the textures as a whole may still feel low quality and muddy, I was quite surprised to see how nice some of the returning Pokemon looked. Magcargo's magma is luminous, and metallic Pokemon like Empoleon and Chingling shine brilliantly. They're small details, but they are details you notice and appreciate, especially after a few generations of otherwise quite flat 3D models. It also felt like a bit of a reward for my previously completing the Pokédex to speed through this one, with Dex completion giving you not only a few neat gifts, but unlocking a particularly interesting side quest along the way.
Throughout Kitakami you’ll find a good number of trainers, but also a decent selection of mini games and side quests. The rewards on offer here vary from meaningless to impactful, to a one-off encounter with a unique form of a returning Pokemon. The variety of content kept the experience feeling fresh, though one mini game in particular did grate on me a little. Ogre Ousting sees you ride across Kitakami hitting balloons to give you berries, and then depositing those berries into containers up to a requested amount. While you do this, Pokemon will come out from the bushes to steal the berries you’ve stashed. It’s a back and forth that on paper is a fun balancing act, but in reality becomes vastly frustrating, especially on higher difficulties. The saving grace here is that you can play this with friends, but it feels like it should’ve been balanced a little better for the solo players out there, especially with it giving some great rewards.
All things considered I did end up having a good time coming back to Pokemon Scarlet. Do I recommend you do the same though? Frankly I don’t, not yet anyway. The DLC is sold solely as a two-part pass, with the second part apparently releasing later this year. Unless you’re an avid Pokemon player chomping at the bit for more content, it’s almost certainly the better move to wait it out and marathon both parts of the DLC together. While the story being continuous does play a part in this, my recommendation comes more from the adjustment period that come with returning to these undeniably-flawed games. Playing the Expansion Pack back to back means you’ll only have to go through that once, and that the rest of your time can just go into enjoying the good that’s here. As half of the pack, I do think The Teal Mask does enough to justify its £12 to £15 (depending on where you bought the DLC) cost. Whether the larger package is worth it will really come down to how the second part sticks the landing. With the plot just getting started, I can’t wait to see how it plays out.
Has the DLC tempted you back into playing Pokemon Scarlet and Violet? Are you waiting for mods like Pokemon Compass to catch up to this fresh wave of content? Let us know below!
