How're you finding Indigo Disk so far?

[Sheep]

DLC part 2 is out. Those who have played, what do you think so far? (Please put any story spoilers behind spoiler tags!)

 

[Devalue]

Okay, slightly positive. Appreciates the halfway decent uniforms. Hoped for some better surprise. Could still be out there. Unlocked some stuff recently. Only poked into it.

Complains about one team thing (a minor spoiler at best):

Spoiler: Basic battle spoiler

Wanted to clear this with Pokemon from the original playthrough. Performs fine in singles, but less well together in doubles. Enters with a disadvantage, in that sense. Lacks the far better synergy that the Elite Four have. Feels kind of restricted due to leveling up so many Pokemon already. Hates to level and train a Pokemon that is already at level 100, such as Torkoal, Politoed, Oricorio, and Flamigo.

Still used Kilowattrel, Garganacl, and Dondozo. Brought in Torterra from a Brilliant Diamond playthrough. Kept everyone's original scattershot of EVs. Finally Hyper Trained and minted them. Caught and trained up Titan Tatsugiri too. Kept level 100 Breloom along for the ride as the Pokemon catcher.

Describes it as strange to first use the Dondozo + Tatsugiri combo at level 75. Wishes for more time to fine-tune that. Made heavy use of ye olde Discharge + Earthquake with Kilowattrel and Torterra.

Seems like a fun challenge if you plan around it from the outset, though. Could be great with a monotype sand team or something.

On some more specific things (actual spoilers here):

Spoiler:

Found a shiny Blitzle by chance. Dove into a pack of four to capture one for the Pokedex. Happened to be shiny.

Liked Lacey's trial the most. Wishes it had stuck with Pokemon facts the whole way through.

Approves of them not sticking purely to specific types. (Came close, with only one of the four having more than one off-type Pokemon.) Was not prepared to see Lacey's Excadrill most of all. Expected something that could have conceivably been a Fairy type.

Finds the Flying Trial boring. Really needed more depth. Unlocked Super Hard, however. Has not tried it yet. Might be better?

Wishes for more Blueberry Quest variety. Cycles between, what, five different things?

Slogged through the Terapagos battle. Did not bring a proper Pokemon for that. Allowed Garganacl to shine for the first time in this half of the DLC, on the plus side. Dealt more damage with a single Salt Cure than probably everyone else. Worked even better when Terapagos became a Water type too.

Oh, and a thumbs-up for giving Joltik a unique hopping movement in the overworld.

Speaking of Electric-types, kind of thank you for Supercell Slam? Still looks iffy next to Thunderbolt on the special side. Amounts to Electric Jump Kick. Is this why actual Jump Kick was removed? Gave it to Luxray, at least. Beats Wild Charge.

 

[RoachTypePerson]

I'm enjoying it so far. I'm liking the double battles. The wild Pokemon seem much more dynamic too, at least some of them.

I haven't gone very far into the story yet, just 1 elite 4 member beaten.

I dont really care for the new uniforms, the track suit one is ok. The new characters seem entertaining enough too, looking forward to seeing how the story develops them.

 

[Adamabbafan]

I completed it on both games within one day steamrolled through my baser game teams all 6 are level 100 absolutely love the Indigo Disk

Some things that I think are ridiculous

Scyther should be able to evolve into Kleavor at the location where the wild Kleavor spawns considering the amount of Black Augurite crystals that appear its evolution method should have been changed to location based its stupid how the Black Augurite isn't obtainable considering its coded into the games along with the Peat Block.

Peat Block and Black Augurite were datamined a while ago to appear at the Porto Marinada Auctions but so far no sign of them.

The Terarium should allow Exeggcute to evolve into Alolan Exeggutor and it should have allowed Pikachu to evolve into Alolan Raichu its absolutely stupid that we cannot evolve Pikachu into Alolan Raichu outside of the Alola region.

I was delighted that Hisuian Qwilfish's evolution method was changed to leveling up while knowing Barb Barrage no idea why Stantler couldn't evolve the same way leveling up while knowing Psyshield Bash.

 

[Red1530]

I have been enjoying it so far. I like the ability to catch Aloan Pokémon, but I am disappointed I could not evolve Pokémon into their Aloan form while in the Terarium. I have not progressed far into the story to give feedback on it.

 

[giradialkia]

I essentially cleared the DLC over the weekend, and certainly have some thoughts.

- I'll get the one glaring issue out of the way, before I gush with positivity: These games are not well-optimised. They lag, the textures aren't as crisp as they could/should be, there's a tremendous issue with memory leaking and visual artefacts. The games do not run well, and they could look better.

BUT.
I still had fun. I can't deny it.

- While it's nice that the DLC reintroduces older Pokémon to the mix, they are still all Pokémon I already own in Pokémon Home. So thankfully, I was able to fast-track the dex-completion rewards, and tend to Perrin's requests for both DLCs, before taking on the main story of the DLC.

Spoiler:

It honestly felt better to have caught Blood Moon Ursaluna and the new Paradox 'mon before tackling the Terarium/main quest.

- The approach I took was to "do an Ash on it" and deposit my main party, journey through the Terarium and catch a new team of 6 as I saw fit. I have enough candies and vitamins (even mints and bottle caps) to make them almost-competitive-worthy, and I was glad I did; some Trainers totally caught me by surprise in the Indigo Disk.

Spoiler:

This approach also paid off for Drayton's trial, because.. I was already perfectly equipped.

- The little Unova easter-eggs are wonderful. The music has never been better. It would be nicer altogether if they just gave us more consistency between games, or even let us visit Unova full-stop, but they really seem afraid to retread anything that isn't Kanto, so I'll take the Terarium as a nice Unova love-letter for now.

- The BBQ quests are a fun addition, and I blitzed through enough of them that Mr. Snackems (or whatever he's called) gave me almost all the Legendary Snacks by the time I finished the main story.

- The story - was great. They really hit their stride with character moments in these games (and both DLCs). Considering our character is essentially a blank-slate as always, the best moments came from our interactions with Arven, Nemona, Penny - even Koraidon/Miraidon - and now Kieran and his sister/classmates.
Kieran is probably the one rival we've had who really, truly cannot get past the fact that the player always wins.

Spoiler:

When Terapagos first appears and looking endearingly at the player, I said "Oh come on" out loud - they really seemed to be doubling down on Kieran's failures - but Kieran was on top of it, whipping out a Master Ball to capture his own legendary. It was short lived, but an awesome moment.

Anyway. I can't confidently rank it out of 10, or anything, but I'll sum up:
It's a shame the optimization issues weren't addressed or improved, but the amount and quality of new content introduced is really great.

 

[Sweet Serenity]

The truth of the matter is that I am really loving it. I really enjoy the feature of being able to play as your Pokémon. I feel that more could have been done with it, but really I can't complain. I hope to see this feature developed even further in the future.

 

[Leywin]

While I don't really like scarlet and violet much from what I have played of the indigo disk it's much better. What I really like about the indigo disk (And teal mask too!) is the music. The music is beautifully done. I may not like the games too much but I can accurately say the music is the best thing about the dlc and scarlet/violet.

I have already beaten the indigo disk but if there is one thing game freak always does right it's the music.

 

[Corveone]

I really enjoyed the Indigo Disk battles, except for some dumb gimmicky ones like that dude with double Oricorio Revelation Dance spamming. Finished the Elite Four and Champion today, and found their teams and strategies really well made, in fact they made me rethink my own movesets and come up with new strategies to succeed, and I love that (I wish the main game was more like that)

Continued with the team I had from my Wild Tera run. I didn't think it was worth creating a new team for Teal Mask at all, but for Indigo Disk I had to reconsider things for double battles so I ended up adding the Wild Tera Hitmontop, Flygon, and Glimmora, swapping them in and out with my main team depending on the opponent. Gotta say, Hitmontop is an amazing Pokémon for double battles, the guy barely damaged any opponent but it was insanely helpful in a support role.

Still have to do the Terapagos event, but I'm not particularly excited about that because the story in the DLC is really boring so far.

Also love the new TMs :) With the addition of Supercell Slam, physical Electric Pokémon that aren't Pika-clones now have access to something better than Wild Charge (well, better most of the time anyway, because this new move works like Jump Kick so pray you don't miss)

 

[Setsuna]

I want to lead this post with my biggest opinion on the DLC as a whole: We've had these games for a full year now with paid DLC and it does not run any better. I'm very sour over the idea that any continued development these games have were for things like additional raids, and stacking new content on top of something that can't even run the base game properly, instead of spending that time to fix its issues and run smoother. Performance-wise I think most people agree SV are nowhere near optimized and there are so many known issues. Fast travelling to Levincia yesterday lagged my game so hard I had to restart it, and there was a moment in Teal Mask where the game lagged heavily on an empty black screen with a text box. Things like that should be addressed before adding more on top. That being said...

I just finished playing Teal Mask and Indigo Disk back to back, and Indigo Disk is by far the better of the two. I love the aesthetic of Kitakami and Ogerpon is a beautiful baby but that's about all I'd really compliment Teal Mask on. Indigo Disk feels like a true expansion of what Scarlet and Violet is, especially with the Terarium. The idea of a new open space with so much Pokemon variety is really fun, and I found myself occasionally surprised by what was in there, especially given half of Kitakami's Pokedex were Pokemon already in Paldea. I enjoyed my time with it, and felt like it was much more deserving of my money. I wanted to continue playing to complete my Pokedex and it feels like a very solid addition to the base game, like a nice postgame addition.

Spoiler: My full thoughts:

I felt like Indigo Disk was a lot more fulfilling, there was more to do. All Teal Mask required was a handful of trainer battles, the Loyal Three, and the final fight against Ogerpon. I ignore Ogre Ousting cause I hated it. Blueberry Academy's double battles were a lot of fun, as I found trainers used a lot more interesting strategies, were higher levelled, and genuinely gave me some trouble. I don't care about Pokemon being easy or difficult, but it was really cool to see specific strategies they'd use. Fights were fun because I could identify my opponent's strategies and how they worked. Seeing the Elite Four use team members that weren't their specific type were really cool. The battles were a really comfortable experience for me, and they only got easier as it went on because I was adapting to their strategies and creating my own.

The music is great, I'm listening to it while writing this! I enjoy the Terarium theme and didn't really get tired of listening to it for most of the DLC. I like the different variations, and the guitar specifically reminded me of Sword and Shield. Hearing Unova's trainer and wild battle themes make a lot of sense given we know Blueberry is somewhere in Unova, and there are so many little parts from other songs in the Terarium theme that I picked up on. Route 6, Driftveil City, I swear part of Route 4 is in there, it's like the first time you play Legends Arceus and recognize a part of Jubilife City in Jubilife Village's theme.

BBQs are a nice addition so you always have something to do in the Terarium, but I do wish there was more variety, even after ranking up to the max difficulty for them. My Switch gallery is just gonna be flooded of random Pokemon I found because I needed BP to catch the starters. I do wish they either gave you more BP, or that the Terarium expansions were cheaper, given they don't unlock a lot of Pokemon and were only necessary for me since I wanted to complete the Pokedex. I'm considering buying all the decorations for the clubroom and everything but I know there's gonna be lots of grinding for that, so I wish it felt less tedious with more variety in BBQs, or felt faster by receiving more per BBQ.

The story was alright. I felt it was fine for the kind of character Kieran was, but I'm sorry, I still don't like him. I feel like the story of Indigo Disk really depends on if you like Kieran specifically, since so much of the story is based around how people feel about him and an end to his character arc. It's hard for me to get invested in a character if I feel like the game is making me, and he just ended up feeling like a pathetic entitled child in the second half of Teal Mask. Seeing him become some power-hungry villain made me dislike him more. I enjoyed seeing more of Carmine since I already appreciated her arc in Teal Mask, and Lacey was a character I knew I'd love at first sight. I did really enjoy Drayton as well, as the characters who plot things behind the scenes to help others and make them happy is an archetype I find pretty interesting. Part of why I like Nozomi.

Terapagos is a legendary I didn't really care much for. It didn't feel like it had any proper buildup and sorta just came out of nowhere. Pokemon is great at giving their legendaries a lot of character and that's why I liked Ogerpon, but Terapagos is just... there. It's mentioned that there's some hidden treasure in Area Zero, you go find it, battle it, catch it, and it's just another part of the collection. The Stellar tera mechanic is something I was confused about at first, but it's neat I suppose. It reminds me of the interactions Shadow Pokemon had with other types, and it's nice to see even a crumb of a mention of that in the modern day.

 

[goldpikablue123]

I'm enjoying the fights with the Elite 4, they're quite difficult compared to most base game fights. The story to get to those fights is a little convoluted though. The characters themselves are quite good too!

 

[PageEmp]

Okay, I have now played through the second wave of DLC enough to gain an opinion on it. I admit it, I nerfed my nuzrun rules so that against major bosses, my mons only die if they faint twice. Faint only once through the whole battle and they are still alive.

I… just want to play the game and see how the plot goes down, even if I heard the plot in this DLC is actually kinda bad.

And yes to get the elephant out of the room, it seems like they never patched the glitches at all. I mean even on the second DLC I'm still encountering lag. I mean, it's good that there is nothing gamebreaking, but one of the reasons why I wanted a physical third version/sequel is because I thought that meant the performance being patched up (and better teams on most of the base game bosses but that's irrelevant to this)

Overall, I do like this, and the gen9 DLC altogether. I said this a few times already, but I didn't like the gen8 DLC. That one I found to be very boring character wise, design wise, and everything wise. As a result while I did have some hype near to the release of this generation's DLC, I was always quite cautious. So while this isn't really best ever or anything, at least I had a lot of fun playing it.

 

[Kieran]

They gave me Kieran and that was what important.
I can't wait for the epilogue.

 

[Squirtkipfan01]

Indigo disk did the unexpected and made npc trainers actually a threat. I was about mid 90s with a new team by the end and struggling all the time... which is a good thing! A great change of pace to finally have to put some effort in! Not to mention all the cool things they added like mira/kora flying, 4 new trials, a cool end game, keirens arc being cool, the BBQ point system, and all returning starters(even tho you gotta put alot of work in to get them). This dlc alone has put scarlet and violet as my third fave pokemon game. If it JUST had better preformance it would be perfect but alas... so overall i did enjoy indigo disk alot and both dlc in general

 

[Diamond 97]

It's overall a let down for me personally. With all the legendaries returning I thought I'd have a fun new shiny hunt but they're all locked, so the thing I was looking forward to most is ruined. I think the area looks nicer than most of the rest of the game, however it seems to take a toll on the game's performance and it chugs along throughout most of it. They shiny locked the legends and there is no battle tower even though the NPCs at Blueberry go on and on about how important battling is at their academy. Instead you earn BP by doing the same 5 chores over and over again. The BBQ system is honestly not even on the level bad mobile games.

 

[Hiroshi Sotomura]

Instead you earn BP by doing the same 5 chores over and over again. The BBQ system is honestly not even on the level bad mobile games.

Ooh yeah. Least they could do is roll out new types of challenges via updates or something, but nope. You get something that becomes repetitive fast.

Would be nice if they did a little bit more with the academy itself. Its limited world-building ends up delivered in maybe 30 second to two minute segments at a time at the expected parts (Elite Four stuff, which is part of the story so goes without saying) but like… you only ever really attend one class there. For a school crazy-focussed on battling, would it have killed them to like, hold some more classes or have students chat more about the academy life?

 

[GameMangaAnimeFan]

To be honest, it felt like it was trying to tie up some loose ends somehow, only for things after epilogue to leave more questions left unanswered.