Pokémon Scarlet and Violet: The Hidden Treasure Of Area Zero Part One: The Teal Mask (Switch)

Shaun | October 10, 2023 | Review | No Comments

Pokémon Scarlet and Violet is back with its DLC expansion: The Hidden Treasure Of Area Zero. This expansion comes in two parts: The Teal Mask, which released September 13^th 2023 and The Indigo Disk, which is set to be released in Winter 2023. These DLC episodes contain new storylines along with new Pokémon to capture and battle with.

The Teal Mask is the first half of the DLC expansion and takes place in Kitakami: A whole new area. The story follows the player as you get invited on a school field trip to visit Kitakami in a joint trip with another school: Blueberry Academy. Upon arriving in this new area, you meet two students from Blueberry Academy who are from Kitakami themselves: Carmine and Kieran. Over the course of the trip, you explore the area, learning about a legend depicting an ogre and the “Loyal Three” Pokémon passed down through generations. A festival dedicated to this legend called the Festival of Masks also takes place during the trip. The story of the dlc fairly short, clocking in at around 5 hours or so. However, the story was interesting and had memorable characters in Carmine and Kieran.

The story of the Ogre and the Loyal Three was interesting and made for a fun story. While I would have enjoyed a little extra runtime on the story, the story is only the first part of two and will be continued in The Indigo Disk. Having said that the story is mostly self contained and can be enjoyed without the second part being released. While you can tackle the new content at any point after the intro of the base game, if you made any significant progress on the original story, I’d recommend finishing it as the levels of Pokémon in the area scale up after completing the main story, making the new content too easy if you are partway through the main story, after the levels scale up to postgame levels, the dlc poses a more reasonable challenge.

With a new area comes new Pokémon to catch. The Kitakami region has an all new Pokédex with 200 Pokémon in it. This includes 100 Pokémon from the base game along with 7 brand new Pokémon and 93 returning Pokémon from previous generations. This adds a good amount of extra Pokémon to track down along the way of your adventures through the new region. The new Pokémon have some great designs, particularly the legendary Pokémon Ogerpon and the Loyal Three trio. The Kitakami region also has a few extra pieces of side content in the form of the Ogre Oustin’ minigame and the Timeless Woods side quest. The Ogre Oustin’ minigame in particular is quite fun, tasking you with running around the area popping balloons to collect berries and defend them from Pokémon. Overall, the DLC brings a good amount of content to the game and will only get better with the second half of the expansion.

Unfortunately, the game still struggles performance wise with frame rate issues still holding the game back from being one of the best titles in the series. While not unplayable by any means, the performance issues are definitely noticeable and put a damper on the experience.

Overall, The Teal Mask is a good opening to The Hidden Treasure Of Area Zero with a fun, albeit somewhat short story and a decently sized new area to explore complete with a set of new and returning Pokémon to catch. While performance issues are still present, the game is still worth playing as it is still a great Pokémon game.