With Pokémon Day passed, and a year before Z -A, let us look into the DLC Expansions for the gen 9 content with memory of the expansions to gen 8.

A reminder that in gen 8, rather than doing a 3rd version of the core game which would be mostly the same thing with some slight additions. Instead they did rather large dlc expansions that introduced whole new areas and 100 more Pokémon each.  While people complained as they were assholes who were hating on gen 8 no matter what because it had to do away with getting EVERY Pokémon and were looking for whatever reason to hate it. Despite their stupidity the expansions were a good idea as they brought very welcome quality of life improvements and were giving you A LOT more content than the 3rd versions and for cheaper.

The Gen 9 expansions lack the quality of life improvements, but then the game didn’t need things like making Pokémon able to become Gigantimax rather than Dynamax and other things that should have been in the game from the start. (could have used some stability improvements and the means to boot people from the raids though.)

The first DLC the Teal Mask can be done at any time of the game after you got to the school. It features you going on a field trip to the land of Kitakami which is a far eastern based region. You mainly play through a single story featuring you uncovering the true nature of an old tale about about 3 Pokémon and an Ogre. We also meet the brother and sister group of Carmine and Kieran and a festival celebrating the Loyal 3 protecting the small town from the Ogre.

The second DLC the Indigo Disk however can only be done after completing the main games story and the Teal Mask. This is because it continues the story on from Teal Mask… and contains some of the hardest challenges in Pokémon battles since the ending of Legends Arceus and the Colosseum games. Every Trainer battle in Indigo Disk is a double battle, something that’s very welcome to see back as they give a whole different kind of strategy but you rarely see them out of battles against other players.

While there is nothing to the level of the Dynamax adventures the Crown Tundra gave us, the focus on double battles and high level difficult set for people who beat the main game, makes this dlc highly memorable.

There are some mini games, Teal Mask giving us one involving popping balloons and stacking apples into buckets while chasing away Pokémon that would steal them. Indigo Disk meanwhile gives us a few for completing challenges when facing their elites 4 but these are smaller affairs and not really alternative mini games.

Definitely Indigo Disk is the more time consuming and heavier investing DLC out of the two. Teal Mask has lots to love as Kitakami is a nice place but Indigo Disk and its Terrarium gives people who completed the main game more to do, such as get all the old starting Pokémon, which you can find there after upgrading a region making Shiny hunting considerably easier.

There is one bonus dlc section, an Epilogue which finally has the friends you made in the main story meet Carmine and Kieran something that was very welcome since you never meet up with your 3 friends through the dlc and good to see them back. The Epilogue is a small story that will get you Gen 9s only Mythic Pokémon. So not only do we now get one that people can get without having to go to a store that may be nowhere near you (something I hated and everyone living in an island can relate to hating) but it also has story and lore attached, something that hasn’t happened with Mythics for multiple generations (wow wouldn’t it be bad if a Pokémon game had a mythic Pokémon, that unlocked story content but the mythic Pokémon could only be acquired from a store event…. and meaning there was content on the game built into it you couldn’t access just because of where you lived? wouldn’t that be horrible! Glares at gen 4)

The DLC I would say is must have content for people that have completed gen 9. While you might not get as much out of the Teal Mask outside of returning and new Pokémon, and how adorable Ogerpon is, Indigo Disk is what will give you the post-game challenge you have been wanting plus the usual end of gen bonus stuff for legacy content.

Rating: 👍👍👍👍