I initially wasn’t going to buy this DLC at all, but just like with the base game I eventually guilt tripped myself into spending money on a “rushed product” that I’ll seemingly only play once or twice and then never touch it again. That being said, this DLC looks to be a bit more promising than last generation, and I personally like the creative opportunities brought about by having the DLC be one interconnected storyline this time around. I don’t have too much to say about my Day 1 impressions of this DLC since most of this is just an expansion on base game content (which, yeah, that’s the whole point). I tend to think of DLC for main series Pokémon in the same way that I view “third version” titles like Emerald or Platinum- fine quality of life additions, but not enough actually new content to be considered an actually new or original release.
Downloadable content being an expansion upon the base game also brings up another problem I have with The Teal Mask in particular that I haven’t seen a lot of people talk about. Kitakami is smaller than most of us would have hoped for, but the area’s size isn’t as significant an issue as just how short the story is. From what I’ve seen, someone who’s already cleared the base game could easily complete this storyline in under three hours. It ends up feeling more like, say, a Sevii Islands situation in practice where the new content would be better as an addition to the base game’s main story. Personally here’s how I would have done it:
-Base game: Make this your main story
-The Teal Mask: Postgame, kind of like Sinnoh’s Battle Zone area
-The Indigo Disk: Make this the sole DLC expansion