Pokémon Scarlet and Violet’s sequence of post-launch content material lastly wrapped up on January 11 with the discharge of The Hidden Treasure of Space Zero‘s epilogue. Now, having performed by means of it, I discover it to be a fittingly odd finish to one of many weirdest generations of the Pokémon sequence ever.
As an alternative of including some grand endgame challenges to beat, it is a story-focused epilogue a few Pokémon that’s brainwashing and controlling folks by means of mochi. It’s a cute and comedic horror riff that offers entertaining remaining moments to the buddies gamers made all through the primary sport and DLC’s adventures. Regardless of that, it’s underwhelming and nonetheless topic to the technical issues which have plagued Pokémon Scarlet and Violet since launch.
Formally titled The Hidden Treasure of Space Zero Epilogue: Mochi Mayhem, this extra story begins when you place a Legendary Pecha Berry on a ornament at Peachy’s store on Kitakami Island. That initiates a name from Arven, who decides to go to the participant’s home in Paldea with Nemona and Penny. Whereas hanging on the market, the group is invited again to Kitakami by Kieran, the participant’s foremost rival in The Teal Masks and The Indigo Disk. Issues appear regular at first once they all go to, however they shortly discover that Kieran’s sister Carmine is appearing oddly.
Her eyes have turned purple, and she or he appears brainwashed. She’s compelled to do a hen dance whereas begging for mochi. This kicks off the foolish story, the place characters from the primary sport and DLC are slowly picked off by this mochi curse, which a brand new Pokémon is on the middle of. It’s a kid-friendly horror story that’s in the end extra humorous than scary and in the end serves as a possibility for Recreation Freak to go on a victory lap with its video games.
Sadly, I’m undecided Scarlet and Violet deserve that but. They’re a few of the oddest entries within the mainline sequence, as Recreation Freak used them to experiment with full-on open-world design. It’s all the time been clear that the Nintendo Change or the engine Recreation Freak is utilizing simply can’t match the studio’s present ambitions. This is likely one of the worst-looking AAA video games on Nintendo Change, with frequent body price drops and texture pop-ins that severely hamper the expertise.
That’s a disgrace, because the story moments and traditional RPG gameplay are in any other case very pleasing. Shortly after Pokémon Scarlet and Violet have been launched, its builders mentioned, “We’re conscious that gamers could encounter points that have an effect on the video games’ efficiency. Our objective is all the time to present gamers a constructive expertise with our video games, and we apologize for the inconvenience. We take the suggestions from gamers significantly and are engaged on enhancements to the video games.” Properly, that is seemingly the ultimate main replace for Scarlet and Violet, and people complete enhancements by no means arrived.
I want this new content material was free from any new technical issues, however textures would incessantly pop out and in of the background throughout conversations in my revisit. The sport’s body price tanked throughout the epilogue’s climax for me as nicely as a result of too many NPCs have been doing that Mochi dance on display screen concurrently. Sure, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet even wrestle to deal with dancing over a yr after launch.
The Teal Masks, The Indigo Disk, and Mochi Mayhem are all pleasing in their very own methods however simply lay content material on high of core issues as an alternative of outright fixing them. Regardless that Mochi Mayhem made me chuckle a few occasions, it in the end looks like a bizarre, underwhelming joke to finish this technology of Pokémon moderately than a triumphant send-off.
When you’ve already sunk dozens of hours in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet and its DLC like I’ve, you may as nicely try Mochi Mayhem to satiate any emotions of narrative sunk price. It doesn’t add a lot in the way in which of compelling gameplay experiences, although. To those who haven’t touched Pokémon Scarlet and Violet since launch and hoped the DLC and post-launch updates would repair the sport’s most irritating points: this isn’t a No Man’s Sky or Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty state of affairs. It’s a whimper, not a bang.
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