>>43928623It it was a stand-alone game for 15 bucks, I’d consider it pretty basic and a little lacking. Not horrible, not the best, just kinda average, in terms of total content. About 1.5 “towns” worth of content. About what I expected and if it was JUST that and not CT along the way, I’d have held off on getting it. As it stands I’m confident that the expansion pass will be an appropriate value. Not an “OH MY GOD EVERYONE SHOULD GET THIS!” DLC, just a “If you want more content it’s not an unreasonable purchase” kind of DLC.
In terms of design though it is the comfiest area we have ever gotten in a Pokémon game, and is exactly what the islands of Alola SHOULD have been. If they design the main game routes/towns like this in Gen 9, Gen 9 will EASILY be the best game in the series by a MASSIVE margin. Gamefreak really stepped it up with the world design. It feels great. Big area, not too empty, not too hard to navigate outside of the forest zone, never feels like it’s just “Get through this big area because BIG! People like big worlds right?” Like the wild area did. It almost feels like the Gen 3 routes did, with how much detail is packed into them.
Rest of the DLC is mediocre. Characters are cute, I didn’t hate any of them. Should have had some random trainer battles to make it more interesting, the total number of fights was disappointing. The random Alolan/Non-Galar trade NPCs were a nice touch, and I’m glad you can trade with them multiple times if needed. Restricted Sparring is the best facility we have gotten in a decade but that is an extremely low bar.
All told I’d rate the DLC a 7/10, but am VERY interested to see what they do going forward because they have actually learned from the criticism of the Wild Area and seem to be taking it to heart to lean more towards the much requested concept of an “Open world Pokémon game”
