The Teal Mask is a refreshing change of pace for Pokémon Scarlet and Violet

polygon.com:

Kitakami sits at the base of a mountain range, rice paddies and fruit orchards surrounding the small village. Rivers run through the mountains, which expand well past the village limits, to create an idyllic little world to explore in Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet’s new The Teal Mask DLC. It’s an altogether brief adventure, and it doesn’t reach the heights of the one I undertook when Scarlet and Violet were released last year — but it’s brimming with charm and character nonetheless.

You can begin The Teal Mask, which is the first part of the games’ The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero DLC, whenever you want, regardless of your progress in Scarlet and Violet. The DLC’s difficulty will scale to your experience level, but based on my playthrough, the highest it’ll go is roughly to Lv. 75 — so if you’ve spent a lot of time in Scarlet and Violet and have maxed out several powerful Pokémon, you probably won’t find much of a challenge here. Still, the storytelling is excellent, and there are new Pokémon — three that may have killed a man — and plenty of returning stalwarts from older generations.

Here’s the plot setup: The people of Kitakami revere three Pokémon they’ve dubbed the Loyal Three. Okidogi, Munkidori, and Fezandipiti are said to have protected the village from an evil ogre Pokémon that attacked the village generations ago; the town even honors the trio with a festival of masks. You arrive in town on a school trip — basically a cultural exchange program where you learn about Kitakami and its traditions — despite the townspeople not being entirely smitten with tourists.

Quickly, you learn that things aren’t entirely as they seem. Specifically, Kitakami’s culture may be based entirely around a lie. Partnered up with