Pokemon Scarlet and Violet’s first DLC, The Teal Mask, launched this week to fans who have been eagerly anticipating it since finishing the main story of both titles. However, as many players have felt of the last couple of Pokemon game generations, it’s not all it could be.
Seeming to resonate with what fans are feeling, one in-game NPC has been recognized for their candor in calling out developer Game Freak for building a rather empty space where players feel there should be something a lot more exciting.
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Fans Agree With NPC’s Opinion on Pokemon Scarlet and Violet The Teal Mask’s Loyalty Plaza
Loyalty Plaza is a location players visit in The Teal Mask DLC for Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. They’re able to donate to a fundraising drive to help restore the location, but otherwise, it’s a big, empty lot. Despite there being an aesthetic and in-game lore reason for this, players and NPCs alike aren’t satisfied with it, as this recent post on the Scarlet and Violet Subreddit shows.
The original poster’s comment on the image sums up how many players feel about it. “They even admit it in the dialogue. C’mon Game Freak, try harder, please.” It’s almost as if the developer knew how fans would react to the location before the DLC launched.
If that’s the case, then surely it would have been better to make it more exciting. As another fan points out though, Loyalty Plaza is in-keeping with the inspiration for The Teal Mask’s region, rural Japan. “This is kinda accurate for the 田舎 (inaka), Japanese rural countryside. Hell, the whole place feels like rural Japan, including the relatively small area of flat “usable” land and incredibly low population.”
It’s not only rural Japan that has large memorial sites, we have them in the UK, and US fans have pointed out the same is true in America. “Hell, it’s accurate for rural America too. My hometown has a memorial park that sits on an acre of land with a restroom, one old drinking fountain, and a single picnic table. Loyalty Plaza is downright opulent by comparison.”
Clearly, Game Freak anticipated this sort of a reaction, but at least some players realize it has significance. As others point out, it doesn’t make for a very exciting DLC location for a game they’ve invested hundreds of hours in, “accuracy doesn’t really make for interesting game design.”
This really boils down to a choice between environmental and world design versus packing in points of interest and activities in as many places as possible. To make a believable world, developers must give it history and make it feel lived in. That’s hard to achieve when the area in question is a grave site.
