This review contains spoilers
So I technically started this in December (Dec 17, 2023), but I didn't really feel like playing through it then. To be honest, its mostly because Teal Mask was disappointingly mid to me. Took me until today (Jan 5, 2024) to really go and complete it; to my knowledge, there's a bit of post-game content, too, but frankly I think I've had enough Pokémon Violet for a long time. It didn't really seem worth doing for me judging on what the game was hinting at it being (refighting the gym leaders - which we already did in the base game - and elite four again), so I'm fine leaving my save right after beating the game and earning some goodies from it like being able to Terastalize whenever you want or fly with Miraidon. In my opinion, Indigo Disk is better than Teal Mask, but I think I have significantly less to say about this DLC than I did about Teal Mask since there just...wasn't much here that gripped me. I felt Teal Mask had a lot of potential to be really interesting, even though it wasn't. Meanwhile, Indigo Disk is a DLC I felt mostly fulfilled its promises, but was still a bit boring to me. It seems evident this was the one that saw the most care put into it, but its still not that much better than Teal Mask. Unfortunately its building upon a pretty flawed base game, so I suppose that was only inevitable.
The story goes in pretty much the same direction you'd likely be expecting it to. After helping out the folks in Kitakami, now you're going to the Blueberry Academy since Director Clavell and Ms. Briar are interested in having you transfer there. Blueberry Academy is supposed to be in Unova, but, since you don't get any glimpses of any locations outside of the academy, you don't really get a sense of where exactly this place fits on the Unova map (perhaps saved for whenever they inevitably remake Black and White). The design doesn't feel especially Unovan to me, either, though that's a very unimportant gripe. The goal here is to explore the Terrarium, which is like a big high-tech dome with simulations of different natural environments, to find new Pokemon and fight the elite four. This time, you're fighting the Blueberry Academy's elite four, consisting of Crispin, Lacey, Drayton, Amarys, and then the champion Kieran. Kieran basically gets a full-on villain arc here, becoming the "mean rival" of the game while Carmine takes a backseat into the minor supporting character role after you helped her in Teal Mask. I was on record as a big defender of Kieran in Teal Mask, but unfortunately he is super hard to like in Indigo Disk because he's nothing but a complete ass to everyone around him here and he never gets called out for it. Worse yet, STILL no one has any idea how to help him with his obvious low self-esteem and insecurities, and the main character can't do anything about it either since you're basically a cardboard cutout of a character. You're kinda just left to watch this kid fester in jealousy and rage, bullying anyone he feels he can get away with bullying, until you inevitably win against him. It at least doesn't make you feel bad anymore, though, since now he's a jerk and you gotta knock some sense into him, whereas before it was like you were fighting some poor shy kid who's constantly teased (at best) by his sister and thought he had any chance against you. Annoyingly, Carmine is still brushing off Kieran's problems as just teenage angst, though at least now she isn't being mean to him anymore. I will say that I found it really funny just how hard the game almost seems to play into the whole trope of the main character having plot armor; everyone is almost self aware of how you're just better than everyone else, you've been to the Area Zero and discovered one of its greatest secrets before the authorities of this world did, and you win against everyone who could possibly challenge you. You are a transfer student who beat the Blueberry Academy elite four and champion Kieran in the span of...like, one day. Kieran is forced to accept that he will never be as good as you, which lets him finally let go of his grudge and his very harmful coping mechanism of pushing himself (and everyone around him) to the limit. I guess its a pretty great arc as far as Pokemon goes, but I can't help but feel it could've been pulled off better, and the whole time I was just annoyed that I couldn't help Kieran (though, again, not nearly as bad here as it was in Teal Mask because Kieran is in villain arc mode and not some shy kid being pushed around all the time). Also, right at the end, you go back to Area Zero and use the titular Indigo Disk to go further down. They play this as some big epic thing but really it just felt like going through some small corridors, stopping to talk to the characters, do a battle, talk to the characters again after the barrier opens, rinse and repeat until you reach Terapagos and fight it. Terapagos is the new legendary, of course, and its kinda neat I guess? It really doesn't have much of a role in the DLC, though; it just kinda pops up at the very end of the story after you trudge through Area Zero again. There is buildup to it since this was what Ms. Briar was dying to get to Area Zero for throughout the whole story of Teal Mask and Indigo Disk, but I dunno it just didn't leave much of an impression on me. Certainly not the same kind of impact the AI Turo fight from the base game did, anyway.
I know I'm being a negative Nancy throughout a lot of this review, but I think I was hyperaware of Pokémon Violet's repetitiveness here and this DLC does next to nothing to spice it up. I'll talk about some things I liked in this paragraph to balance it out. Despite my gripes with how they handled Kieran, I do still like him as a character. I think the fact that he was so consumed by self-loathing and jealousy was interesting to see, though still rather frustrating since, again, we can't help him through it. The resolution to his arc is rather bittersweet: he realizes he will never be able to be as good as you, but he's also humbled by that experience and it seems like it was the only real way to get him to let go of the grudge. As for non-story related stuff, a few other people already mentioned this, but I do enjoy the shift towards a double battle focus here. The fights against the elite four were surprisingly really competent, I actually lost to each of them (except for Crispin) once or twice. My team is far from the most optimal team in the world, but even with the huge level advantage I had (since these DLCs don't seem balanced towards someone who kept the same team for the whole game) I still got clobbered by most of the Blueberry Elite Four at least once. It'd be interesting to see how I would fare against these guys if I was on the same level as them. Ironically, champ Kieran was one of the few that didn't beat me once. I also liked that we're back in Unova again; there's nothing about the design or environment of Blueberry Academy that really hints towards it being a Unovan location, but we do get some nice remixes of Gen 5 music and there are a good amount of returning Unova Pokemon here. Was really disappointed to see some of my favorite Pokemon - Vanillite and its evolutions - not return, though; I know they get a bad rep, but come on, throw me a bone here man! Nonetheless, I still found there was stuff to enjoy in this DLC.
I can't help but feel like this review has devolved into unfocused ramblings now, so I'll wrap it up here. I think that, overall, Indigo Disk is just okay. Its better than Teal Mask, but not by much. I give it an "alright" rating of 2.5 stars. At first, I gave it a 3, but in retrospect I think I have too many complaints about this DLC to justify it being a 3. I'm going to demote my rating of Teal Mask to a 2.5, as well.
The story goes in pretty much the same direction you'd likely be expecting it to. After helping out the folks in Kitakami, now you're going to the Blueberry Academy since Director Clavell and Ms. Briar are interested in having you transfer there. Blueberry Academy is supposed to be in Unova, but, since you don't get any glimpses of any locations outside of the academy, you don't really get a sense of where exactly this place fits on the Unova map (perhaps saved for whenever they inevitably remake Black and White). The design doesn't feel especially Unovan to me, either, though that's a very unimportant gripe. The goal here is to explore the Terrarium, which is like a big high-tech dome with simulations of different natural environments, to find new Pokemon and fight the elite four. This time, you're fighting the Blueberry Academy's elite four, consisting of Crispin, Lacey, Drayton, Amarys, and then the champion Kieran. Kieran basically gets a full-on villain arc here, becoming the "mean rival" of the game while Carmine takes a backseat into the minor supporting character role after you helped her in Teal Mask. I was on record as a big defender of Kieran in Teal Mask, but unfortunately he is super hard to like in Indigo Disk because he's nothing but a complete ass to everyone around him here and he never gets called out for it. Worse yet, STILL no one has any idea how to help him with his obvious low self-esteem and insecurities, and the main character can't do anything about it either since you're basically a cardboard cutout of a character. You're kinda just left to watch this kid fester in jealousy and rage, bullying anyone he feels he can get away with bullying, until you inevitably win against him. It at least doesn't make you feel bad anymore, though, since now he's a jerk and you gotta knock some sense into him, whereas before it was like you were fighting some poor shy kid who's constantly teased (at best) by his sister and thought he had any chance against you. Annoyingly, Carmine is still brushing off Kieran's problems as just teenage angst, though at least now she isn't being mean to him anymore. I will say that I found it really funny just how hard the game almost seems to play into the whole trope of the main character having plot armor; everyone is almost self aware of how you're just better than everyone else, you've been to the Area Zero and discovered one of its greatest secrets before the authorities of this world did, and you win against everyone who could possibly challenge you. You are a transfer student who beat the Blueberry Academy elite four and champion Kieran in the span of...like, one day. Kieran is forced to accept that he will never be as good as you, which lets him finally let go of his grudge and his very harmful coping mechanism of pushing himself (and everyone around him) to the limit. I guess its a pretty great arc as far as Pokemon goes, but I can't help but feel it could've been pulled off better, and the whole time I was just annoyed that I couldn't help Kieran (though, again, not nearly as bad here as it was in Teal Mask because Kieran is in villain arc mode and not some shy kid being pushed around all the time). Also, right at the end, you go back to Area Zero and use the titular Indigo Disk to go further down. They play this as some big epic thing but really it just felt like going through some small corridors, stopping to talk to the characters, do a battle, talk to the characters again after the barrier opens, rinse and repeat until you reach Terapagos and fight it. Terapagos is the new legendary, of course, and its kinda neat I guess? It really doesn't have much of a role in the DLC, though; it just kinda pops up at the very end of the story after you trudge through Area Zero again. There is buildup to it since this was what Ms. Briar was dying to get to Area Zero for throughout the whole story of Teal Mask and Indigo Disk, but I dunno it just didn't leave much of an impression on me. Certainly not the same kind of impact the AI Turo fight from the base game did, anyway.
I know I'm being a negative Nancy throughout a lot of this review, but I think I was hyperaware of Pokémon Violet's repetitiveness here and this DLC does next to nothing to spice it up. I'll talk about some things I liked in this paragraph to balance it out. Despite my gripes with how they handled Kieran, I do still like him as a character. I think the fact that he was so consumed by self-loathing and jealousy was interesting to see, though still rather frustrating since, again, we can't help him through it. The resolution to his arc is rather bittersweet: he realizes he will never be able to be as good as you, but he's also humbled by that experience and it seems like it was the only real way to get him to let go of the grudge. As for non-story related stuff, a few other people already mentioned this, but I do enjoy the shift towards a double battle focus here. The fights against the elite four were surprisingly really competent, I actually lost to each of them (except for Crispin) once or twice. My team is far from the most optimal team in the world, but even with the huge level advantage I had (since these DLCs don't seem balanced towards someone who kept the same team for the whole game) I still got clobbered by most of the Blueberry Elite Four at least once. It'd be interesting to see how I would fare against these guys if I was on the same level as them. Ironically, champ Kieran was one of the few that didn't beat me once. I also liked that we're back in Unova again; there's nothing about the design or environment of Blueberry Academy that really hints towards it being a Unovan location, but we do get some nice remixes of Gen 5 music and there are a good amount of returning Unova Pokemon here. Was really disappointed to see some of my favorite Pokemon - Vanillite and its evolutions - not return, though; I know they get a bad rep, but come on, throw me a bone here man! Nonetheless, I still found there was stuff to enjoy in this DLC.
I can't help but feel like this review has devolved into unfocused ramblings now, so I'll wrap it up here. I think that, overall, Indigo Disk is just okay. Its better than Teal Mask, but not by much. I give it an "alright" rating of 2.5 stars. At first, I gave it a 3, but in retrospect I think I have too many complaints about this DLC to justify it being a 3. I'm going to demote my rating of Teal Mask to a 2.5, as well.