Thoughts on The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero Part 2: The Indigo Disk

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author, and does not reflect the viewpoints of Nintendo, The Pokémon Company, Game Freak, or any other entity involved with the Pokémon franchise.

WARNING: This article contains spoilers for The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero Part 2: The Indigo Disk. We don’t recommend reading this until you’ve completed it, and please proceed at your own risk.

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Now I know why Game Freak had not fixed the framerate issues in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet. They’re trying to load the entire world at once. They should use a fog effect to hide the portions of the map when it’s not in use by the game.

I didn’t know The Indigo Disk took place in New York and not Andorra or Southern France or something. It might be Long Island specifically, but the entire world is comprised of a world that would’ve looked like a corrupted Minecraft world. You have a coastal and savannah biome, but why a tropical one!? New York isn’t even located in the tropics to begin with. It was nice we got some Alolan form Pokémon!

Speaking of the new Elite Four, good lord. I spent several hours grinding for EXP candies to level up my entire team to 100. Unlike the original Elite Four where I grinded my team to 70, the difficulty is much higher. I got stuck on the first one and had to grind up to 100. Did I not read the fine print on that one walkthrough website or something!? One good thing I do have to say is you can challenge them in any order like in Generations 5-7, and you can heal in between, though one thing I didn’t like was having to complete challenges and side quests just to challenge them. Luckily, they are short, not difficult, and don’t involve having to do much.

Why was the Blueberry Elite Four, including the champion battle, more challenging than the previous ones? Well, all of them are double battles. Even though double battles are more fun than single, it also added to their difficulty. Even Pokémon Colosseum and XD: Gale of Darkness were like that. I played both games as a kid, and I loved Colosseum‘s darker tone. There needs to be a Soulslike Pokémon game in the future.

Both the main campaign and the expansion end in the Great Crater of Paldea. This is said to be the mythical origin of Terastal Pokémon. Why did the Expansion Pass have to introduce a new type!? We already have eighteen types and the last new type was introduced a decade ago. I’m not modifying Touhou Kourinden ~ Mythos of Phantasmagoria to include that new type.

After I finished the Expansion Pass after an epic final battle, I am very happy that I do not have to play this glitch game ever again.

Emiko’s Thoughts

Shortly after the game was released, Emiko Hosokawa placed a bet that if Kieran was actually the BB League Champion, she would draw Hayako Denki from the Touhou fan-made album Awakening Deep Mythos as a future side project. And as I reached the penultimate boss fight against the BB League Champion, she instantly won the bet and have to take her offer. For the offer she made for the bet, it is not known when will she do this, but she said that she might do it during Q1 2024. Also, it is currently not known if Hayako has anything to do with the plot of her fanfic anthology, Helligbard (given she finally strike a licensing deal with Wookywok (the original author of Awakening Deep Mythos).

UPDATE (12/17/2023): Due to changes in her art schedules, her plans to draw Hayako as according to the terms of her bet on Kieran is now pushed back to May 2024.