Pokémon Scarlet and Violet The Indigo Disk makes going to school fun for once

Pokémon Scarlet and Violet’s The Indigo Disk DLC will send you back to school but, this time, it will be a fun experience.

The base game of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet saw players enroll in the Naranja or Uva academy, depending on which edition of the game you had, but the classes were boring and offered little reward for mind-numbingly advancing through dialogue text. Thankfully, The Indigo Disk DLC looks to be changing the curriculum significantly to make it fun to attend classes rather than skiving off.

In a preview of the game, both IGN and Shacknews shared details of a class they attended where, after learning about regional forms of Pokémon, they were tasked with catching an Alolan Pokemon and bringing it back to show their success.

Although it may seem like a minor tweak, it should result in the gameplay being more meaningful, whereas the base game had me dreading every time the story directed me back to the academy and I had to sit through another lecture. While that may be representative of the real world, I don’t wish to return to my school days.

On the face of it, these types of tasks remind me of the side quests you could pick up in Pokémon Legends: Arceus, which introduced several mechanics of the game and provided some decent rewards—though I’m still haunted by the grind of catching a big Buizel. It remains to be seen just how in-depth these quests are, how many there are, and whether they are entirely optional, though we should get more details soon.

I actually hope they are separate to story progression like they were in Pokémon Legends: Arceus and give me something to do once I’ve boxed off everything the main questline has to offer. That’s as long as I’m not tasked with catching a giant Biuzel, of course.