I didn’t really likeThe Teal Mask. It suffers from all the same problems asPokemon Scarlet & Violetand doesn’t add enough new characters, stories, or monsters to justify its existence. The characters are dull, the region is boring, and there are just eight new Pokemon, half of which are Legendaries, and badly designed Legendaries at that.
The Teal Mask’s saving grace when it comes to monster designs, interesting characters, and unique quests is the Bloodmoon quest. There’s a photographer called Perrin hanging around Mossui Town, who will only deign you worth talking to if you’ve registered 150 Pokemon on your Kitakamian PokeDex. That’s 75 percent completion and a fairly tall task, meaning you most likely won’t be able to engage with her until you finish the game’s main story.
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However, it’s worth the wait. I described Perrin as a bit of a knob just then, but she’s comfortably the best character in the DLC. A photographer who has lost her passion, she’s set on hunting the Bloodmoon beast to reignite her love of the hobby. It’s a nice, character-motivated quest for once, and Perrin’s wholesome enough to make you care about her feelings towards photography.
There’s one section in particular that shines, as you head towards the foggy forest where Bloodmoon Ursaluna lurks. Perrin is setting up her shots and calling for a Poliwhirl to pose, directing it to work the camera so that she can grab her snaps. You can just stand and watch, her passion clearly showing through.
Then there’s a minigame: think Pokemon Snap, but kinda bad. It’s got nothing on the real thing, but running around a spooky forest snapping pics of wild Pokemon is a fun activity and makes a change from the main quests in The Teal Mask, which amount to ‘go here’, ‘go there’, or ‘battle this boss trainer who uses unevolved Pokemon for some reason’.
I purposefully took the worst photos possible, and Perrin still heaped me with praise – I assume she pitied me and my innate lack of artistic talent — but she really listened when I told her that I just wanted to capture the animals as they were.
The quest culminates in a battle with Bloodmoon Ursaluna itself, and a chance to capture the best-designed new ‘mon. This is the most derivative part of the entire quest, a boss fight like any other, but Bloodmoon Ursaluna’s messed up design and bespoke signature move make it exciting – the fog-shrouded forest setting only adds to the creepiness.
Perrin’s pictures turn out to be terrible; out of focus and blurry. I’m sure the fog didn’t help her situation, but she’s surprisingly happy with the results. She photographed Ursaluna in the wild, in the heat of battle, and you single-handedly helped her to reignite her passion for her favourite hobby. She says she’ll see you again, and I can’t wait for her appearance in The Indigo Disk. If they can better implement the Snap-esque photography, we’re in for a treat.
This quest is a glimpse of what open-world Pokemon games can, and should, be. Imagine if Paldea was populated by these unique missions rather than leaving you to wander aimlessly across the land before raiding a few bases. If, when walking the route between Asado Desert and Casseroya Lake, you meet a strange figure tempting you west with the promise of hidden treasure or secret monsters. Instead of spending hours collecting stakes in the ground for the Treasures of Ruin, could we not have had a character-driven quest to find each one?
Paldea was empty, bereft of anything interesting to do between the towns and gyms. It’s an open world by description but pales in comparison to the likes of Breath of the Wild. If it was populated by characters like Perrin, offering out bespoke missions to find unique Pokemon, it would feel a lot more alive, and we might be able to overlook the bugs and performance issues.
In many ways, the Bloodmoon quest is like Perrin’s photos of Ursaluna. It’s imperfect, not quite the finished article, but it might just have reignited my love of Pokemon.
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