All of Pokemon’s DLC ranked, from best to worst
Believe it or not, things used to be much worse from Pokemon fans. You’d buy a copy of Pokemon Diamond or Pearl, only for Platinum to come out at full price later on. Not only did you have to spend $40 all over again, but you had to play the entire game over again. That warrants the incredibly tedious process of trading over all your Pokemon, one-by-one. And while many of the third version titles are the definitive versions of their respective regions – Emerald, Platinum, and Black 2 and White 2 – it never feels good having to restart your adventure from scratch. Thankfully, it seems this trend is just about over and done with. Since 2019, Pokemon has opted to develop and release DLC for its main series titles instead. With this system, you can continue your adventure in a new sub-region without having to start over. And today, we’re ranking every single Pokemon DLC to see which one comes out on top.
5. The Isle of Armor
This is actually the very first DLC Pokemon ever created for a main series game, so it makes some sense that The Isle of Armor is all the way down at the bottom. Quite frankly, there’s not much going on here. The player heads to The Isle of Armor and winds up training Kubfu as well as evolving it into either Single Strike or Rapid Strike Urshifu. There are also some new Gigantamax forms for the Kanto and Galar Starter Pokemon, and that’s kind of about it. The new Pokemon aren’t particularly interesting, at least in my opinion – Galarian Slowpoke, Galarian Slowbro, and Zarude are the only ones besides Kubfu and its evolved forms. The Isle of Armor also includes Restricted Sparring, the Cram-o-matic, and the Alolan Diglett side quest, but these aren’t likely to be fun for the average Pokemon player – they’re definitely more geared towards players who like to grind for hours on end. Still, The Isle of Armor itself is interesting to explore, though it isn’t the most well-designed of Pokemon’s DLC regions.
4. Mega Dimension
Pokemon Legends: Z-A’s Mega Dimension DLC has some notable strengths, but some extremely notable flaws, and in my opinion it winds up being a DLC aimed at the franchise’s most hardcore players. Mega Dimension adds a ton of play time to Pokemon Legends: Z-A, and for dedicated Pokemon fans who love Shiny hunting, this DLC is an easy recommendation. With the inclusion of sparkling donuts, players can Shiny hunt tons of returning Pokemon rather easily. Mega Dimension also has a solid story and a great final boss, plus plenty of memorable character interactions along the way.
That being said, this is by far and away the most grind-heavy DLC Pokemon has ever released, and I really hope things don’t continue in this direction in the future. Hyperspace Lumiose feels like a last-ditch excuse to prevent the developers from having to create areas outside of Lumiose City, and even then, there is a very small number of unique Hyperspace pockets to explore. Even within Hyperspace Lumiose itself, you will find yourself exploring the same exact areas over and over, just with different Pokemon available. Pair this with the Hyperspace Survey bar and the insane amount of points you need to advance the story, and you’ve got a DLC that gets dull fast. Did I play this for 100 hours? Yes. Do I think it’s mid? Absolutely. But given that we’re talking about Pokemon DLC, maybe the bar isn’t so high – in terms of budgets, you can tell the DLCs are vastly scaled down from the base games. I do appreciate, however, that Mega Dimension makes many Mythical Pokemon available without events for the very first time. Meltan and Melmetal feel particularly important there, and this is one trend I hope continues. We need a permanently catchable Victini and Zarude, too, as well as Celebi and Deoxys for when Pokemon Bank eventually shuts down.
3. The Teal Mask
Pokemon Scarlet and Violet’s first DLC, The Teal Mask, is pretty decent. Ogerpon is one of my favorite Legendary Pokemon – it has a really unique and memorable design. Additionally, it’s treated as an actual character rather than a generic throwaway Legendary Pokemon. Dipplin, Poltchageist, Sinistcha, and Bloodmoon Ursaluna are neat designs too, with the latter being treated as a one-off Pokemon despite not being Legendary. Unfortunately, The Teal Mask also introduces Okidogi, Munkidori, and Fezandipiti – these are some of the tamest, most forgettable Legendary Pokemon ever designed, in my opinion. Okidogi is the strongest of the three, but the others feel rather weak given their Legendary status. The only truly notable new feature this DLC introduces is Ogre Oustin’ which, again, probably won’t appeal to the average player for more than a few minutes. Kitakami is a neat little area with tons to explore, and although Pokemon Scarlet and Violet run fine on Nintendo Switch 2 now, the games did not run fine when this DLC first released. If Kitakami were part of any other game, it’d be much more well-liked – it could really use a graphical boost, given that a lot of the region is made up of flat rocks and textures. Regardless, it’s still fun to explore, even if the visuals don’t look very good.
2. The Indigo Disk
I had really high hopes for this expansion, and in some ways, it met them. In others, however, it definitely fell short – after Pokemon Scarlet and Violet’s fantastic final boss and ending, I was expecting much more from The Indigo Disk’s storyline, and in the end it failed to deliver. That being said, I feel like its new designs are mostly solid: Archaludon, Gouging Fire, Raging Bolt, Terapagos, Pecharunt, and especially Hydrapple all look really cool and are great additions to the game. I do think Iron Boulder and Iron Crown look cool too, but the future Paradox Pokemon designs generally feel much less creative to me. The Indigo Disk introduces all sorts of helpful features, from the Item Printer to the Synchro Machine, plus the Terarium serves as the absolute coolest DLC-exclusive area in Pokemon’s history. The premise of a giant terrarium in the middle of the ocean is already intriguing, but in practice, the Terarium includes a huge number of returning Pokemon and tons of references to Unova – Chargestone Cave is back! This entire DLC feels like a love letter to Unova, which is good given it seems we won’t be getting a Unova remake for quite some time.
With all of that said, my biggest issue with The Indigo Disk is how grindy it becomes. The core of its gameplay is finishing repetitive tasks to earn Blueberry Points, and eventually you’ll need so many of them that you’ll need to devote countless hours to running around the Terarium completing random tasks. This issue is especially prominent when you start capturing the new Legendary Pokemon, which require the completion of Blueberry Quests. To add to this, the player must track down these Legendary Pokemon via vague hints, and they could be found anywhere in the Paldea region. Without a guide, it would be extremely difficult to find these Legendary Pokemon. For all of The Indigo Disk’s strengths, it has just as many flaws holding it back.
1. The Crown Tundra
For me personally, The Crown Tundra is the DLC expansion I got the most time and enjoyment out of. Starting off with its new Pokemon, we’ve got some solid additions here. There are Galarian forms of Articuno, Zapdos, Moltres, and Slowking as well as Regieleki, Regidrago, Glastrier, Spectrier, and Calyrex. Admittedly, I didn’t like Calyrex’s design at first, but The Crown Tundra’s story actually treats Calyrex as a character who can speak with you only by possessing humans, and after a while it really starts to grow on you. You help Calyrex regain its power and even choose a steed for it, and in exchange for your help, Calyrex recognizes your worth and decides to go with you.
The real reason The Crown Tundra is #1, however, is Dynamax Adventures. This mode alone can get you 200 hours if you love Shiny hunting, with solid 1 in 100 odds if you have the Shiny Charm. You can hunt for Tapu Koko, Tapu Lele, Tapu Bulu, Tapu Fini, Solgaleo, Lunala, and Necrozma, among many others, who previously were not available outside of events. You can even catch all the Ultra Beasts in this game, as well as Cosmog and Keldeo. There are still some flaws, even though this is #1 on the list – not everyone loves Dynamax Adventures, and if that’s you, then The Crown Tundra probably isn’t particularly special to you.
Here’s hoping that future Pokemon DLCs are of an even higher quality. As mentioned before, it feels like they’re much, much smaller-scale than the base games, and in many ways, the DLCs always have a focus on grinding that winds up alienating casual players in a way. Again, I really hope Mega Dimension’s doubling down on grinding Hyperspace Survey points (on top of The Indigo Disk’s doubling down on grinding Blueberry Points) isn’t indicative of the direction that every future DLC will go. Grinding for points just isn’t fun, even if redeeming the rewards is. You could argue that Dynamax Adventures follows that same grinding format, but hey – at least you can get Shiny Legendary Pokemon out of it. That’s gotta count for something!
What’s your favorite and least favorite Pokemon DLC? Feel free to rank them in the comments. If you’d like, you can learn more about Pokemon Legends: Z-A’s Mega Dimension DLC over at the official website.
