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Without exaggeration, the Indigo Disk battles are honestly everything I've ever wanted out of Pokemon post-game challenges. Like, I'm legitimately blown away by how great they were. Making this a Part 2 to the previous DLC was an ingenious move, not just for the story but to take into account player progression and make it a real challenge. I was using my in-game, suboptimal squad, so I was genuinely really surprised by just how much I had to struggle to win with some of these fights! I find that even the generic trainers are all pretty well designed, but in my opinion the highlights are:
* Lacey's entire team; in particular, her lead Whimsicott and the Tera-Fairy Excadrill. The Whimsicott is just an amazing lead for a Fairy specialist and does a lot to make her team threatening, not much else to say there. In my original post, I expressed my frustration about every Gym Leader ace just using Tera to get into their assigned type, but I think Lacey actually uses her Excadrill to great effect - its Ground/Steel STABS are perfect for breaking the Poison and Steel types that otherwise threaten her Fairy types, and the Fairy STAB + defensive typing lets it break the Fighting types that it normally struggles against. It's a great fit, both as a team member and as a callback to her dad!
* Crispin's Harvest Exeggutor is such a fun set, I really love it. I wish that he had a Chlorophyll sweeper somewhere on his team - I think Scovillain in particular would be thematically
perfect for him - but I love that we have a Fire specialist taking advantage of Sun's properties for Grass types as well.
* Drayton's Kingdra + Archaludon is a great combo, I really love it. His team might be
too strong for in-game if he had a Drizzle 'mon of some kind, but I think Rain Dance + Swift Swim Kingdra is a great compromise; lets his Archaludon abuse Electro Shot, and the Kingdra itself becomes a lot scarier once it has Swift Swim up.
* Kieran's team just blows me away, holy shit. Prankster + Sash Grimmsnarl, Intimidate + Fake Out Incineroar, the Tera-Fighting Hydrapple... this is the closest we've ever seen to a proper competitive in-game team in the series, even including Frontier sets, and I really love it. It was mentioned in the Indigo Disk discussion thread by Pika Pal that his team is also set-up very well to counter Ogerpon in all its forms, which I think is a fantastic touch. There are some aspects of the team that are sub-optimal of course - the usage of Hydrapple itself tragically being foremost - but it's an amazing team and I'm really happy to see a fight of this caliber in an in-game context.
* Geeta's actually competent now???? Glimmora as her lead and Kingambit in the back really was the bare minimum change that she needed for her team to be cohesive, but it just works so well; the cherry on top being the Tera-Flying Kingambit, which is more terrifying than it has any right to be. The additions of Chesnaught and especially Dragapult are also nice additions to what was otherwise a very underpowered and underwhelming team before.
In short: I'm sorry, Scarlet and Violet. I underestimated your game. I still hold steadfast to my opinion that the main-game fights, particularly the Gym Leader fights, are frankly embarrassing and should have gone back to the drawing board, but at risk of coming off as hyperbolic, the new fights in the Indigo Disk 100% make up for that. It's a great challenge, and I hope we see more like it going forward.