New Pokemon Snap’s DLC adds a surprising amount of content

Barren Badlands

The Barren Badlands are a whole new area of Voluca Island that has you making your way through some aptly named badlands that…indeed…seem barren. This is a lot slower than the Mightywide River but there is so much going on here that you’ll feel like you’re going down a highway if you try to get everything in one go. There is a LOT of things to do here that require multiple steps.

Despite what the name might have you think, the Barren Badlands are teeming with life. A wide variety of Vivillon, multiple start Pokemon including Tepig, camera-shy Digletts, a slew of poison type Pokemon and a surprising amount of Magikarps just round out a few of the things to discover in this stage. Oh yeah. And Rockruff. Bless.

This stage also seems to exist to reinforce the fact that you NEED to play through these stages multiple times to see and do everything because while you’re over there focused on Tepid’s antics and trying to cause a boulder to roll, you missed out on this golden opportunity on your left.

And seriously, not only does this stage have a lot to do, whether it’s playing Whack-a-mole with Digglets, hide and seek with Shinx, Torchic, Tepid, and Rockruff, or causing a Tyranitar to lure out a legendary Pokemon these moments are almost always happening with something else going on in the other direction.

Try to get a picture of a Lycanrock acting like an edgelord and you’ll probably miss your chance at watching Rockruff protect its friends from a Mandibuzz. Try to get a Salazzel to dance and you might miss out on quarreling Crustle. Heck, trying to get a picture of a Koffing growing in size and you might miss a chance to catch a different Koffing being bitten by a Swalot.

The difficulty that comes with this stage will mostly come to people who want to do a lot in one go. You can’t. Well, you can but god would that not be fun. Like, if you want Diglett to do some cool stuff for you you’re going to need to focus for a while and throw Illuminaorbs at them while they dig around underground, luring them out. Capturing pictures of the legendary Pokemon requires you to snipe a specific shot via Fluffruit from VERY far away.

It’s a stage that requires a lot of patience, a lot of problem-solving, and offers very little by way of hints making it the second hardest stage to get everything in. It’s not the hardest though because that’s a distinction held by the next stage we’ll cover.