The Almighty Aardvark said:
Congratulations! You have been tasked with reinvigorating the Pokemon series. We have to admit our games have been a little stale on the innovation front, and while we do have some plans for the future (4 blades Pokemon battles, but try to keep that under wraps, we want to shock people with the big reveal), we're interested to hear your ideas.
To get the ball rolling, one thing I think the series could sorely use is adopting some rogue-like elements. Make every game a little bit different. The series is definitely simple enough to do that. One big area I think this could be done is with randomizing Pokemon location distributions. Tired of finding the exact same Pokemon at the exact same point of the game? Maybe on your second playthrough you'll find a Rhyhorn in an early area, instead of finding one at level 40 once your team's already been set up. It will improve replayability, and give you access to a wider array of Pokemon than you'd normally have
Doesn't this thing fall more into the category of procedural generation rather than roguelike? Because to my mind a roguelike is a game where you achieve success through repeated failure, and inch step by step closer to your goal. Anyway, whatever you call it, I agree. Pokemon was made for this kind of thing. It could either be in the main game as changed trainers' pokemon, or as an optional, infinite end-game dungeon (like in Torchlight), where you meet tougher and tougher trainers. Or the option to start out with
any type of pokemon you want, and the game reacting to it. Like being able to choose a dark pokemon as a starter, or a steel pokemon and so on.
Greater variety of pokemon appearing in all areas. There's over 700 of the little fucks now, yet you still encounter maybe 5 different pokemon at most in different zones. You could easily make that 15, hell, make it 25, and you'll still have enough pokemon left over to make them the rare ones.
New Game+. After recently defeating Red in emulated Pokemon Silver (with a team where everyone was under lvl 60) I was flabbergasted at the fact that I ever had the patience to get my pokemon to lvl 100 as a kid. After beating the final boss there's nothing but grind without reward, and that has no place in 2016. Start the game again where the first gym leader's pokemon are at least lvl 50, and the last around 85-90.
Difficulty levels. I know it's a game directed at a young audience, but difficulty levels really wouldn't take away from that, would they? Make the AI really vicious on higher levels. Make them use the most cruel tactics. Also, you could add the chance of encountering pokemon way out of your league in the wilderness. Imagine encountering a lvl 30 Rhyhorn with only your lvl 15 starter, and escaping by the skin of your teeth. Or maybe whittling it down inch by inch, and then capturing it to boost your team tremendously.
Definitely change the HMs. Moves like Flash, Rock Smash and Cut have never done anything but cripple pok?mon who have to give up a move slot for some shitty obligatory game progression system. First, remove the HMs from being moves, and just items used on their own. Maybe you still need a pokemon able to use it (ie. a water pokemon to use Surf, a Flying pokemon to Fly) to be able to use them, but definitely take out the fucking goddamn shit-pissing shoulda-been-aborted retarded step of "USE SURF?" Just cut the tree out of my way, I've got places to be!
More hidden areas! Tons more, with rare pok?mon and loot. Make the paths really obscure and hard to find. I'm talking Painted World of Ariamis levels of obscure here. Maybe have separate dungeons for all the ninety zillion legendary pokemon the series has by now.
More hold slots for items. Maybe separate ones for buff items like Miracle Seed and Mystic Water, and healing items like Berries.
And for fuck's sake, no more roaming pokemon! Nothing screams "PADDING!!!!" like being forced to zigzag around the world in the hopes of finding a pokemon that you can throw one ball at, and then immediately flying to another location to find it again.