It’s very easy to make lists related to the Pokémon series, if only due to the sheer number of elements in it. Over 900 species with tons of alternate forms, eight generations in the main series and countless side-games, items as far as the eye can see, abilities and moves and whatnot…
Oh, and gameplay mechanics. So many gameplay mechanics. Most of the core mechanics come back, all the time – and we’re thankful for it. Berries, special Pokéballs, hidden abilities – all things that the games can’t do without by this point. However, some things showed up for a single Generation. Game Freak keeps finding new ideas for mechanics related to Pokémon encounters, but also has the bad habit of dropping things nilly-willy between games in the main series.
Today, I’m digging through over 20 years of Pokémon to pick out 12 things that I would like to see making a comeback, in some way or another, in the franchise. Usually because it’s a cool idea on its own, or because it would be quite great to see it be implemented with newer mechanics that have stayed… I’m also not saying that all of these mechanics could fit into a single game, either, as some can't coexist. Keep in mind that I haven’t played any games from Gen VIII (Sword/Shield and everything that will come after), so examples from those games will be rare in the list. Most of my examples are based on my own gaming experiences with the franchise, ranging from Gens III to VII.
Before I begin, here is one willful omission: The National Dex. As much as I would love to see a game in which we can genuinely “catch them all” again, I also acknowledge that the franchise’s unsustainable growth and the inclusion of more and more species means that there has to be cuts at some point. While I dislike Game Freak’s actual explanation (and excuses) for it, I do agree that it’s getting harder and harder to include every Pokémon in one single game. Hardware limitations and other factors are the cause for it. Mind you, it’s sad for me as I’m a collector above anything else in Pokémon, so I love to have a full living Dex. I don’t like having Pokémon cut out, but I have come to reluctantly accept it. With this, on with the list. Starting with…
11. Horde encounters (Gen VI)
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"The four of us will be very protective of
our little sister." |
Something really cool could happen as you ventured across Kalos: Suddenly, instead of meeting a single Pokémon, here are five staring you down. All of them have low levels for the area, so they’re a manageable threat against your single Pokémon (and, of course, wide-range attacks like Earthquake will make quick work of them). It was a nice change of pace from the almost exclusively solo wild Pokémon in the franchise at the time. The most interesting idea was that sometimes, you’d face more than one family of Pokémon, and the AI would interact in the intended way (as an example, 4 Zangoose and a Seviper would see the Zangoose gang up on their lizard enemy). That last idea, in particular, was recycled for some SOS Calls in Alola. The one downside is that you could hardly tell which Pokémon in the group was worth catching, since you could only catch one of the five. I’d like to see this come back – who knows, newer games could add interesting spins to this.
10. Shadow Pokémon (Gen III)
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This Croconaw has an aura so dark, the lights
in the entire area have dimmed.
What happened to the sun?!? |
Okay, this might be cheating, as shadow Pokémon were a mechanic of the spin-off titles Pokémon Colosseum and XD: Gale of Darkness. Although they’ve certainly left an impression, from the unique mechanics surrounding them to the idea of purifying these Pokémon, to the point where a fanmade mods for XD is trying to further expand on the idea and add Shadow Pokémon past the third Gen. Honestly? I hope we get a new game with Shadow Pokémon sometime in the future. With the Switch’s capabilities and how far the franchise has come since, it could lead to something great. Everything about the Shadow Pokémon could, of course, be tweaked to accommodate the newer mechanics the franchise has introduced. Who knows what Cipher are up to...
9. Dark grass (Gen V)
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A Beartic and a Sawsbuck? It's my lucky day!
Oh right, I can only catch one... |
Among the ideas that Pokémon Black and White introduced, we have those patches of dark grass on most Routes. The idea is that they’re not mandatory to go through, just a little off the beaten path. There are differences, however; the species met in dark grass are the same met on that Route, however they are at slightly higher levels. There’s also the possibility of encountering two wild Pokémon at once. It meant higher experience if you were willing to take that risk, and possibly a challenge for your team as well. Implementing this in new games wouldn’t be too difficult (though, I can imagine it would make designing new Routes tricky, if we want to have dark grass on every Route) and could lead to interesting encounters.
8. Real time and week days (Gens II, IV)
I don’t recall playing Gold or Silver proper, but I did have about 300 hours of experience on HeartGold and loving the Heck out of the game keeping track of the time and the day. Time has been a recurring feature of Pokémon ever since Johto (barring the Gen I remakes in Gen III), due to many Pokémon either evolving or appearing in the wild exclusively at daytime or nighttime. However, I liked to see the game having events based on the days of the week. And not just two or three, either; an entire laundry list of them,
as you can read on Bulbapedia. Of course, the one thing I loved most with this concept is that it allowed me to stay in contact with several of the important NPCs (such as the Gym Leaders) and eventually rematch them. (That is also something I’d like to see making a comeback, for the record.) Why not implement week day events again in a future entry?
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And Gym Leader rematches too, please.
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7. Ride Pokémon (Gen VII-VIII)
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The ones you're most likely to use: Tauros, Lapras,
Charizard. The others, you won't use them as much:
Stoutland, Mudsdale, Sharpedo, Machamp. |
Friggin’ HM Slaves… One of the coolest and, at the same time, most annoying, early features of Pokémon was HMs, very special moves that had an effect on the overworld. Think Fly to fast-travel between Centers, or Surf to cross water. The downside is that for later Routes and the dreaded Victory Road, you had to have specific Pokémon in your team who would serve no purpose other than having HM moves to get through the annoyances in the way. The games set in Alola revised this with Ride Pokémon, meaning that you could simply call a Pokémon to do what you want to do, and thus you didn’t need to reserve attack spots on your team for HMs, some of which were annoyingly lackluster attacks on their own (think Flash or Cut). I haven’t played the Galar games, but I’ve heard that the concept of Ride Pokémon hasn’t entirely gone away, so I hope it’s a mechanic Game Freak doesn’t move away from. It makes everything so much simpler.
6. Mega Evolutions (Gens VI-VII)
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Very cool during Contests.
P.S. Contests are NOT on this list.
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Yes! I know, I’ve warmed up to them! Alright! It’s not like my years-old post about “Why I Dislike Mega Evolutions” isn’t still getting views or anything! Well, allow me to further explain. I’ve grown to appreciate them because I’ve been using them for a while, and I do like the attempts at balancing them. I’m not going to say that we need a Mega Evolution for every family, but it could be a valuable addition to some evolution families that need them. And, bonus, you don’t need an entire new type of battle in order to appreciate them (unlike Dynamaxing and Gigantamaxing, which I loathe – Gigantamax forms, in particular, look goddamn ridiculous). There’s only 48 Mega Evolutions existing at the moment, with a dire lack of them for any families past the fourth Gen (with only Audino and Diancie getting them). Bumping that number a bit would be fine by me, as there are plenty of Pokémon in Gens V and above who could benefit from it. It’s also a lot easier to implement.
5. Pokémon-Amie/Refresh (Gens VI-VII)
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| What a big, happy boi! |
The franchise had been trying forever to give players the impression that they were genuinely having relationships with their Pokémon, but there was always something missing. With Pokémon-Amie (renamed Pokémon Refresh in Alola), you could finally develop a friendship with your party, petting, feeding and caring for them. To an extent well beyond anything that had been done before. To be fair, the idea does have a couple flaws that become evident the longer you play around in the mode – so some additional tweaks would be fine. I know Sword and Shield offer Pokémon Camp, which allow Pokémon you own to also interact between each other, and that’s nice too – if you ask me, we’d need something that’s a combination of the two. Improve the general idea of Amie/Refresh, throw in some Camp, who knows? We could get an interaction simulator that gets the better parts of both, for a fantastic experience of caring for your creatures.
4. Follower Pokémon (Gens I, IV, VII)
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Why are you surprised?
Yeah, GOD is following me around.
I'm just THAT awesome. |
First was Pikachu in Pokémon Yellow. Then we had the first Pokémon in the player’s party in HG/SS. Then we had the Gen I beasts in the Gen VII Let’s Go titles. (And there might be some of that in the Gen VIII DLC as well?) Of those, I only have experience with HeartGold, but it already gave the most perfect version of the idea that an older Generation could provide. The Pokémon would follow the Trainer around (with some not following into buildings due to their height or weight), offer some sort of insight on the locations they visit, and interact with the Trainer. “Scyther poked your belly!” That joke never gets old. Whereas Amie and Refresh could be seen as a one-on-one with the Pokémon, this actually allowed a creature to react to the environment in ways that they never could in other titles where they stayed in their Balls. With the franchise’s hard turn to full 3D, this might be a bit difficult to implement as it would require creating new overworld animations for every Pokémon. Outside of that – the interaction system would be built upon the stuff we had in the Gen II remakes, I don’t think it would require a lot of tweaks to work. I want this to come back, oh so much!
3. “SOS Call” encounters (Gen VII)
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Sorry, Corsola; Mareanie is what I
was looking for. |
One of my favorite aspects of the games set in Alola is the wild encounters in which a Pokémon calls for help, with a chance of one coming to help. The idea wasn’t perfect in the original Sun and Moon, as Pokémon could call anytime they wanted, and a chain could start even if you didn’t want one – the Ultra “remakes” limited the call to one extra Pokémon unless you personally choose to lengthen the encounter with an Adrenaline Orb. Much like in hordes, a Pokémon can sometimes call one of a different species of the same family (like a Salamence coming to help a Bagon on Route 3), or a Pokémon from an entirely different family (it’s the only way to get Pokémon such as Sableye or Mareanie). The idea was expanded further with the inclusion of some species who appear when called only during precise weathers. The one exception is that Pokémon who have been inflicted a status effect can’t call (which is weird, you’d think a Pokémon that’s burned or poisoned would be begging for help!). All the stepping stones are there; since Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon only had about 400 Pokémon to their Dex, I’d like to see SOS encounters done for Pokémon families that weren’t part of it.
2. Visiting an entire second region (Gen II)
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| Twice the region... twice the game! |
Johto isn’t a bad region on its own, but it’s always felt a tad… lacking. However, both the original and the remakes of that Generation included Kanto, slightly different from how it existed in the games a Generation prior, but still recognizable. I know Kanto is supposed to be some form of postgame, but I tend to prefer considering it the second half of the full game (with Red as the final boss). Imagine having a new Pokémon game that allows players to visit the entirety of another region later in the game. Not a new bonus area, not a postgame, literally: The map you’ve been shown this whole time is only half the full game, here’s more to do, now go and be awesome over there too! That’s not as deep as that idea going around of a genuine Pokémon MMO that involves all eight regions, but having two regions to visit in a new set of games would be fantastic!
What could top this? You’ll find out soon enough, but first, the runner-ups:
-Battle Royale (VII): It didn’t leave much of an impact on me, but it’s an alright idea.
-Phenomenon (V): Do Sword and Shield use rustling grass, dust clouds, shadows of flying birds? They should.
-Rematching against Trainers and Gym Leaders (II-VI?): Isn't it sad that most of the time, you never interact with trainers, even semi-important ones, after beating them?
-Seasons (V): Would be near-impossible to implement in 3D, but it would look nice!
-Super Training (VI): I am not very attached to that one, though I’m told it’s useful to raise competitive Pokémon.
-Z-Moves (VII): Arceus bless Game Freak, they tried, but it just wasn’t so interesting to me. I kind of want them back, but won’t cry if they never reappear.
-Safari Zones (I, III, IV): Balancing the variants Game Freak created over time, we could have an interesting return of the feature.
1. Difficulty settings (Gen V)
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| Make my game harder? Yes please. |
I haven’t played Pokémon Black 2 and White 2. However, I’ve heard of a feature they have called the Unova Link, which allows players to change the game’s difficulty to either an Easy Mode or a Challenge Mode. The way those difficulty settings were unlocked is actually rather impractical, if you ask me – so I’d prefer if it was unlocked by, say, beating the game a first time. It’s actually a recurring point I’ve read regarding the Pokémon franchise: In its attempt to be accessible to new players while keeping its complexity for long-time fans, the main game itself has started feeling easy to a lot of players. There’s the odd curveball here and there (hello, Ultra Necrozma), but the story-based fights are disappointing to experienced players. Adding difficulty settings to a future Pokémon game could shake things up a bit, even if that just means changing the levels of Pokémon in the wild and used by trainers (decreasing them for an Easy Mode, increasing them, perhaps drastically even for a Hard Mode) and, perhaps, adding extra Pokémon in plot-relevant battles. This would be great to shake up the formula and solve the issue of the difficulty as perceived by long-time players, who’d finally be allowed to face a bigger challenge after beating the game once.
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Here's an example with Roxie, the Poison-type
Gym Leader of B2W2. In Challenge Mode, she
has an extra Pokémon and they're all a couple
extra levels higher.
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Phew! Alright, that’s it for this week. Do you agree with my choices? Disagree? Think I forgot some features? Feel free to comment. And tune in soon for a review of a 3DS game.
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