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When PokéMon Red and Blue came out, I was as happy as a young boy could be. Catching monsters and using them in turn-based battles was an exciting concept. I can think of few games that I have obsessed over as much as the original PokéMon generation in its day.

That being said, I can’t help but feel like each new generation is limiting itself in a lot of very arbitrary ways. While some things never change in order to preserve connectivity with older titles, other aspects remain stagnant for no apparent reason.

That isn’t to say new generations aren’t bringing anything new to the table. As the series has progressed we’ve seen new areas, new PokéMon, new elements, double battles, and more. But I’d like to take a moment and re-examine the series and see where its great concept could go if it wasn’t held back by its old traditions.

More Than Four Attacks Per PokéMon

I know it sounds crazy, but hear me out. What if you didn’t have to constantly forget old moves to learn new ones? One might argue that only having four attacks are what help set apart other players using the same PokéMon. That is why I suggest that no move be forgotten, but only four moves can be active at once. That way, you never have to regret forgetting an earlier move while at the same time retaining the customization of your current usable set.

If left unchecked, people could easily cheat the Power Points (PP) limits by switching which attacks were in their set once they ran low. This, however, can easily be solved by only letting you switch which attacks are in your set while in a PokéCenter; a place where PP would be refilled anyway.

Hidden Machines (HMs) Need to Change

As it stands now, HMs like Cut and Rock Smash are required to progress along the map. The problem is that you need to permanently take up one of your PokéMon’s attack slots to learn these abilities. If you want to be able to progress through any type of terrain that comes up in your travels, you’ll end up needing a lot of HMs applied to your team.

Instead, all the field versions of those abilities should be dormant in the PokéMon that can learn them, then unlocked when the appropriate badge is acquired. The battle versions could be added to your ability list (mentioned in the previous section) at this time as well.

Have the Option of Switching Current PokéMon With Newly Caught PokéMon

There’s a certain type of Poké Ball called a Heal Ball for healing newly caught PokéMon. This item is generally useless to me because I always head out with a full party of six PokéMon. By the time I’d retrieve the new PokéMon, he would already be at full health anyway. Instead of transferring newly caught PokéMon to your PC when your party is already full, you should be given the option of transferring one of your current PokéMon instead and taking the new one with you.

Update the User Interface (UI)

Many of the menus found in modern PokéMon games feel virtually unchanged from the original. If you want to switch PokéMon with ones stored in your PC, they give you a separate menu for Withdraw and Deposit. Move, which can accomplish both actions, is buried below. It’s a convoluted system that could use some streamlining.

When you are in battle, you should be able to hit a button to see all the details of an attack. Technically, you can check the details of an attack, but you currently have to go into the PokéMon switching menu, click on a PokéMon, click Summary, then turn over one page, then highlight the desired attack. This is utterly ridiculous and it’s hard to argue that it is anything but a bad design choice.

When walking around, if one of your PokéMon has a status ailment, this will take the place of what level they are despite that there is room for it to appear elsewhere. It’s little things like this that add up to frustration and could be fixed very easily.

Serious Graphical Overhaul

With the successor to the Nintendo DS on the way, we can be sure that portable gaming will have even more graphical potential in the near future. Rather than having still frames of PokéMon slide around as disconnected attack animations play over the top of them, we should be able to see PokéMon actually performing these attacks. This would most likely use 3D models similar to the style of PokéMon Battle Revolution.

Create Your Own Character

Going along with improved graphics, you should be able to use a character creation tool at the start of the game to change your appearance instead of just choosing “Boy” or “Girl”. Besides personalizing the experience in single-player, this would also make playing with people online a lot more interesting. Perhaps you could even unlock additional clothes for you character to wear by accomplishing different things in the game.

Final Thoughts…

The whole concept of the PokéMon series is both incredibly fun and addicting. Even without many changes to the core gameplay, it has managed to remain a very enjoyable experience. Just think, though, about how much untapped potential it really has.

So what are your thoughts? Do you agree or disagree with any of the points above? What would YOU change?

Tags: 3DS, DS, Editorials, GameFreak, Nintendo, PokeMon

This entry was posted on Monday, March 29th, 2010 at 5:00 am and is filed under Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.