A visual hybrid of Pokemon Let's Go Pikachu and Pokemon SW/SH but heavily inspired by Gold/Silver/Crystal.
Fully open world. The entire map is accessible from the start and not locked behind story/badges/skills. You can pick from 3 starting areas which affects the order you face gyms. Example:
Town A = 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
Town B = 4, 3, 1, 2, 5, 7, 6, 8.
Town C = 7, 5, 4, 3, 1, 2, 6, 8.
Whatever town you pick will have a gym and that's the gym you face first. No matter where you start you will do the same gym last.
Heavy focus on dialogue and RPG. You don't just level up your pokemon but also your character and pokeballs. Your pokemon will have Health, Stamina, Attack, Defense, etc. Your character will have stats like:
Fitness - how far you can run and how long you can battle for. at the start you'll only be able to battle wild pokemon in short fights. trainer battles will last longer requiring better fitness. gyms will require fighting multiple trainers in a row and the gym leader will take longer than a normal trainer fight. Also affects how much you can carry in your bag.
Skill - mostly affects pokeballs and how far/accurately you can throw them but also improves battle skills.
Charm - affects your relationship with pokemon, other trainers, and shop merchants. can help you get extra rewards or cheaper prices.
Tech - a small boost to the success rate of catching a pokemon but also helps you sneak into restricted areas (think hacking/lockpicking).
There is only one type of Pokeball in the game. The basic red/white one but you can change appearance with skins. You are given 8 at the start of the game and they attached to your belt. You can carry more in your bag. When you catch Pokemon and there is no empty Pokeball on your belt you would store that Pokeball in your bag instead of sending it to a computer. You can still do that but you'll always have full access to your Pokemon... as long as you have enough storage space and Fitness to carry them all. Even though you can level up your Pokeballs some stores might sell ones with really good stats. You can also change your Pokemon's Pokeball if you want to give it a certain stat boost for a battle.
Pokeballs need levelled up but are more about giving bonuses to pokemon/character stats. Stats would be:
Weight - ties with your characters Skill + Fitnesss. gives a large boost to how far you an throw it and a small boost to Fitness letting you run/battle longer. if you have high Weight lvl and you store it in your bag it takes up less capacity.
Accuracy - ties with your characters Skill + Tech. gives a small increased chance of hitting a pokemon and largely improves success rate of catching a pokemon.
Comfort - affects recovery health of a pokemon if it is damaged. if you catch a damaged Pokemon or take one out of battle it will recover health while in the Pokeball. Also affects happiness and relationship with you.
Type - ties in with a Pokemon type (fire, water, grass etc) and gives a boost (either attack or defense) to which ever type you pick. Say you pick Fire. if you put a fire Pokemon in it will have increased Fire damage. If you have a Grass Pokemon it will have increased Fire resistance.
Your Pokemon will level up as it battles or the more you interact with it. To level up your character and Pokeballs you use your Pokedex.
Get rid of the Elite 4. Make a Pokemon Knockout Tournament. Starts with 8 trainers:
1. You
2. Your best friend
3. A friend you meet throughout the story
4. Your rival
5. Enemy trainer (from something like Team Rocket)
6. Previous Champion
7. ???
8. ???
It's completely random so in the first round you could be facing your best friend or the previous champion. Quarter final > semi final > final. instead of fighting each round one after another there is a period of time that you need to spend training. it could be 24-72 hours in game. you really do need to train cause if you don't you will have very little chance of winning. whoever wins is crowned Champion.
Once you become champion then you go into something like a mix of Seasons/New Game+. Instead of starting off at the beginning of the game you go into a whole new area with new gyms, missions, story, etc (think of like going to Kanto in G/S). You are automatically entered into the next season of Pokemon League (Season #2) since you are champion (Season #1) so you don't really need to do anything but if you want to stand a chance you'll need to go through the new area, complete missions, and fight the 8 gym leaders to strengthen up. If you fail to defend your title you be kicked back to the start of that area and a new season begins (you won't lose story progress/missions/XP/levels etc. just your badges. so it should be much easier second time). If you become champion again then the entire game is reset except you keep your Pokemon, levels, stats but wild pokemon and trainers are much stronger.
wow...i got carried away lol. it's not perfect i suppose but i did just come up with all that as i typed it out lol. there's probably a lot more i could add or change but i think that gives you a general idea of what kind of Pokemon game i want lol.