>>41891892I don't think innovation is to be found in battle gimmicks. The battle mechanics of Pokémon are fairly fun and (can be) quite intricate as they currently are, and series like Dragon Quest put out quality games to this day without significant changes to their battle formula. The issue is that, overwhelmingly, Pokémon games don't make use of any of the existing mechanics beyond the rock-paper-scizzors type matchups.
So one fix might be to make more interesting strategies (boosting moves, baton passing, status ailments, etc.) more mandatory to beat certain challenges -- cap levels and give NPCs actually well-composed teams or something so you can't just power your way through what could otherwise be fun battles (but are, at the moment, just annoying roadblocks more than anything).
think new life can be best added to the games more through environmental changes. So, I don't know, maybe rearranging how Pokécenters and healing items work, changing how leveling works, even changing obedience so you have to work to make a Pokémon obey you, changing opponents' teams and AI so you actually need a strategy beyond "rock beats paper lol." I mean this is all stupid shit I've come up with in two minutes, I'm sure a team of proper game devs could come up with something to shake-up the formula that isn't just "BIG POKEMON WOW"
also an actually decent story would help -- there could be goals other than "i'm going to become the champion" or "i'm going to take down X retarded team with Y retarded goals" -- maybe there could be a profession system so you can specialize in, I don't know, breeding pokemon (maybe for elite trainers you can then battle) or running a gym (or managing a league) or something.