>>53410913>designs ripped straight from pokemonThere's a lot of leeway here, but most of the draw from Pokémon is that the creatures are balanced between being simplistic and detailed, making them simplier would make it generic or stale, while giving them more details may make players associate the designs with other franchises or even other game archetypes. Unless you meant straight up reusing concepts Pokémon in particular already did, then that's a foul.
>two stage evolutionsNothing to say that fourth stages can't exist, but A) the rule of three is already applied in many other contexts and B) generally much more difficult to make each stage in a 4 line to be distinct, although one can argue that some Mega Pokemon have proven that.
>"elements" instead of typesThis is just conjecture, although "elements" does sound limiting as to what can be a monster category or not.
>"starter" monstersAs opposed to what? Just catching the first mon you encounter in the first area? Feel free to expand the choice of mons to more than 3, to be able to catch the other choices later in the game, or to not stick to the "all choices beat each other" trope, but let's not try and fix what isn't broken.
>some kind of item that allows you to catch the monsters and shrink them downHands down what makes Pokémon seem cool as an ingame universe, to be able to bring along a whole squad of creatures without feeling that a horde is stampeding behind you.
>"monster trainer"Again, conjecture. Can pick any term you want, doesn't really change what they are.
>>53410913 