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Back to 2D. No pixels, hand draw that shit. Color it like the old official art. Battles sprites are animated like gen 5 but since it's hand drawn, you don't get that trash tier mixel effect. Scale back all the sci-fi shit. Pokemon should be more rustic full of wilderness and rural areas. Routes should be bigger. I want people thinking they should actually use potions instead of just bitching out and walking back to the pokemon center. And the pokemon center should bring back the log cabin aesthetic from gen 1.
More side content that you can do in the main story that isn't related to gyms or the antagonists. I don't mean gimmick shit like contests or pokestar studios, I mean like actual mini-stories and side quests. Think small episodic adventures like in the early parts of the anime. Or instead of stories, maybe abandoned structures like the haunted house in Sinnoh. All optional though, but yielding rewards if you do it.
Lower stakes story. Focus on the main character's journey to conquer the pokemon league, while helping a few characters and battling a few evil doers on the way, but no calamity inducing mandatory legendary encounters on the way. Legendaries are optional again. No "tag along" characters eating up screen time.