>>34650116I'd play the fuck out of it, but Game Freak wouldn't make it. Open world isn't my thing at all, but I enjoyed BotW more than any of the more linear 3D Zeldas, so I'd be willing to take a gamble and try an open world Pokémon if it had the chance of bringing back the charm of the Game Boy games. It's almost completely antithetical to the current trend of heavily railroaded, story intensive bores that never give the player a moment to just breathe and wander through some cave with no dialogue other than some random trainer's pre-battle line here and there.
If they do an Earthbound-esque encounter system though, they need to really go all-out with making it seem believable and lived-in. They'd need a big mix between Pokémon minding their own business, running from the player, aggressively chasing the player to start a battle if they notice them, etc., with routines for each species. It'd be a lot of work, and considering Game Freak isn't even willing to implement following Pokémon when they have all the walk/run animations needed for it we all know they wouldn't do this.
