>>41116026The game would move a bit more towards an open-world style in terms of design. It would not be a full blown open world, but something akin to Xenoblade Chronicles with several large open areas connected by smaller, linear routes. I think the idea of the Wild Area is good, I would keep and build upon it. Instead of making a larger Wild Area, I'd have multiple ones of a similar size as the one in SS, although I'd even consider shrinking them down and having at least 5 of them, each with their own setting. There'd be your standard plain/forest, a mountain one, one at the seaside with some islands, a desert etc. The order of which you'd challenge gyms would be up to the player's choice to an extent like it was in gens 1-3, however they would scale with the number of badges and/or story progress. I'd also consider raising the number of badges required to 10 or 12 and further expanding the options for what order they'd be fought by requiring some of them to be done before others due to granting access to abilities in the overworld.
I wouldn't bring back HMs as moves for the overworld but do something similar to LGBT. The ability to do things like surf or move heavy objects will be locked behind gyms or story progress. I would keep Pokemon in the overworld like SS, but make them a bit more lively and maybe interact with each other. There would be fewer traditional routes but a fair amount of dungeons/caves. Raids would still be in.
I'd try to have a story with at least decent writing, I'd also age up the player characters. Think Gen 5 for both of those. Maybe get a new artist. I like Koizaki's work in Pokemon Go and No More Heroes and think he'd be a great fit. Story is really not too important to the overall design and it would be made to best fit the world which would be designed first.
