>>15133832Seeing complaints about HMs and railroading in another thread reminds me of a different idea I had for a Pokemon game that was a completely different type of layout.
Essentially, the game centered around one large, central city. All of the major facilities are IN the city and accessible right away; specialty shops, move tutors/relearners/deleters, etc.
The central fixture of the town is the Battle Tower, where you fight trainers of progressively higher level and skill trying to reach the top, which is the goal of the game.
Of course, you start with no pokemon. So you go take a little money, buy one pokeball, and enter the tall grass outside the city to catch one at random. Some early route shit; rattata or starly or whatever. Auto-catch first encounter.
Anyway, the structure of the game is that surrounding this town is a vast wilderness expanse in all directions, full of wild Pokemon to catch, items to find, and secrets to discover. The farther out you go, the better the shit is, but being early-level hampers your ability since you always have to return to the central Poke-center to heal up to avoid a white-out (or you get knocked back there if you DO white out). So you have to progressively build up this team that can carry you farther and farther outward, to get better and better mons and items, which enables you to beat more and more battle tower trainers.
Obviously, if you build your team well and play intelligently, you can go further, though getting past certain puzzles will require packing HMs which limit your potential if you do it wrong. At the outer edges of the map, or tucked away in challenging dungeons, are Legendary Pokemon, which you can use for their amazing strength but which are extremely hard to obtain, owing to the challenge of finding and reaching them.
Essentially, the game is about exploration in all directions and player-directed growth, and the only "wall" is your own skill level and your mons' strength and value.
