You know what Pokemon needs? Fucking quests.
You have one goal, become the master. How do you do that? Defeat literal retards in battle.

Picture this.
Atop of just battling said retards, you could have quests that add a little subplot.
In oras for example you could a scenario like... dunno a swarm of wingull always steals away the fish from the anglers, so you try to find out why they are so hungry. You find a wingull with a beak full of fish flying off to a cave. You discover that a snorlax is in that cave, taking a nap infront of a pelipper who is trapped behind it and the wingull try to make snorlax move out of the cave and stop blocking the way for pelipper who is the wingulls leader.

If you manage to free pelipper, he will test your strength once more and acknowledges you as a worthy trainer and you catch it.
Before it comes with you, it claims a wingull the new leader and it evolves.

Stuff like this is what i wanna see, not just... start -> town -> route -> town -> gym badge -> route -> rival -> cave -> town etc

It's mot 1995 anymore