>>42212619I thought about it, but could never come to terms will execution. Like
>>42212826 said, it involved repurposing the Battle Area battle format, which would require a lot of fucking with the code. However, the real issue I had was figuring out how to work out game progression. Say, for the sake of argument, we're doing this in Emerald. First, I'd have to get rid of all the Battle Tents and restore them to contest halls, like in RS; however, this still means that you wouldn't hit the first contest in the game until the equivalent of 2 gym battles have passed. What the fuck are you doing during that time? What's the story? Next, if we're doing the anime's 5-ribbon format, I'd have to add a 5th rank to the Normal-Super-Hyper-Master; to do that, I'd have to stick another contest hall somewhere. And then, of course, I'd need to program the Grand Festival. Meanwhile, you'd also have to create rivals and give them Pokémon with movesets specifically tailored for maximum contest benefit.
And meanwhile, while all this is being done, I'd need to scrub the gyms and the league of their purpose, meaning I'd have to intentionally lock off or invalid major parts of the map, because what would you go there if there's no contest hall? Hence, the need for additional story. Etc., etc.