>>42487887metroidvania.
you're a trainer who gets a starter pokemon choice, and which one you pick determines which path you can go down first. your movement as the trainer is very limited, but you use pokemon moves to get further.
the enemies are other pokemon, varying by location, and you can defeat them like normal metroidvania enemies, getting health back and some other things.
but the thing is you can also catch any of the enemies and use them to progress and find secrets. the pokemon are your power ups basically, your missiles, bombs, ice power etc.
you can only carry a certain amount of pokemon at a time though (im thinking 3), so you need to figure out which combinations of pokemon you need to get through certain areas.
also, theres many mini boss like pokemon scattered about that require more of a focus on the combat aspect and you need to beat them to get through the mandatory parts basically, so you also have to think about which pokemon you want for combat as well as traversing the area and solving its puzzles.
the REAL bosses are a combination of both using moves for combat and using moves for the puzzle aspect. setup in a way where you cant get to the boss without certain moves so its not unfair in a way where you could theorhetically ever get to the boss with a team that literally cant beat it.
as for specific ideas on what pokemon would do, I havent thought of it a lot but the idea is
1. the obvious things like "fire type melt ice block" (start of the game puzzles)
and
2. somethings like "specific platforms that can only be moved with flying type moves like gust" like how other metroidvanias are, and then movement restrictions like "psychic type can teleport you a certain distance away, but only on the ground, not to a higher plane" (crazier the further you get in the game/the rarity of the secret item behind it)
...please
