>>43848092How cool would it be to have battles actually take place in the environment where you're exploring?
Run into an a Pokemon on the Overworld, camera pans behind you and the Pokemon jumps back and gets into an attack stance and you throw out your Pokemon and battle right there. Then, after the battle, the camera just pans back out into the regular over world view behind you.
The only issue I could see is if stuff in the environment blocked views or were between Pokemon, like a giant tree in the middle of a battlefield or clipping through walls; but that's got some easy fixes. As the battle begins, have the camera cut to a close-up of your trainer pulling out a Pokeball, before panning it out with the throw; in the few seconds you weren't looking forward, it adjusted your position so there was nothing between the Pokemon in the battle. For walls and such, just do what Mario Odyssey did to see Mario through walls, and code specific camera movements for in-door areas.
This is all assuming Game Freak was competent at 3D games.