>>50844522True.
>>50841663I think there's a comfy middle ground between modern pokemon and edgy hacks. It's somewhere in the original Red/Blue and the Adventures Manga, where there are bad people and jerks and things have consequences but overall the atmosphere is more lighthearted.
Team Rocket to me was the perfect evil team for that, they used pokemon like tools, as shown by everyone having the same few evolution lines of Rattata, Zubat, and Koffing, for their criminals operations. They also sold rare pokemon at the Celadon Game Corner. The implied storyline was good too, with Silver being like a callous racing horse owner but eventually understood to treat his pokemon with care and affection as shown by his Crobat evolving.
I'd like to see a storyline of some big corporation seeking mineral, logging, and drilling rights in vulnerable pokemon habitats. The criminal team being a mob-like outfit that helps secretly with that goal, the end bosses of the storyline being the Mob Boss, a high ranking elected official, and the Corporate boss, all of whom are then apprehended for their shady dealings after the protagonist and the locals, like officials, gym leaders, and pokemon protection groups come together to take them down.
Within that you could have some interesting characters too, with maybe the protection group being idealistic but inefficient and kind of useless.
Maybe some of your allies are too radical and are a mid-boss of sorts nearing the end and they then see your way is more productive, you could also have that Silver like personal growth with that character.
You could have some people in the region be for the corporation taking over as their lives are becoming easier, more convenient, and cheaper due to all the changes.
