Idea for a new pokemon game

[PsychoIncarnate]

The recent pokemon games, Black and white, seemed to try and touch a moral grey area. However, I don't think they exceeded too well making the villain still more or less an evil megalomaniac.

I do have an idea how pokemon can touch upon much more powerful messages while adding interesting mechanics.

A region that was plagued by an evil organization, like all pokemon games have. However, they were eventually beaten by a Hero. However, the government of that region started noticing a pattern in these evil organizations popping up and more or less declared martial law. Pokemon battling has become illegal and several other laws to hamper your journey such as a curfew. The story would take place with you growing up your entire life under these strict new laws. While the laws are strict, the government wouldn't be painted as evil and would have viable reasons for their actions.

The goal of the early game is trying to work around those laws while still doing pokemon battles. Like keeping in contact with local trainers and scheduling illegal pokemon battles in areas that aren't enforced as heavily and dodging police during curfew hours, etc. Another idea could be maintaining a credible lifestyle during the day such as being a noble and working on relations with the police, or other nobles which could also help you such as making the police more lenient on you if you are caught, access to items or rarer pokemon or making illegal battles easier to do. Of course there still would be gym leaders and more or less a pokemon league but it would be more of an underground type of thing. Other than the government and the underground pokemon league, another faction in this could be the old evil organization trying to build itself up from the shadows.

Eventually you'd be able to meet with "resistance fighters" (or just the underground pokemon league) which would open up a lot of the restrictions of the early game.

Before fighting the Elite 4 of the region, the resistance fighters get into a struggle against the government and it seems very much like a war fought with their pokemon and the police...? There could also be that big showdown but the fight gets interrupted by the old evil organization.

 

[Spire]

You wrote this because you fear imminent martial law in the United States, didn't you? While it's a unique concept, this just doesn't sound like fun, to be honest. Where's the leveling up? Do you gain quadruple experience points from each battle because there are considerably less than all previous games? What about wild encounters—is there a wild? Do you leave the city?

I've fantasized a Pokémon game based entirely in a city, a futuristic one at that. A city with many layers and Pokémon that thrive within, below, and above. Could be an interesting game. A game where the region is a city. Aye, what if there was a generation of Pokémon where one game takes place in the city region while the other takes place outside of the city. A whole new Pokédex with more exclusives per version, including different starters. Within the city you choose between Psychic, Dark, and Fighting Pokémon, while outside the city you choose between Grass, Fire, and Water Pokémon. I dunno, I'm making this up as I go.

I like some of the ideas you have, but not the whole premise. I think a Pokémon game that does away with the evil organization altogether would be interesting. There was no Team Rocket in Pokémon Snap and that was a fantastic alternative avenue of capturing Pokémon, albeit a simple one. Maybe the antagonists should be Pokémon instead of people—a game where Mewtwo orchestrates a created army to fight the humans. His soldiers would be Pokémon of his own design, which would be decidedly difficult, but singular in encounter and catchable. Again, just throwing ideas out there.

 

[PsychoIncarnate]

Actually, my greatest inspiration for it might have been Final Fantasy 2. Thought I didn't even think about that until just now. It gives you a nice feeling in the game when the first battle is against an enemy you can't defeat and you have to sneak around town doing tasks for the resistance avoiding the guards since they are too powerful for you to defeat.

It gives you this feeling of helplessness, yet at the same time if you keep at it you eventually become a hero that can overpower and adversary.

 

[Spire]

Alas, the only Final Fantasy I have never played! I think for such a Pokémon game to work (your idea), you would need a means of consistent battling. Pokémon is very repetitive as is, but encountering new creatures along your journey shakes up the formula. Well, it's part of the formula really...

I'd imagine a great presence of underground society, delving beneath the tropes of surface life into the dangers of subway tunnels and homeless hideouts. Sadly, a lot of homeless people delve in illegalities, namely drugs—a surefire reason for their homelessness. Would homeless people use Pokémon to defend themselves? A law worth breaking to save your life. What do you get if you beat a homeless person's Pokémon in battle? Their money?

Explain more about your concept please. I'd like to hear what else you imagine this Pokémon world to project.