I've had this idea for a while (and it especially hit me as a "solution" once I saw how disappointingly "cute" the Battle Resort in ORAS turned out to be) and wanted to share it with you guys.
What if Gamefreak made a 3DS e-shop exclusive Pokémon game aimed at serious/competitive Pokémon players that was fully compatible with the current generation?
Meaning the stuff that usually ends up in the post-game (but often feels lacking due to the main game being the focus of development), aka Battle facilities, along with the things you end up doing after the game like breeding and training, would here be available in a standalone game.
It'd be based on the current games (so it would look, sound and play like XY/ORAS), similar to the ORAS-demo, but could get a new version every time a main game comes out, in order to maintain full compatibility.
It just wouldn't have an actual region and story to explore.
I imagined it like this:
You pick your characters gender, give him/her a name... and pick a trainer-class (Bug-catcher, Rollerskater, Sailor etc..).
Via ship, you arrive from "some" region at the docks of this exciting place
After going through the entrance you come to the introductionary Hall, where everything is explained to you and you're given a Pokémon as a welcome gift (a Lv10 Eevee or something) so your party isn't empty.
In the "Hub", you can then connect the game to your Global Link account and access your PokeBank anytime. Right away, the game offers the same Wi-Fi features as the most up-to-date main game, the PSS with Battle Spot and the GTS etc.
The "Safari"-area is an evolved combination of XYs Friend-Safari and HGSSs changing Safari-Zone, offering an everchanging diverse selection of wild Pokémon under specific circumstances/progress/requirements/events... usually with a focus on pokemon that aren't normally common in the wild, or whose HA aren't easy to get etc.
There would be a "Breeding"-area with a Daycare and a cyclical path around it for convenient breeding (like the Battle Resort in ORAS).
A "Training"-area would allow you to battle random AI trainers that give EXP (like WhiteTreeHollow/BlackTower in BW2) and offer a new simple method for direct EV-training (less gimmicky and wtf/abstract than Super Training).
And of course, the biggest area would be a full-blown Battle Frontier with plenty of Battle-facilities with unique rules and Frontier-Brains to defeat.
There would be Battle-Item shops, TM-shops and Move Tutors all over the place, all offering things in exchange for Battle Points which are obtained in most tasks you can do here.
There would be random NPCs, some familiar faces, some NPCs that give you stuff (daily Gem, BErries etc)...
There would also be a special Event-area that would change each time a new event begins... it could involve things like meeting famous NPCs (a battle with Red from GSC etc..), finding a mysterious egg (with a dozen species and high shiny rate like the one in Crystal etc..), or even some relevant Legendary encounter or some special unreleased HA Pokémon and so on...
Would that be great? Would it be a good move for GF? Or would it be wiser for them to stick to their main-games only? Is this feasable?
I know this likely isn't happening ever, but I'm just exploring the idea of it.
Also what other features and areas could such a game have? What further upgrades could it offer?
And would micro-transactions for ever expanding customization of the player character or other things be a nice or awful?
Now that I think of it, this was kind of the idea behind Pokémon Battle Revolution...but that game was handled rather poorly and turned out to be too lacking in content and having barely any options... I would say it didn't go well due to no involvement from gamefreak, but mostly also due to the fact it was for the Wii, which required a full console graphics take on pokemon battles which certainly took most of the effort..
With my idea however, the foundation is already there (the game engine that is used for gen 6 games) and the focus would be on content, not to mention the whole thing could get upgrades.
Also, we can discuss "post-game"-content in general here.
Can we hope for main games to include amazing Battle Frontiers anymore?
I mean there was the Battle Resort in ORAS.. and while I personally wasn't surprised at all (I mean they had to remake the whole of Hoenn from scratch with everything in it and decided to go for the Delta Episode, how much development time could there be left after that LOL..), but some of the internet was furious about the "lack of a Battle Frontier" in ORAS.
Especially with the miniature Battle Tower and signs that essentially say "soon ;P" (bahaha good job GF).
Although that could hint at a proper BF in any upcoming game still...
It really boils down to what the focus of any game is while in development.
The only times we got a proper BF was in Emerald and Platinum, both of which were basically 90% finished the moment development began (as they took RS and DP as a basis and didn't overhaul the whole story or anything radical), so there was lots of time and development to channel into post-game stuff like that.
So you'd think we have a good chance for that happening with the XY-follow-up... but at the same time, we (or at least me) are hoping that XZYZ would expand on the direction BW2 took and be filled with new places and content rather than just being a variation of XY with a fancier climax, so those 2 concepts are kind of in conflict unless Gamefreak aims for the perfect balance...
If there was an Emerald remake coming (which there most definitely is not, right?) then OBVIOUSLY the battle frontier would be the main selling point of such a game, as it wouldn't really offer much new besides that.
But in that case.. I come back to my standalone e-shop game idea. Why release the same game again with a huge postgame instead of having that postgame as a standalone e-shop game? ;D
What if Gamefreak made a 3DS e-shop exclusive Pokémon game aimed at serious/competitive Pokémon players that was fully compatible with the current generation?
Meaning the stuff that usually ends up in the post-game (but often feels lacking due to the main game being the focus of development), aka Battle facilities, along with the things you end up doing after the game like breeding and training, would here be available in a standalone game.
It'd be based on the current games (so it would look, sound and play like XY/ORAS), similar to the ORAS-demo, but could get a new version every time a main game comes out, in order to maintain full compatibility.
It just wouldn't have an actual region and story to explore.
I imagined it like this:
You pick your characters gender, give him/her a name... and pick a trainer-class (Bug-catcher, Rollerskater, Sailor etc..).
Via ship, you arrive from "some" region at the docks of this exciting place
After going through the entrance you come to the introductionary Hall, where everything is explained to you and you're given a Pokémon as a welcome gift (a Lv10 Eevee or something) so your party isn't empty.
In the "Hub", you can then connect the game to your Global Link account and access your PokeBank anytime. Right away, the game offers the same Wi-Fi features as the most up-to-date main game, the PSS with Battle Spot and the GTS etc.
The "Safari"-area is an evolved combination of XYs Friend-Safari and HGSSs changing Safari-Zone, offering an everchanging diverse selection of wild Pokémon under specific circumstances/progress/requirements/events... usually with a focus on pokemon that aren't normally common in the wild, or whose HA aren't easy to get etc.
There would be a "Breeding"-area with a Daycare and a cyclical path around it for convenient breeding (like the Battle Resort in ORAS).
A "Training"-area would allow you to battle random AI trainers that give EXP (like WhiteTreeHollow/BlackTower in BW2) and offer a new simple method for direct EV-training (less gimmicky and wtf/abstract than Super Training).
And of course, the biggest area would be a full-blown Battle Frontier with plenty of Battle-facilities with unique rules and Frontier-Brains to defeat.
There would be Battle-Item shops, TM-shops and Move Tutors all over the place, all offering things in exchange for Battle Points which are obtained in most tasks you can do here.
There would be random NPCs, some familiar faces, some NPCs that give you stuff (daily Gem, BErries etc)...
There would also be a special Event-area that would change each time a new event begins... it could involve things like meeting famous NPCs (a battle with Red from GSC etc..), finding a mysterious egg (with a dozen species and high shiny rate like the one in Crystal etc..), or even some relevant Legendary encounter or some special unreleased HA Pokémon and so on...
Would that be great? Would it be a good move for GF? Or would it be wiser for them to stick to their main-games only? Is this feasable?
I know this likely isn't happening ever, but I'm just exploring the idea of it.
Also what other features and areas could such a game have? What further upgrades could it offer?
And would micro-transactions for ever expanding customization of the player character or other things be a nice or awful?
Now that I think of it, this was kind of the idea behind Pokémon Battle Revolution...but that game was handled rather poorly and turned out to be too lacking in content and having barely any options... I would say it didn't go well due to no involvement from gamefreak, but mostly also due to the fact it was for the Wii, which required a full console graphics take on pokemon battles which certainly took most of the effort..
With my idea however, the foundation is already there (the game engine that is used for gen 6 games) and the focus would be on content, not to mention the whole thing could get upgrades.
Also, we can discuss "post-game"-content in general here.
Can we hope for main games to include amazing Battle Frontiers anymore?
I mean there was the Battle Resort in ORAS.. and while I personally wasn't surprised at all (I mean they had to remake the whole of Hoenn from scratch with everything in it and decided to go for the Delta Episode, how much development time could there be left after that LOL..), but some of the internet was furious about the "lack of a Battle Frontier" in ORAS.
Especially with the miniature Battle Tower and signs that essentially say "soon ;P" (bahaha good job GF).
Although that could hint at a proper BF in any upcoming game still...
It really boils down to what the focus of any game is while in development.
The only times we got a proper BF was in Emerald and Platinum, both of which were basically 90% finished the moment development began (as they took RS and DP as a basis and didn't overhaul the whole story or anything radical), so there was lots of time and development to channel into post-game stuff like that.
So you'd think we have a good chance for that happening with the XY-follow-up... but at the same time, we (or at least me) are hoping that XZYZ would expand on the direction BW2 took and be filled with new places and content rather than just being a variation of XY with a fancier climax, so those 2 concepts are kind of in conflict unless Gamefreak aims for the perfect balance...
If there was an Emerald remake coming (which there most definitely is not, right?) then OBVIOUSLY the battle frontier would be the main selling point of such a game, as it wouldn't really offer much new besides that.
But in that case.. I come back to my standalone e-shop game idea. Why release the same game again with a huge postgame instead of having that postgame as a standalone e-shop game? ;D
