Good idea but kinda useless in gen 7 imo. Poke ride has basically come back with PLA and despite I haven't experienced it yet, from videos I watched I can see how much it can be used to explore the region. In gen 7 it wasn't at all a way to explore the region, but just an easy fix to HMs. Ik many people disagree but I don't find HMs this bad, it just depends on how the game is. For example, HMs in Swo/Shi would be awful. HMs in gen 4 are actually amazing and needed imo. That said, considering how pokemon games are evolving (ahah very good joke -_-) I wouldn't want a return of HMs because exploring could be harder in different ways. PLA could be an example. I guess. And using poke ride to explore is an amazing thing. I think the first smart poke ride was in Pokemon Ranger Guardian Signs (amazing how the title differs from the Italian version lol). It was a good game where u could call a pokemon to ride by drawing a special sign (i did so many times, I still remember those signs lol). Each pokemon had a peculiarity, but u could call them at any moment and u could also explore much while on these pokemon. But this was back in gen 4, way before gen 7 and imo that kind of poke ride was smarter that the gen 7 one, where it feels like a replacement to HMs. Imo, at least conceptually, PLA is the true descendant of Guardian Signs poke ride.