>.>
I'd rather we go for some sort of middle ground. Sure, a Pokemon Action-RPG would be fun, but it wouldn't strike itself to me as a Pokemon GAME anymore!
Look, in the overworld, we usually see our player character in the background, and the battle interface, as we all know[/captainobvious] is often separate from the overworld as a whole. And since the Pokemon main continuity is situated in the handheld format, screens would be too small to accomodate Pokemon appearing in the overworld along with the battle SFX and VFX. But the 3D cutscenes of the 5th Generation are a great start. Y'see, this is like combining the Adventure Fields and Zones + Acts in a Sonic game: really hard to take out transitions, if not making them a little more subtle.
Masuda himself has said that he needs some sort of activity in Pokemon, which to me, strikes it as being a little more adventurous (and to the fandumb, outright wrong).This would work however, if walking Pokemon were brought back into play--but in this scenario, only one Pokemon can be used outside, adding up to the challenge. Either that, or 3D models would be developed for all 649 Pokemon in existence, which is what I'd rather see being done. Therefore, the latter scenario would play out like this:
1. The ! speech bubble appears over the trainer/wild Pokemon, him/her declaring a challenge against you.
2. The trainer sends out the Pokemon/'A wild xxx appeared!', you sending out your Pokemon.
3. Commands are timed so as to create a sense of realism, but shorter than the timed commands of Random Matches in BW.
4. Eventually one side wins or the opponent is caught. And you either talk to the active trainer or you white out.
But this would need a change in several menu set-ups, and also, commands would have to be issued from a separate interface. Also, to keep things from not changing, the leveling up of moves would only manifest themselves in PP and temporary power/accuracy increases. Therefore, the interface would look like this:
NOTE: All of these menus are six-tiered for convenience, except for Y and A, where the former only has two options (Run/Cancel), and for the latter, the first tier is the title and the sixth tier is cancel. Pressing any other button than the relevant button cancels the option.
A: Fight
-Press A again, then you get the four attacks, color-coded by element, and the text is color-coded by how much PP you have, adjacent to the attack name.
B: Healing items
-Press B again, then you get the four item options--well, those that aren't Pokeballs. Berries now have their own menu, ranked by relevance.
Y: Run/Forfeit for wireless match-ups
-You have a time limit to leave the Wild battle, and there is a RUN radius as well.
X: Switch PKMN
-Press X again, there is a menu whose option-tiers increase or decrease depending on the amount of party Pokemon.
Also, since HM's along with several outside of battle moves exist, we can create another interface which uses the same control scheme, but a completely different set-up. Don't worry guys, the START menu is also mapped to START for this one. Also, the Walking Pokemon/Follow Me interface will have to work for this once, and the interaction between trainers and Pokemon are present here too.
NOTE: This set-up assumes the existence of a Running Shoes on/off toggle like in HGSS.
A: Examine/Talk/Read
-This enables the trainer to use outside of battle/HM moves, and do everything else mapped to the A button in 4th and 5th Gen.
B: Interact with Pokemon
-This enables the trainer to check out how his Pokemon feels, check for items if the Pokemon's ability is Pickup, etc.
Y: Use the Registered Shortcut Menu
-Same as Black and White, but the Key Items are in the same menu.
X/START: START
-The touch-screen menu will be in use.
So, whaddya guys think?
