Ruin Pokemon with a Single Change

[Devalue]

Thought of (hopefully) a fun topic to toy with. What single thing might ruin a mainline Pokemon game for you? Issues three guidelines.

1. Should be an intentional change. Destroys a game easily with save glitches, crashes, and straight-up not running.
2. Be as serious or silly as you want. Keep it in good taste, though. Obviously ruins a game by filling it with tons of slurs or inappropriate acts.
3. Could be directed towards a specific game or simply any game. Ought to affect a mainline game, however. (Refers to games like Red, Blue, Black 2, White 2, X, Y, Sword, and Shield. Excludes games like Stadium, Mystery Dungeon, and Go.)

_________________

Came up with three single ideas in short order. Might come up with more later. Looks forward to everyone else's.

• Confused people with too many evolution methods. Consolidated all of them into a single method: trade evolution with an item. Really wanted people to make friends with one another. Includes every evolution, even Bulbasaur to Ivysaur.
• Removed the ability to catch Pokemon. Simply gifts you with Pokemon along your journey. Comes with cute nicknames already. Provides a much greater shared experience with other Pokemon fans too!
• Rewards you with a gym badge after a gym battle, regardless of winning or losing. Tried really hard. Took great care of your Pokemon too, right?

 

[Orion☆]

Four deadly words: Your Pokémon can die. Like in Monster Rancher, your Mons are subject to a life cycle, and as they approach the end, they become frailer and can die if they suffer too many injuries. This is meant to provide a layer of realism to the games and to teach kids about the inevitability of death. Except, once they die, they leave Candy of their species behind so you can power up another of the same species should you decide to raise a successor.

 

[ReKoil]

Every single evolution is an affection/happiness evolution, however each mon also has an additional requirement.
For example, a Mudkip would happiness evolve only if it also knows a Ground type move as well (better hope you have a Dig TM). Axew for example would additionally require to be holding a Dragon Fang. (former) Trade evolutions such as Porygon2 would additionally require a specific nickname.
Good luck figuring out every mons additional requirement =D

The return of HM's. But, now there's 24 of them. All of which need to be on your party mons to progress through the late game, and which of them are necessary to progress is frequently changed up before then.

Every ball is now guaranteed to capture a Pokemon no matter what Pokemon. Now everyone can brag about catching <insert legendary here> in a Pokeball!

Every Pokemon is now shiny, effectively making the normal colors more desirable as they are unobtainable.

 

[Sweet Serenity]

The removal of the competitive aspects of Pokemon would completely ruin Pokémon for me. The main reason I play Pokémon is to catch many Pokémon as possible, breed them until their stats are good enough to be used competitively, and use them to battle either my friends, random players causally, or players in ranked to reap the in-game rewards. If the aspects of Pokémon stats, breeding, and a competitive battling scene stopped existing, I might quit playing Pokémon altogether. Competitive battling is the most fun aspect of playing Pokémon in my opinion.

 

[Nah]

NFTs

 

[Palamon]

NFTs

NO. ANYTHING NFTS PLEASE!! That'd actually ruin Pokemon. LOL Imagine the hate and outrage you'd see online if they did LMFAO.

You know what would ruin Pokemon for a lot of people, though, I bet? Dropping the frame rate to 15 frames per second...lol.

And not letting people turn off battle animations. Rip to all the ppl who turn them off.

...I can't think of anything, though, because nothing would actually ruin Pokemon for me.

 

[Fairy]

Friendship decreases if Pokémon is boxed.

 

[Palamon]

Friendship decreases if Pokémon is boxed.

This wouldn't ruin pokemon imo it'd encourage people to maybe use their other pokemon more

 

[Fairy]

This wouldn't ruin pokemon imo it'd encourage people to maybe use their other pokemon more

Huh, you know, that's a solid point. In that case I change my answer to...

Berries and other food-based items can expire in your inventory if not used.

 

[Drayton]

Whenever a pokemon evovles, They lose all their EVs which makes it start from fresh again
Location based evolution is removed.
HM moves cannot be removed by move deleter, so player needs to make another one to learn a HM as it takes the move slot forever

 

[pkmin3033]

Make it open world.

 

[Palamon]

Make it open world.

Are you implying Scarlet and Violet will ruin Pokemon? (Since those games are confirmed to be fully open world).

Also, location based evolutions being removed definitely would be great, actually. Those are annoying.

But, god, no @ HM moves cannot be removed by the move deleter. That'd be gen i all over again. I'd hate that with ever fiber of my being.

(Sorry I am so active in this thread, I feel extremely engaged in this conversation)

 

[Zeostar]

Talking Protagonist.

After playing a few rom hacks, realized pokemon is not a game that needs this.

 

[Fact Checking Gardevoir]

Like in Mystery Dungeons...
Removing the Pokémon catching system (Pokéballs to Masterballs) and having the probability of a wild Pokémon joining you solely depend on luck.
Giving each cave, tower, etc... 99 stairs, filled with traps and having your pokémon weaken and faint if you run out of edible items.

 

[Gravyard]

Random encounters not being seamless, I will miss it, however, I prefer not waiting for a small cutscene unless important. I think giving them to Gym Leaders or Champions would fit, though.

 

[Sheep]

saw NFTs and shuddered, that would probably make me stop financially supporting the games haha

Going to say:

- Evolutions are all based on friendship.
- Each Pokémon species has fixed stats - no IVs/EVs/natures. So one Pikachu will be identical to another. Could be a blessing for some, but others really value creating the perfect one and it would make the game far less interesting and species less diverse.
- Shinies removed.
- Moves cannot be replaced with others and must be removed by the Move Deleter, then better moves learned using the Relearner.
- This is mainly for me, but the protagonist having a full-on personality and identity. I have really grown used to applying my own persona onto the often-silent protagonist and would feel really odd playing someone who is their own character entirely.

 

[Devalue]

A few more.

• Forces you to care for each participating Pokemon after all battles. Hopes to foster a greater connection between players and their Pokemon. Builds their affection still, of course.
• Requires an active Nintendo Switch Online subscription, as well as a constant connection, to play. Protects against bad actors from introducing glitched Pokemon into the games.

 

[cloa513]

Make them even more opaque as what to do then the early generation games already are - there is big open field and no idea direction what to do- add some randomnisation of direction so online support is useless..
Make the battles even more static. You carry around the pokemon in the ball and it doesn't have a come out animation and attacks have don't any animations. Let's not pretend your pokemon is really battling another one- it is just a bunch of commands.

 

[Adam Levine]

Let's change Ditto's Egg Group from "Ditto" to "No Eggs Discovered." Have fun breeding your male and genderless Pokémon!

 

[Amore]

Berries and other food-based items can expire in your inventory if not used.

Diabolical. I harvested about 500 EV-reducing berries in Diamond back in 2013 and I still have half! Did another round in 2020 during lockdown but time-based events are the enemy of adult gamers with jobs! (except Simpsons' Tapped Out. 4hr jobs mean quick play at lunch, 8hr covers your shift).

My personal pitch? Recreate the Emerald Sky Pillar bike / floor puzzle in SwSh-style 3D, but like in one of the non-Wild Area parts where you can't change the camera angle. Oh, and make it an unskippable part of the game. Like, imagine Eternatus had wrecked the floor of the Energy Plant tower, so you have to use the Rotom-bike's boost at key moments to skate over the cracks.

In a top-down view.

On Switch, so you don't know if you just suck, or if Drift is kicking in.

Didn't turn Autosave off? Tough, it saves as you round the corner for the hardest, final one!

Trapped forever in an inferior remake of one of the better Pokémon games ever made, in a generation that courted controversy from the start!