Pokemon Journeys

Pokemon Journeys is a Nintendo-based open-ended RPG for the Wii, Wii U, and Nintendo 3DS (a more limited version). The game would also feature WFC battle mode, as well as an online version where you can enter an enormous overworld and interact with other characters.

There are already some Pokemon RPGs out there, which I am fully aware of, but this one will be of a much different gameplay and entire nature. In this game, you will be playing mainly as a trainer that you customize and bring to life yourself with a variety of options, somewhat like the one planned for Super Mario Heroes.

This may somehow seem standard, but I add in an entirely new feature: you get to begin the game with your own customized Pokemon. Here you can choose the appearance of your Pokemon, everything from color to fur style, and create a starting roster of moves according to an easy to read system, and according to the type of Pokemon you choose (like Normal, Flying, Electric, etc.). At certain junctures of progress in the game, your Pokemon will get a chance to evolve, at which point you can create am almost entirely new Pokemon with an increased roster containing advanced abilities. However, you will also have the option of leaving it the way it already is.

Plot
The plot for this game is simple (and somewhat predictable, yes, but shut up about it). You start out as a boy or girl (your choice) who, like Ash in the anime, desires to become a reputable Pokemon Trainer, or Connoisseur, or Breeder, or anything you'd like.

You choose a region where you want to start out, and then you'll have that place as your "hub" in the map, marked as a starting point so that you'll have a place of reference.

From here, you can travel from region to region, visiting and joining gyms, heading into the wilderness areas to catch Pokemon, training the Pokemon you have, and pretty much anything you can imagine you want to do. In fact, I even add the ability to join roaming Pokemon teams, from which you can get advice, rare tips, and new Pokemon (through trading). The goal of this game is to make an open-ended RPG that you can navigate easily, have fun with, and do whatever you want with.

Gameplay
One big challenge I had when coming up with the details of this game was trying to synthesize a simple, easily memorizable system for battling and interpreting information on Pokemon. Now, note going in that this will a deviation from the normal systems of gameplay in other titles.

The system will be semi-round based, as in Paper Mario. There will be a base-line skill set containing abilities like Dodge Left, Dodge Right, Jump Back, Jump, and Block. However, different Pokemon will have different attributes and better skill in certain areas. For example, Oshawott may have an advantage with blocking because he has his shell, which can repel many attacks. This would add greater value to collection of many Pokemon.

Now, there will be a certain number of things you can teach each Pokemon to do, and if you reach the proper stats as you go along with that Pokemon, you will have the option to teach it new and more powerful moves. If you can successfully teach it the move, it will be added to your roster of moves to use. The amount of moves you teach your Pokemon to do contributes to how soon you can level up and therefore how soon you can evolve your Pokemon. These moves will be predetermined for Pokemon in the environment, but you can formulate them for your custom Pokemon.

Each Pokemon will have a certain number of health points, and you can increase things like Health Points, Attack Points, and other functions as you "level up" with a Pokemon, through constant usage and gaining of experience through battles, contests and, well, experiences. It is this way that Pokemon eventually evolve, and the evolution conditions for the Pokemon will be the same as in the other games and sources.

The Raising of Pokemon
I'm just gonna come right out and admit it. I love baby Pokemon to death. They are the cutest, funniest things I've ever seen and quite honestly, I wish I had a bunch of them. I particularly wish I had a Togepi and a Manaphy.

Anyway, I've always wanted to hatch my own Pokemon egg(s), so I will absolutely make this an option for my new game. Now, I read up on Pokemon breeding and the hatching of eggs on Bulbapedia (whoops! Ad alert!) and found that the majority of Pokemon games hatch eggs after a certain amount of cycles, which varies from egg to egg and is counted out by the amount of steps you take.

In this game, I think I'm going to take the opportunity to apply both that and the amount of gameplay time. A cycle can probably consist of amount 1,000 steps, or 45 minutes of active gameplay time. Whichever comes first will count as the cycle, and then the counter starts over again.

The same breeding rules will apply, but there will be a greater comprehension of the Pokemon in the game, so you'll have the option to breed pretty much any two that will work. Once you get the egg, the hatching of it will begin and you can carry it in you incubator until it hatches. The hatching will be a process too, like maybe the more you shake the remote (when prompted), the faster it will hatch. From here, you raise the little baby Pokemon as your own, and you can even carry it around (I give the option to carry like, one or two Pokemon outside of their Poke Balls at a time).