Expedition Pokemon

 

Hello! So after my last post I started thinking and when I really look at Expedition 33, it very much acts like an old school Pokemon game. It probably acts like a lot of JRPGs but I can’t say I’ve played many so my only real reference is Pokemon. So, along with my previous posts on my ideal Pokemon game (post 1, post 2) I think this is the definitive, personal dream game I would love to see in the future. TL;DR in last paragraph.

            While envisioning a Pokemon game that behaves more like Expedition 33 I was finding that E33 behaves more like a Pokemon game then I would’ve guessed. You have an overworld with various portals to other zones and those zones are separate from the main overworld. So I’m imagining Pokemon Fire Red/Leaf Green looking like Expedition 33. The final product doesn’t have to be as good looking as E33 but Game Freak did release a trailer for a game that looks a lot better than Scarlet/Violet so, some where in the middle would make me happy. Anyways, imagine E33 but as FR/LG. The overworld is the routes and towns we go through and all the portals are the special places we visit. Viridian Forest, Mt. Moon, Pokemon Tower, these all behave similar to the portals in E33. They’re little, separated realms with a maze to explore and few to no places to stop for healing (more so in Pokemon, not E33). Personally, I like having to prepare for things like Viridian Forest where I know it could take a while and there are no PokeCenters so I stock up on potions and antidotes. Arceus and E33 were a bit more forgiving in this sense. If you were affected by a status ailment during a battle in Arceus, after the battle was over it was cured. E33 had a handful of healing potions and any flag you got to would heal your party and restock your potions. So personally, with a Pokemon game, I would rather it be more like the classic games and you had to use your items or berries to keep your team together. There could be berry bushes/trees throughout the zones or sometimes you find little groves of them with lots of items. Maybe there could be an option that after a battle, if you have the right berry to cure a certain aliment it just was used automatically. I don’t know, maybe the E33 flag in this Pokemon game could be a small group of berry trees that replenish your Pokemon’s health and stats. I mean, the flags are TECHNICALLY optional, you don’t HAVE to heal yourself at one but typically if I’m given the option I’m going to use it. One thing I hate in the core Pokemon games is trainers, gym leaders, even the Elite Four will all use items during battle. I find that completely cheap and douchebaggy. If your Pokemon is holding a berry, fine, but you/we shouldn’t be able to use these items mid fight. E33 does, again, it’s an option, you don’t have to use it, so, but the enemy shouldn’t be able to! (Just did the gym battle against Gardenia, her last Pokemon ate a berry and then she used a super potion. Twice. Utter bullshit.)

Later on in Expedition 33 you get abilities to break rocks and use Esquie to swim and fly as means of fast travel and shortcuts, much like HMs in Pokemon. In Diamond and Pearl, near the entrance and exit of Eterna Forest, there are trees you can CUT that make a shortcut so you can bypass the forest later on. I like in Legends Arceus how they did away with HMs but there are still rocks to break and you’re given Pokemon to swim and fast travel. I would do it similar to Metorid where at certain points you learn CUT and other HMs but then like Legends Arceus, any Pokemon can do it. I would also like FLY to be used like the Eon Flute in Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire where you use it to call a Pokemon and then you control your flight. I found it very fun. I wouldn’t allow it in the “portals” but only in the overworld, just like Esquie. Maybe you could use it if you wanted to get out of the zone you were in and return to the overworld but I would like you to have to explore with other “HMs” instead of being able to fly or glide everywhere. I would also like it if SURF was done with a Pokemon of your choosing/something you’ve caught, as long as they can swim. So if it was big enough to ride like a Gyarados, you could just ride it but if it was something like a Magikarp it would pull you on a boogie board or something. I think even some grass Pokemon can SURF so why not one of them? And for the hell of it Surfing Pikachu, maybe he’s windsurfing now. I would like WATERFALL to make a return and maybe even DIVE. DIVE could just be the key to get into underwater zones or “portals.”

So with the overall look established let’s get the player character out of the way. Usually Pokemon game protagonists are kids but occasionally they are older like in Pokken Tournament. I would think in this game the protagonist would be somewhere in their twenties but I also don’t see why we shouldn’t be able to pick how old to make the characters look. I wouldn’t mind an older character, someone who has been around for a while and is now going out exploring some dangerous areas. So personally, I would like an older character but if the character creator allowed for it, do whatever you want. Be a youngster or a lass or a beauty or an ace, whatever. Now I’m imagining running around the game as your character, similar to Expedition 33, maybe one or two of your Pokemon can follow you, but also like E33, I’m thinking if you want to change to run around as one of your party Pokemon then go for it.

As for the overall combat I think keeping it more traditional Pokemon would be better. In Legends Arceus there were few trainer battles and most of the other battles were just with wild Pokemon and the fight was pretty much decided with one to two attacks. I would like it if the fights lasted longer than that, more in line with normal Pokemon games. I kind of feel that’s why there is the parry/dodge mechanic in Expedition 33 because otherwise, yeah the enemies could wipe you in a couple hits. In the last post I talked about Pokemon having “classes” so that’s why I think a healer and/or stat boosting Pokemon would be ideal for any given party. I think the class thing would be cool for like, trying to beat the game with one type of Pokemon, so water, fire, ect. I feel like some people might try that just because they want to, because they like a certain type, they want to pretend to be a gym leader, whatever the reason. Having strengths and weaknesses would still play a role but maybe it wouldn’t have to play such a big role. I personally gravitate towards water Pokemon, I usually will pick the water starter because I like them but then I’ll find other water Pokemon that I like but won’t use cause my starter is water. I’m really fond of Poliwrath and Kingler, I’d like them in my party. There’s so many Pokemon now surely we can divvy them up between classes. They must have some kind of classes in the Pokemon MOBA right? Yeah see, they have five roles right there.

Similarly to E33, I would like to be able to find some rare Pokemon to have boss battles with. These could be hidden in any given maze or be at the end of it, or both, but they don’t always have to be with a legendary Pokemon. Just something rare like in Gold/Silver there was a Lapras in a cave, Red Gyarados and even Sudowoodo was a one of one in the game so things like that would be fine. Spiritomb. I’ve been kind of going back and forth with how you catch a rare or legendary Pokemon; if battling them and knocking them out is good enough to guarantee a capture or if the first time it takes knockout damage it is left with 1hp forcing you to try and catch it and survive it’s last ditch effort attacks with the risk of still knocking it out and loosing it forever in your next turn. Then you’d just have to reload a save file and try again. If it were the case with the former method then I would think these fights to be extra challenging and therefore rewarding. The latter is more traditional and gives that sense of stress and anxiety of “GET IN THE BALL! GET IN THE BALL! MASH THE A BUTTON!!!”

So, let’s think about the region. It could be a new region so anything could be possible. If we think about recent games and remakes; we’ve gone back to first gen recently with Let’s Go and went to fourth gen with Legends Arceus and Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl. ZA is taking place iiiinnn sixth gen? Third gen had remakes around the time of X/Y (sixth gen). So we could go back to Johto or Unova maybe? When thinking about this game I thought of it more in Gold/Silver just because of all the different locations that could be visited and how pretty some of the towns and routes are. If I’m remembering right Tin Tower is around all these trees that make it look like it’s autumn. Just thinking about how that could look with updated graphics. I was not a fan of Black/White but everyone online says the story is one of the best and I just didn’t see it. I don’t remember much of it but maybe one day here I’ll give it another play through. I do like a fair bit of the Pokemon from fifth gen though. With the way I want the game to be centered around finding legendary Pokemon I think about which games had the most. The third installments and remakes have more, the remakes more so, but we’ve visited those regions more recently (Legends Arceus, Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire). We can always just put these legendaries in just because. DLC fights, event quests, that sort of thing. So I don’t know, second gen (Johto) also encompassed first gen games so that may be cheating. I’m not really picky though, second gen is usually thought to be the best of the bunch, it has a lot of points of interest to explore and what not.

Recently I went on Legends Arceus to finish up the Pokedex and was remembering how few of certain types of Pokemon there were then looking online at the Pokemon in Shining Pearl and there’s even less. There’s literally one dragon Pokemon. One. Why? I don’t think I noticed when the originals came out, I just used what I could get but yeah, I would want my game to have a wide variety of Pokemon. There’s over 1,000 Pokemon now and different forms of older Pokemon, there’s plenty of room for all types of Pokemon to make an appearance. Along with that not EVERY Pokemon needs to be in game or made available in the game. I don’t need a “national dex” in my game. That’s what Pokemon Home is for. Same thing with PvP, don’t need it. Arceus didn’t have it and they have that new game coming out that is just focused on PvP so, yeah.

So the short version; just make Expedition 33 but Pokemon. I liked the DLC for Sword and Shield, I liked Legends Arceus for the most part, I’d like to see more of that. I can see some harder fights or events where you have to fight the three legendary dogs all at once or something. Things like that. Exploration like E33, HMs usage similar to E33 and the more recent Pokemon games (Arceus, BD/SP, Eon Flute from OR/AS), a character customizer of some sort, a combination of E33 and Pokemon combat, Pokemon classes/roles, diverse Pokemon and several decent ones to choose from for each type. I think that would be a sick as fuck game, what do you think? Anything you can think to add? Anything you think wouldn’t work? With the success of Expeidtion 33 I’m hoping we could see a kind of “return to formula” for some JRPGs and I’m hoping Pokemon is one of them. Let me know your thoughts down below and I’ll get back to you soon, bye-bye!

@AztecSauce

*This is like the third time I've used this image in a post but I absolutely love it and it encompasses what I want to experience in a Pokemon Game*