New Plot Ideas for Future Games

A

Ace Lijah

Self Declared Boy Genius
Joined
Aug 8, 2014
Messages
1
Reaction score
0
I really love to try and imagine new plot arcs for upcoming games because I am extremely bored of the average criminal organization yelling about how they want to take over the world by force using the power of Pokemon. I really enjoyed Pokemon Black and White I and II because they tackled the question "Is it right to enslave Pokemon as our champions, to force them to battle and keep them in Pokeballs?" I though both games were well written and extremely thought provoking. So what I'm asking is, does anyone else have any meaningful topics that the next game could convert into an immerive story?

My ideas so far include:
  • An organization lead by a man who find Pokemon weak. He plots to use technology to steal all power from Pokemon and entrust it to the superior minds and stronger wills of humans.
  • In an older generation of Pokemon (say crica 1300 CE) the relgious leader of the region believe that the bod between a human and Pokemon is sacred and one may only bond with the egg they are presented with at birth. The conflict arises when your character begins to bond with more than one Pokemon, having them come to him, finding eggs in strange places. This game would not be a traditional 8-gym system, so it would likely be a spinoff similar to Coloseum in style.
  • (Using the previous idea in a slightly different way...) A religious group emerges in a modern day region and begins to object to the bonding of a trainer to more than one Pokemon. (Now that I say it, it seems a bit Plasma-esque.)
 
I reckon those ideas would be good :) I loved Team Flare but I do want the storylines to be more detailed too. Just cos the games are *cough* meant to be for kids *cough* doesn't mean that they can't have more elaborate storylines.

I still want to be able to join the villain team xD Or maybe, the Professor is secretly a bad guy?

Or maybe our Mom is a bad guy or she turns out to be the Champion and we have to fight her last of all xD

Or, the main evil team boss is a girl! They've all been blokes so far; I wanna see a woman in charge, ha!
 
time passed and we got the love interest female (shauna and serena) and the friendly girl (Bianca May), lacks now the douche and mean female rival.

Some rival ideas
He's cocky because he's the champion son, or son of a elite four member. Thinks himself special, and that talent is in the blood, but he changes when you surpasses him and beats elite four.

The rival is your brother or sister. He is the champion or elite four member. You are always compared to him and you want to get out of his shadow.

A rival like Gregory Violet. mysterious, cryptic, cloaked, cold, stoic, excentric.

Somehow he's aloof, serious, and think you disturb, but for some reason you have to complete a mission together, so he is forced to get along with you. Much like Alain of Mega Evolution Special.

More creepy and ambiguous characters like N.
 
Maybe they tweak some of their cookie-cutter plot/characters so that it's not too drastic a change, but slightly different. Maybe you start off with just one rival, and once you two beat the first gym leader, said leader is left with a sore spot and renounces his gym to become a traveling trainer, just to try and beat the two annoying kids that took him down in the same day.

But seriously, I hate that all the "rivals" now are my hand-holding friends. If you're gonna give me that many rivals (x/y), make them more of a challenge. They were all jokes escort MAYBE Serena. I wanna see THEM grow too! Trevor's goal is to complete the pokedex, yet he only has like 3 Pokemon? Boo.

Oh, another plot-ish idea. The champion is someone close to you but you have no idea. Like mom, professor, etc. I'm sick of how obvious the champion is lately.
 
I think the current structure of a Villain Team trying to take over the world has reached its PEAK with OR/AS. Those games are just so emotional, and the graphic quality helps to feel touched by the story even more and feel it more realisticly. A really great plot, Delta Episoide included, the best I remember in a Pokemon game.

However, I think that, outside of OR/AS, I´m not such a big fan of having to beat mean bad guys in every main series game. That is something I kinda liked about the Johto games and their remakes: the game was much more about YOU living your ADVENTURE with pokemon, and less about saving the world. In fact, you only prevent Team Rocket from re- joining, there is no World- threat to stop. And I prefer that.

OR/AS are the only games where the actual story about the bad guys and saving the world, was truly interesting to me. In most other games, it has allways felt more like an "obligation for me" like, "Ok you guys, just stop annoying me with your bad- guy- plans and let me continue my become- the- Champion-journey!"

So, in other words, since I think we´ve reached the peak of the Villain- world- menace plot with OR/AS, and Im not sure if GF will manage to keep such a high level as ORAS does, I think now it´s time to try a different plot this time, to avoid becoming repetitive. If they want to keep the current formula, they also have to maintain the current level of OR/AS and they may not be able to. So why not try a new formula, more centered in the character´s journey and less about saving the world?

I would suggest a more Ranger- like sideplot, where you help the Leader of the Pokemon Rangers in that new region to heal, or help a Legendary Pokemon in trouble? A Pokemon that is very important to maintain the peace of the region.

However, I wouldn't change the eight badges + E4 + Champion formula. I would maybe extend it to ten gyms though.

And meanwhile you do this, the Ranger side plot would take place.

You start in a small town as usual, and while you are doing yor jorney, maybe after the first gym, you get introduced to the PRA's leader (Pokemon Ranger Asociation) for the first time. Then some time later he asks you for help and introduces you to the lore about a Legendary Pokemon and then explaines you that the Pokemon is in trouble but nobody knows where it lives, and then the exploration starts. Also, different gym leader can give you different hints about the mythical location of the Pokemons hideout.
 
Last edited:
Idea time. Pokemon ABC, right?
The box legendary has entered our dimension and has decided that he wishes to enslave the entire galaxy. This Pokemon is evil by nature, it eats worlds, rips galaxies and destroys life.

This evil Pokemon has the power to create life, and it creates an army of followers to thwart your attempts at stopping the Pokemon. The evil Pokemon is soon found to have a weakness, a weakness that'd allow it to become catchable, tamable and friendly. Prof. Cake Mix creates a device that traps it mentally into a an empty universe with nothing in it, whilst the body is tame. The vessel is captured, and an AI is implanted to the Pokemon.
 
I think GF should give us a reason to collect badges other than becoming the champion. Maybe there could be region where the Gym Leaders give out medals instead of badges because said regional badges turned out to be dangerous artifacts that could be misused, and you end up being one of the few people that can handle their power. This plot point could also be used to give you not-friendly rivals and villans that all have different reasons for wanting said dangerous badges.

It also helps break the "become champion and defeat evil team to save the box legend" plot that's become standard.
 
Scale back the goals of the villainous team to something more realistic. It actually might make them seem more threatening and less cartoony.
 
A game without a villainous team, except with the rival serving as the main antagonist (think Blue and Silver combined with an evil team leader). There could also be a game with nine to ten badges instead of eight and maybe a legendary that tries to go kaiju on humanity.
 
Meta Boss said:
I think the current structure of a Villain Team trying to take over the world has reached its PEAK with OR/AS. Those games are just so emotional, and the graphic quality helps to feel touched by the story even more and feel it more realisticly. A really great plot, Delta Episoide included, the best I remember in a Pokemon game.

However, I think that, outside of OR/AS, I´m not such a big fan of having to beat mean bad guys in every main series game. That is something I kinda liked about the Johto games and their remakes: the game was much more about YOU living your ADVENTURE with pokemon, and less about saving the world. In fact, you only prevent Team Rocket from re- joining, there is no World- threat to stop. And I prefer that.

OR/AS are the only games where the actual story about the bad guys and saving the world, was truly interesting to me. In most other games, it has allways felt more like an "obligation for me" like, "Ok you guys, just stop annoying me with your bad- guy- plans and let me continue my become- the- Champion-journey!"

So, in other words, since I think we´ve reached the peak of the Villain- world- menace plot with OR/AS, and Im not sure if GF will manage to keep such a high level as ORAS does, I think now it´s time to try a different plot this time, to avoid becoming repetitive. If they want to keep the current formula, they also have to maintain the current level of OR/AS and they may not be able to. So why not try a new formula, more centered in the character´s journey and less about saving the world?

I would suggest a more Ranger- like sideplot, where you help the Leader of the Pokemon Rangers in that new region to heal, or help a Legendary Pokemon in trouble? A Pokemon that is very important to maintain the peace of the region.

However, I wouldn't change the eight badges + E4 + Champion formula. I would maybe extend it to ten gyms though.

And meanwhile you do this, the Ranger side plot would take place.

You start in a small town as usual, and while you are doing yor jorney, maybe after the first gym, you get introduced to the PRA's leader (Pokemon Ranger Asociation) for the first time. Then some time later he asks you for help and introduces you to the lore about a Legendary Pokemon and then explaines you that the Pokemon is in trouble but nobody knows where it lives, and then the exploration starts. Also, different gym leader can give you different hints about the mythical location of the Pokemons hideout.
Click to expand...

I have to agree. Looking back, the only "large scale" villains that I liked were Team Plasma in BW/B2W2 and Team Magma/Aqua in ORAS. And it is no coincidence that, of all of the villainous teams, they were the most developed. The original Team Magma/Aqua were terrible in my opinion, and Team Galactic were overblown and impersonal. Team Flare were tonally mishandled and largely uninteresting aside from Lysandre and Malva (and she may as well have not even been a part of the Team, since we only learn of her involvement in the post-game). That is why I, and many others as I know, enjoy Team Rocket. They keep things simple and realistic. Sure, their second incarnation kind of went out with a whimper, but it is always nice to be able to play those more journey-focused games, with Team Rocket acting as just a mild antagonistic force, mostly on the side. I think with Pokémon, as far as having a villain plot goes, they need to either give it their all as they did in the BW series and ORAS, or just not try to do anything big at all. Just have some bad people running around. Maybe not even an organization or anything. I am sure that they could do something just fine with a singular, sort of "super" rival; an adult-aged villain character who goes around the region, doing bad stuff simply for his/her own personal benefit.

It goes pretty much the same for the Legendary Pokémon as well, in my opinion. I was fine with the scale of the Weather Trio, and I loved the history of the Tao Trio. But the Spacetime Trio went "too big" and then the Mortality Duo were pretty much inconsequential, but not in the good way like the Tower Duo were. Xerneas/Yveltal literally didn't matter at all. Whereas Lugia/Ho-Oh, while unconnected to the villain plot or the main story, did at least get a dedicated little side-plot, and a pleasantly concise amount of historical backstory, that certainly provided an interesting fixture of the region's culture, but wasn't universe-shattering like in DPP.

Also, I quite like that Ranger-esque idea of yours. It really emphasizes the better, more noble side of being a Trainer, which is something that I never really knew I wanted to see more of until just now when you pointed it out. I think that could be pretty great.
 
I don't have a plot idea exactly, but I do have an idea for a major addition to future games that involves the plot.

I really hope that in the near future we get a game with multiple endings, kinda like a visual novel, but not exactly. Like maybe have the plot of the game make a heavy emphasis on the choices a person makes and the way their decisions shape their future and then have several plot points in the game where you can make choices that are seemingly random but which lead to an entirely different outcome at the very end..


Perhaps even a bad end? I mean, the idea of meeting different characters or having access to different areas and Pokemon depending on the choice you made sounds really intriguing to me. Though I'm not sure if GF would be able to pull it off.
 
-Cyrus from Platinum pops up in the Megaverse DP remakes, being one of the biggest plot threads of that gen.
-Looker backstory is developed in the post game. I really think his Looker codenameis actually his goal, looking for his lost memories.
Instead of black/white remakes, Black 3 White 3 happens, with one game having Hilda/Hilbert, and the other Nate/Rosa The storis are different, but coccurent, taking wildly different paths through Unova. Linking the games opens amassive epilogue with the original dragon, a resolution to N and Team Plasma.


As for original stuff, I really want a game based in Greece. I would love it if the evil team was tryingto misusea Pokemon Pantheon of sorts which are considered to be gods(basically the Olympian Gods equovalent in pokemon) and much likegreek mythology youare the unfortunate hero dragged into the mess by divine intervention.
 
I would like to select my own trainer class in the beggining of the game, and my age group. The possibility to be a painter, ace trainer, bug catcher, a waiter, a socialite, rich boy, a hiker, a psychic, gambler, a musician, a pilot, cyclist, policial, sailor, cowboy, reporter....
And depending on my choices, it modifies some events and side quests.
And some other specific facilities as the rich boy and socialite starting with more money, or the gambler has more coins and other benefits in the game corner, tournements the rancher will have access to rare berrys and herbs, and will have farm to plant berrys and other stuffs, the cyclist will get a bike since the beggining etc


I want a game based on Greece too. My plot idea is a continent where everyone believe in myths, and in these myths the legendary Pokemon are evil, etc., but it's just an ancient ideology of an centenary evil team to keep people ignorant. And the player makes a journey to disprove it. Or a plot based in a ancient myth, trancribed to the modern pokemon world.

And my rival idea is extremely futile girl who just cares about the appearance of Pokémon and people. Probably she has cute Pokemon and considered beautiful. She is arrogant, bossy, flirty, despises you and despise your team, but she changes her mind throughout the game.
 
Last edited:
-Pokemon needs get away from "safe" formulas . There's standard features, like the gyms and being the champion. But it need to be part of the story, makes sense why the player is getting eight badges. It's not bad to have a plot involving a legendary but having always this, is bothersome. It was cool in Platinum, and the apex was in Black/White, but now it got predictable.

-For now, would be great return to the origins and focus more on sci-fi. The plot related to genetic, and human created pokemon. Or maybe Pokerus or other element as an epidemic that the villain let out of control. Also have a more low profile evil team, that dont want to rule or destroy the world, and that are not really dumb.

-The same way, the rivals need to add something to the story. The XY ones are just there, it's hard to care. I have nothing against friendly rivals, and neither jerk rivals. But in the recent games there's only fluffy rivals and it's boring. Since Silver, we've never got a antihero rival. Maybe N, but he isn't really a rival.

-Also, develop facts hinted on previous games: The ancient war, the recent war, the multiverse, Looker amnesia, auras, infinity energy and so go on.

-Return old characters. Pokemon has a lot of characters, and was nice see characters like Caitlin in BW. Will be interesting know what happened to Silver, Zinnia N, other gym leaders and minor villains. They dont need to be the focus, but they can make cameos like Red, Cynthia, Steven, and help to develop old issues.

-Maybe get away from the motto "catch them all." And distance from the cliche of the child born in a small town that for no reason besides lucky or being special, was given pokemon by the professor. XY was interesting because the professor appeared later. Perhaps the possibility of getting the starter pokemon with another person or unintentionally. Or catch them in the wild.

-More mystery, suspense, connection with real issues. Like others sais before, the champion and villain were too obvious. An idea is hint someone as the villain, but they arent bad really? Or the rival or someone appoint us as the bad guy, put us in trouble and we need to prove our innocence finding the real evil team.



Specific plots: In the begging, the villain team already had take control of the region. So the hero is the resistence. The evil plot could be something based in a dictatorship, or an extreme miliraty group, Or the communists or wild capitalists that see Pokemons as things. Dont know. But the player wants to free the opressed Pokemons and trainers. And change their mindset. The gym leaders can be rebels or allies.

The rival join the villain team. He has questionable morality, but isnt exactly evil. At some point in story it enters the villain team but later regrets, and you have to help him get out. Or himself helps us infiltrate the hideout and redeems himself in this way. He's not like N, cause the twist is that N's the team leader. His development is reverse. This rival is corrupted throughout the game.
 
Last edited:
Endolise said:
Meta Boss said:
I think the current structure of a Villain Team trying to take over the world has reached its PEAK with OR/AS. Those games are just so emotional, and the graphic quality helps to feel touched by the story even more and feel it more realisticly. A really great plot, Delta Episoide included, the best I remember in a Pokemon game.

However, I think that, outside of OR/AS, I´m not such a big fan of having to beat mean bad guys in every main series game. That is something I kinda liked about the Johto games and their remakes: the game was much more about YOU living your ADVENTURE with pokemon, and less about saving the world. In fact, you only prevent Team Rocket from re- joining, there is no World- threat to stop. And I prefer that.

OR/AS are the only games where the actual story about the bad guys and saving the world, was truly interesting to me. In most other games, it has allways felt more like an "obligation for me" like, "Ok you guys, just stop annoying me with your bad- guy- plans and let me continue my become- the- Champion-journey!"

So, in other words, since I think we´ve reached the peak of the Villain- world- menace plot with OR/AS, and Im not sure if GF will manage to keep such a high level as ORAS does, I think now it´s time to try a different plot this time, to avoid becoming repetitive. If they want to keep the current formula, they also have to maintain the current level of OR/AS and they may not be able to. So why not try a new formula, more centered in the character´s journey and less about saving the world?

I would suggest a more Ranger- like sideplot, where you help the Leader of the Pokemon Rangers in that new region to heal, or help a Legendary Pokemon in trouble? A Pokemon that is very important to maintain the peace of the region.

However, I wouldn't change the eight badges + E4 + Champion formula. I would maybe extend it to ten gyms though.

And meanwhile you do this, the Ranger side plot would take place.

You start in a small town as usual, and while you are doing yor jorney, maybe after the first gym, you get introduced to the PRA's leader (Pokemon Ranger Asociation) for the first time. Then some time later he asks you for help and introduces you to the lore about a Legendary Pokemon and then explaines you that the Pokemon is in trouble but nobody knows where it lives, and then the exploration starts. Also, different gym leader can give you different hints about the mythical location of the Pokemons hideout.
Click to expand...

I have to agree. Looking back, the only "large scale" villains that I liked were Team Plasma in BW/B2W2 and Team Magma/Aqua in ORAS. And it is no coincidence that, of all of the villainous teams, they were the most developed. The original Team Magma/Aqua were terrible in my opinion, and Team Galactic were overblown and impersonal. Team Flare were tonally mishandled and largely uninteresting aside from Lysandre and Malva (and she may as well have not even been a part of the Team, since we only learn of her involvement in the post-game). That is why I, and many others as I know, enjoy Team Rocket. They keep things simple and realistic. Sure, their second incarnation kind of went out with a whimper, but it is always nice to be able to play those more journey-focused games, with Team Rocket acting as just a mild antagonistic force, mostly on the side. I think with Pokémon, as far as having a villain plot goes, they need to either give it their all as they did in the BW series and ORAS, or just not try to do anything big at all. Just have some bad people running around. Maybe not even an organization or anything. I am sure that they could do something just fine with a singular, sort of "super" rival; an adult-aged villain character who goes around the region, doing bad stuff simply for his/her own personal benefit.

It goes pretty much the same for the Legendary Pokémon as well, in my opinion. I was fine with the scale of the Weather Trio, and I loved the history of the Tao Trio. But the Spacetime Trio went "too big" and then the Mortality Duo were pretty much inconsequential, but not in the good way like the Tower Duo were. Xerneas/Yveltal literally didn't matter at all. Whereas Lugia/Ho-Oh, while unconnected to the villain plot or the main story, did at least get a dedicated little side-plot, and a pleasantly concise amount of historical backstory, that certainly provided an interesting fixture of the region's culture, but wasn't universe-shattering like in DPP.

Also, I quite like that Ranger-esque idea of yours. It really emphasizes the better, more noble side of being a Trainer, which is something that I never really knew I wanted to see more of until just now when you pointed it out. I think that could be pretty great.
Click to expand...

Im glad yoou liked my idea. It came to me as I like the plot of the Ranger games, but I don´t think said games are as good individually, due to the lack of battling. While this way, we could get the best of the Ranger games, include it as a side plot in the main series, and have an ideal game plot.

And about the story, I agree, ORAS are the absolute best they have achieved (personally BW´s plot although good, was a bit forced imo). So if they don´t come up with a plot at the level of ORAS, the more simple and adventure- centered plot is the way to go. More about the Character and his friends, and less about the Villain Team and Legendary Pokes. Andif villain teamHAD tobe in the plot, a more simple one would be better.
 
Last edited:
I dunno...the target audience is usually children, they may not want to make the plot super-complicated (to the point that a guide is needed to know where to go next).
 
Personally, I'd love a plot that isn't based on "Teams," but rather various individuals with conflicting extreme ideologies about the world of Pokemon. Each individual is scattered across the game with varying disguised roles - one maybe a Gym Leader, another a Traveling Trainer, perhaps another a Scientist, etc. Each imposes a radical pursuit that could threaten the world somehow, and you must stop each if them somehow within your quest of becoming the best.

I feel that the obsession with Teams with underlings is getting too repetitive in the games these days...
 
My little brother and I were talking about an idea that I like a lot- Pokemon tends to be focused around dualities- what about reality/fantasy?

Two games set in parallel worlds that are "falling apart toward each other," one very normal, dex dominated by normal, fighting, bug, flying, etc, and the other highly fantastical with a fairy, ghost, dragon, psychic, etc focused dex. They're not exclusively these types, but there's a focus. The reality game has a box legendary that's like a fairy queen, the fantasy game's box legendary is a sort of "chosen child" a la Narnia or whatever. No evil team really, just the urgency that the world is unstable. Maybe the character is from the other world and was part of the bleeding edge?

Your journey takes you through one of two parallel worlds with parallel but not-quite-the-same gyms and pokemon (for example, where the reality one has meowth, larvitar, emolga, trubbish, and petilil, the fantasy one has purrloin, dratini, dedenne, phantump, and cottonee. As you draw nearer and nearer to the elite four, the universe becomes more and more unstable, and you need to do something about it, and especially as someone from the other world? And eventually, you encounter the box legendary and capture it, linking the two worlds together by the bond forged between trainer and pokemon from one world to the other. When the two worlds anchor to each other, the pokemon from the one are free to colonize the other, so that toward postgame, there's less exclusivity from one dex to the other (sort of akin to the revived ecosystem in ORAS hoenn?).

Anyway, it's interesting to picture a pokemon game without an evil team, and with a different source of urgency.
 
This one isn't so much of an idea for a plot as it is one for handling the Teams. Keep them around because a story without antagonistic force is boring, but change how they are presented.

Ever since Team Rocket set a precedent, Teams have followed a similar formula: they're a group of criminals that cause trouble everywhere, and they're headed by an individual who's often the only one actually tuned in on their true focus, and typically the only non-idiot in their faction. In Galactic and Plasma's cases, the leader is on a completely different page than his subordinates. This creates a problem: everyone except for the boss is a complete joke. Cyrus, Ghetsis, and Lysandre had some pretty evil plans going on, but they were the only ones that actually knew about or took their plans seriously.

Meanwhile, most of the common grunts are running about, stirring up petty trouble like a bunch of bored teens. Most of their stunts have little to do with the actual goal of their faction, or it's loosely connected in word only. So you stole an old guy's Wingull? Wooow, I TOTALLY see how that ties in with your plans to flood the world...

What they need to do is characterize the Teams as actual despicable people. Have the grunts do more than just swagger around yammering; show them actively threatening other people, or acting like violent (although stupid) thugs. Throw in more things like Team Rocket's incident with the Marowak. Make the Team as a whole a group that players will love to hate. Maybe then we'll have more reason to take em out other than "because their leader wants to kill everything."
 
Please note: The thread is from 10 years ago.
Please take the age of this thread into consideration in writing your reply. Depending on what exactly you wanted to say, you may want to consider if it would be better to post a new thread instead.
Back
Top Bottom