Pokémon Day has come and gone and no announcement for the new Switch version showed up. Pokémon fans across the world have been eagerly awaiting any snippet of information regarding the first main series Pokémon game to depart from mobile platforms since the Switch was first announced. While we wait, many of us are creating fantastic scenarios of how Pokémon Switch will switch up the formula that has worked for 22 years. Here’s the Pulling Aggro list of fantasies.

Nintendo has been shaking things up with a couple of the flagship franchises — Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey. These two franchises have followed a set formula that has changed very little since their opening installment. It would make sense for Nintendo to continue to push the envelope with Pokémon and allow Game Freak to change the classic formula in a large way and open the world up ala Breath of the Wild and Odyssey. Bring the camera in closer and put us in the world of Pokémon like never before and allow us to truly explore this amazing world.

Following up on the open world, place Pokémon in the world around us and truly bring them to life. Pull elements from Pokémon Snap and have plenty of Pokémon freely roaming the areas they call home and have unique and special ways to lure out the more rare Pokémon. I have enjoyed the current formula of running in circles waiting for the random 3% chance of encountering a rare Pokémon, but waiting for it to rain in a specific zone, or having to track down certain food or ingredients to create a lure in order to draw out a rare Pokémon would really change the hunting aspect of these games — for the better in my opinion.

This point may be slightly more controversial, but bring in new Pokémon. New Pokémon to look for and understand their place in the world and the meta of battles — as well as our hearts — is always a really fun and interesting part of a new Pokémon game. Sure there are over 800 Pokémon and that is a seriously large number of creatures that Game Freak has created, but releasing a new game with no new monsters would be very risky. However, it is possible that the only new creatures we would need are the starters, and they have a certain level of flexibility there in my opinion. Game Freak could just release more species variations — such as the Alolan forms introduced in Sun and Moon. I think that the Alolan forms of Pokémon is a super interesting idea and can be done to limit the amount of time and effort involved to create entirely new Pokémon. The one other change that needs to happen is an increase in the mega evolutions. I think that the variations and mega evolutions are interesting and new enough to satisfy me and are also a great way to breathe life into old forgotten Pokémon such as Farfetch’d.

However, some pieces of this formula should remain unchanged, at least in the general sense. I believe it is important for the turn based combat to remain unchanged. This is a staple of the series and sets the importance of having to really put effort into the type of Pokémon in your team and the types of moves each Pokémon has. The turn based format creates a need for strategy that very few games have anymore and I believe that Pokémon needs to stay true to its identity in this area.

Something that does need some change in the battle system though is more moves that break the typical “rock, paper, scissors” type effectiveness, like Freeze-Dry and Thousand Arrows. When choosing moves for you Pokémon, most trainers always have to make the choice of choosing between high damage and low accuracy or average damage and great accuracy. It doesn’t make much sense to choose the weaker damage attack when you can choose one that does more damage at the same accuracy — it’s like choosing Water Gun over Surf. What if the weaker attack was strong against the type’s weakness though? That’s how Freeze-Dry and Thousand Arrows separate themselves. Freeze-Dry is an Ice-Type attack that is super effective against Water-types — which normally block Ice-types very well. Thousand Arrows is a Ground-type attack that can hit flying Pokémon — which is unheard of for the Ground-type. These kind of moves are fun and make the fights a lot more interesting and I think more of them would be very beneficial.

Something that is always popular among gamers in the ability to customize your character and make the avatar yours. Whether you make it look like you or some outrageous character that dressed themselves blind, gamers love to leave their mark on their character. Pokémon could benefit from more customization options. The option to unlock different ways you throw the Poke ball before a battle was really neat and gave something to work for after the game ended. However, also allow us to have a greater impact on our appearance in the game. Let us dress up like the bad guys even if it has no impact on the story or NPC’s reactions to our character. A possible change that could really make an impact, is having the pieces of clothing have skills tied to them. Don’t allow the skills to be game breaking or present in multiplayer battles, but having skills like “increased ability to capture” or “fire-type attacks are stronger” could be an interesting change. Possibly bring back the O-Power in the form of the clothes you wear, allowing you to affect the way you play by the clothes you choose to wear. Players could really invest into being a specific type trainer like the gym leaders were in previous games.

Something I definitely think Pokémon needs to change is how much handholding is done. In Sun and Moon, it felt like my hand was held through the entire experience. I recently read an article about when Pokémon Red was released and nothing was explained and how different that experience was to today. In the beginning, you were presented with three choices between a fire-type, water-type and a grass-type. You could infer that maybe they played on each other and fire was strong against grass and water was strong against fire, but it was not explicitly stated. As you stumble on your first gym, you have not experienced the rock type yet and are faced with an obstacle you have to overcome. Maybe it is my experience with Pokémon since 1996 and how involved the internet is with Pokémon that makes it a lot easier to know what is happening, but I feel like we could afford to be told less and have to seek more knowledge. There’s something to be said about having to figure out how things work on your own.

One of the most popular set of games in the series was Gold and Silver. One of the reasons that this was so popular, was because once you finished the game and beat the Elite Four, you were sent off to Kanto. Adding more regions than just the one you start in is a very fun and exciting thing — the fans of the games have even stated this. After finishing Sun and Moon, it seems like this is likely with how much mention of other regions is made and one of the characters even decides to move to another region as well. I’m not necessarily saying put every region in the game — even though that would be incredible — but having other regions to travel to and catch Pokémon specific to that region would add a lot of depth and excitement to the game. Maybe you have to go through the Island Trials of Alola to gain respect of certain gym leaders in order to even compete or possibly they have a worldwide Elite Four type of elite team to beat, but in order to compete, you have to prove your worth in multiple regions.

Lastly, I think it is important that there are more reasons and ways to play with other people. The Switch is a home console as well as a portable one and home console gamers are used to playing games online with friends. Pokémon GO sort of changed the way players interact in a Pokémon game and I think Pokémon Switch could continue to change that. I don’t believe this game needs to become an MMO by any means, but right now, the Festival Plaza, is the only place you can see other players and even then, there’s not any actual interaction with the human on the other side. We have always been able to battle and trade, but I think it is time for this multiplayer experience to evolve as well.

Pokémon runs on a classic formula that has stood the test of time with each new generation and “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it” can apply, but Nintendo has changed the dynamic of the way we enjoy their games and even two of their major franchises already. Both games that changed were among the highest reviewed of 2017 and while one won Game of the Year, the other was nominated in the category as well. I think Pokémon can benefit greatly from an adjustment to the formula, while staying true to self.

What do you think, should Pokémon continue to hold their Everstone or put it back in the bag and finally let the evolution happen so we can see what incredible new form it takes on?