Recently, I was pondering how the Pokémon series could be shaken up a bit without destroying the core game mechanics. I love the series, but it's become just a little bit repetitive over the years. Making slight tweaks to battle mechanics, under the hood workings, and adding more Pokémon, moves, etc. can only do so much. So I thought... what else? I came up with an idea. 
   What if there were singular boss battles (say against legendary Pokémon and other powerful things) that had the health equivalent of an entire team of 6 Pokémon, but reasonable attack power? They wouldn't be able to be captured in the boosted state, of course. Imagine fighting against a mech belonging to the evil team, or a super powered Pokémon during the story. After the story, there could be a chance to capture it when it has reasonable health (if it even was a Pokémon).
   I think this mechanic would be interesting to freshen up the stories or aftergames. Of course, status conditions would make ridiculously short work of these guys, so they'd probably have different fundamental interactions with the main mechanics.
   What do you think? Got any semi-interesting ideas of your own?

I don't really have any ideas for how to change things up too crazily. RPGs in general, especially ones as based as Pokémon, are hard to change.

I actually disagree with your idea on singular bosses. While that may seem new for a mainstream Pokémon game, they have been used pretty much to death in the Mystery Dungeon and Rumble side-series, including non-Pokémon bosses (which I don't really like, honestly). If there's to be something truly worthwhile for the main series, it's got to be something that hasn't really been done in any game yet in the franchise.

And, in general, I feel that the side games do more than enough to spice up the gameplay in the franchise. People like to forget that those more unique games even exist, but they do, and should be accounted for.

I would want the battles to be the way one of the older mega man games was built. Like each side has a square of 9 smaller squares that you can move between and each attack is aimed at a certain square. If you are on the square it attacks you take the full damage. If you are in the "blast radius" like what it touches, its a weak hit, and if you steer clear of the attack, it misses.

Honestly, I find the path Pokemon has taken to be just fine. There have been many slight changes throughout the entire series, they're just sort of hard to notice. And I'm not talking about new Pokemon or moves or something similar to that, I mean battle mechanics and new features. That being said, I don't really have any ideas, as I like the way they are going with this.

I don't know if this is an innovation, but I would like for there to be more paths that you can take in the game. For example, at the beginning, you can choose to be a part of Team Rocket, be a professor, be a trainer, be a coordinator, etc. Then your storyline is based off of what career you chose. I know this kind of thing would take a very long time to make, but I think it would be worth it. I really like Pokémon already, but if they added this, I would like it even more. 

One thing i wish they would change is the happiness feature. I think they can do more with it than just evolution and the move Return and Frustration. Maybe it can work similar to the anime where when Ash first got Pikachu and it didn't listen. Like when you first catch a Pokémon it will use random moves or not listen to you, but when its happiness goes up you have more control over it. It will add more of a challenge feature to the game I think.

RDay13 : I don't think they would do something like that ever in a base game, because that woul kind of defeat the purpose. One day there might be a few more spin off games where you can do different things, kind of like what they have done with all of the different current spin off titles.

I would want new Pokemon and for them to bring back the fossils you could go underground to get in Pokemon Diamond and Pearl with your friends and connect it to the surface somehow. Also it would be nice to implement Pokemon contests and the Pokemon triathlon that you could compete against your friends against this time with rewards of course. 

For me personally (I know many won't agree with this), I would really like some tweaks to the battle system. Mainly that speed would have more of an effect than who simply takes their turn first. I'm tired of the whole one turn each system anyway. I would really like something that more resembles a realistic battle over simply firing one shot each per turn. I'm sure I'm alone in this but the battle system is just stale.

SWTerra :   The rpg's that I play  (not pokemon...never played them) could really use better story line and less time on the graphics.  Games aren't all about graphics, but that is what has been happening with the newer systems coming out.  Depth has been taken over by graphics alone.  You play an rpg these days and it lasts for a few days, but it looks amazing.  You played an rpg ten years ago, and it looked like crap, but you had fun playing it for 40 plus hours over the course of a few weeks or months.  Sorry if this is pokemon specific, but you said rpg, so I thought I would give my two cents about most newer rpgs like the final fantasies and first person shooters

Your idea about a super-powered Pokémon which is uncatchable mid-story but becomes catchable after the story's over is pretty much exactly what happens in BW2, where Ghetsis controls a souped-up Kyurim and nearly freezing the entire region with it. Basically, it already happened.

What I would change, is a dynamic difficulty where the gameplay is tailored on how well you play. Pokemon X/Y was already very easy, and OR/AS was just insulting. A spokesman of GameFreak even said so himself, that the reason for making the game this easy is because otherwise no one would play through the story. This can easily be solved with a dynamic difficulty setting, which has been around since the 90s. A simple idea to change the entire experience of the game. BW2 had a Hard Mode, but it was terrible; it was unlocked after you beat the League, but you could only activate it in that playthrough so it wouldn't work in a new playthrough, and all it really did was just raise the opponents' Pokemon by 10 levels. Which actually works against the game's favor because it makes the gameplay really unbalanced.

For Pokémon games, I'd say stop making three games that play pretty much the same, but with different Pokémon. That's why I haven't played any Pokémon games since Black/White and Conquest. They do it to make more money, but it's such an annoyingly obvious way for them to say, "Hey, give us more money.", that I stopped caring about Pokémon games.

I think that one huge thing that needs to be done is the balancing of gyms. While this would be a nuzlockers nightmare, and likely mine as well, I walked into the Johto elite four with a level 70 Typhlosion and swept the entire league that way. The gym leaders used to actually be a challenge, and now they're more of a formality than anything. I actually lost my first battle against Bugsy and I think Claire and Morty. Now, the gym leaders' pokemon are only a few levels higher than surrounding wild pokemon, and they don't even offer a challenge. The games need to have a system in which the gym leaders' pokemon have a base strength, but if you greatly exceed that, then their pokemon's levels will range from 3 under to 3 over of your highest leveled pokemon when you take them on, and then maintain that level afterwards if you lose. This would give the feeling of a real challenge, as well as requiring some actual training, or even grinding. 

Another mechanic would be battling the rival after the completion of the game. (This was done with Serena) and their continued strengthening as well, so that you can't absolutely curb-stomp your rival whom has kept pace with you throughout your entire journey. They, too, should have a function similar to that of the gym leaders.

Finally, I think that the games could evolve just a bit further in the regard of catching pokemon. I think that, for certain stronger pokemon, such as legendaries, they could have multi-stage battles in which the legendary is weak at first, but every time you battle it its health only goes down to a certain point before it retreats. You could then battle it at a higher level until you find its actual level and catch it that way.

That's my synopsis! I hope that you enjoyed!