Well, there are a lot of evolution methods I’d want to play with; not just things like linking Slowpoke and Shellder somehow, but just stuff like tweaking a bunch of evolutionary levels, throwing in stones or taking them out, adjusting the degree of happiness required for certain Pokémon to evolve, etc. Black and White, for instance, introduced a lot of Pokémon with really ridiculously high levels for evolution – apparently basing those levels on the points at which you first capture them in the game rather than on the relative power or rarity of the Pokémon in question, as previous games have. This gives you absurd things like Rufflet and Vullaby evolving at level 54, Mienfoo at 50, or Pawniard at 52, when comparable Pokémon in previous games would be more likely to evolve in their high twenties to mid thirties, anything as high as 50 being previously reserved for Pokémon like Salamence and Dragonite. I can understand the rationale for organising things this way – they don’t want you to catch these Pokémon and have them evolve almost immediately – but it results in them dragging their feet until the very end of the game, since other Pokémon have reached their final forms long ago. The reason I feel this is inappropriate is because it ties those Pokémon to specific stages of the game. What if, in future games, designers want Rufflet or Mienfoo to be available early (for whatever reason)? You’re faced with 30 or 40 levels of comparative uselessness on their part (it doesn’t help that they have no intermediate forms). At least Magikarp gets it over with fairly quickly. Slowpoke, Ponyta and Rhyhorn have to wait until 37, 40 and 42 respectively, and honestly I think anything more becomes unreasonable (and Rhyhorn, at least, is a lot stronger than most unevolved Pokémon).
Then there are a few Pokémon that are just weird – like Marill. For Azurill to become friendly enough to evolve into Marill can easily take until level 16 or so… and then Marill evolves almost immediately into Azumarill at level 18. I think that should really have been pushed up into the mid twenties when Azurill was released; thanks to Huge Power, Marill isn’t exactly a pushover anyway. Alternatively, Azurill could be tweaked to evolve earlier (along with most of the other ‘baby’ Pokémon – stuff like Pichu and Igglybuff really should be evolving sooner than stuff like Eevee and Riolu). I might also introduce a level requirement for the use of evolutionary stones (no level 2 Togekiss for you). Take the Sun Stone and Moon Stone requirements away from Sunflora and Delcatty, so there can be a possibility of evolving them again if future designers should will it so, and maybe paste them onto someone else instead (it seems like it would make a lot of thematic sense for Gothorita to evolve into Gothitelle by using a Moon stone, for instance). And for goodness’ sake, do something with Tyrogue’s ridiculous evolution method. Attack > Defense —> Hitmonlee – fine. Attack < Defense —> Hitmonchan – fine. Attack = Defense —> Hitmontop – much harder for no good reason, and also makes no sense since Hitmontop is easily the most defensively-oriented of the lot.
And yes, why not get rid of the incense while we’re at it? I understand the intent there; I get that they’re trying to maintain a degree of internal consistency between the games of different generations, but surely at some point we have to acknowledge that nobody actually cares? No-one is really going to go up to Game Freak and demand an explanation as to why you couldn’t breed a Mime Jr. in Gold and Silver. That’s what remakes are for!
Pokémaniacal 