I looked for rules on suggestions and couldn’t really find any, so I’m gonna post ideas as they come to me until somebody yells at me.
Currently (as far as I’ve seen) if you talk to the pokemon following you (party leader) you get one of like 4 or 5 descriptions of how the pokemon is “getting pumped up” or relaxing, or an update on how much the pokemon likes you with no correlation to the current situation, the pokemon’s status, or what the pokemon actually is. I personally would love to see this mechanic expanded on. If nothing else, I would at least like to see an expanded list of possible dialogues, the same few options get stale very fast and the player doesn’t have much incentive to talk to their pokemon after the first few interactions. In a perfect world, all pokemon would have their own interactions, some of which would be dependant on their natures. Of course, that’s a lot to ask for. A simpler/easier method would be to assign pokemon groups or tags and pull dialogue from a pool of possible options based on those tags.
Some examples:
any pokemon: “Venusaur looks tired.”
as far as I know, all pokemon sleep, therefore all pokemon can be tired
any pokemon with the ‘intelligent’ tag: “Kadabra looks lost in thought.”
would apply to most psychic types, pokemon based on people, or pokemon known to be somewhat intelligent
any pokemon with the ‘goofy’ tag: “Slowbro tripped and face-planted!..… this doesn’t seem to bother them much.”
pokemon like Quagsire, Psyduck, Exeggutor, Ludicolo, etc.
any pokemon with the ‘cute’ tag: “Aron wants to ride on your shoulders.”
most small, baby, or basic stage pokemon.
any pokemon with the ‘exceptionally heavy’ tag: “Aggron wants to ride on your shoulders. Run.”
Snorlax, Tyranitar, Torterra, Golem, etc.
Final stage or fan favorite pokemon might get an interaction to themselves. (my post, my favorites)
Gengar: “Gengar is smiling wider than usual. You grow increasingly suspicious.”
Magneton: “Magneton is arcing electricity between its magnets. You put a few more feet between yourself and your pokemon.”
Donphan: “Donphan is entertaining itself by rolling circles around you. You get dizzy trying to follow it.”
Weavile: “Weavile claws at the ground for a couple of seconds. It’s carved a picture of itself with surprising detail. Weavile is very proud.”
(delta)Venusaur: “You see your reflection in one of the crystals on Venusaur’s back. You could swear you saw it wink at you.”
If this mechanic were to be expanded upon, it would probably be practical to have fans submit quotes on their favorite pokemon as opposed to the dev team trying to come up with several hundred unique and unrelated lines of dialogue on their own. Every pokemon is somebody’s favorite.
This post ended up being way longer than I originally thought it would be. I understand that this represents a lot of work for a relatively small part of the game, but for pretty much the whole time you’re playing Insurgence your party leader is following you around, so it would be neat if they had something interesting to say every once in a while.
Sorry for the long post, love the game, thanks for reading.