I am a Pokemon video game fanatic. I can sing the theme song by heart. I can tell the difference between a Blitzle and a Basculin. I even bought my Nintendo DS on a whim simply because I’d heard that Pokemon Diamond/Pearl had come out and I no longer had a Game Boy to play it on. I wrote extensive Pokemon fan fiction in my youth. I am a 29-year-old male, and I do indeed plan to buy the new Pokemon Black/White 2 when it comes out this month. I absolutely love those games.

But man, oh man, Pokemon is in desperate need of a lot of improvements. Who knew such a powerful, long-lasting franchise was so broken?

No Bulbasaur or Charizard? Definitely broken

Join me after the jump for 6 improvements I want to see when the next generations of Pokemon games come out. This franchise shows no signs of slowing down, but it could use a lot of help along the way.

This may surprise to those of you who don’t live for Pokemon, but the flagship products in the Pokemon franchise are the role-playing video games for the Nintendo handheld systems. The entire Pokemon empire, with all its Pikachus, spin-off games, cartoons, backpacks, movies and more, are all based around a series of Game Boy games. Every few years they come out with a new game – a new ‘generation’ – and that’s where we get new Pokemon, new characters, new adventures. And I have been a dutiful fan ever since Pokemon Red/Blue came out all the way back in 1998. I haven’t played most of the spin-off games, and I rarely watched the cartoon show, but I have never missed a new generation on my trusty Game Boy.

And here’s something else you might not know: every single Pokemon RPG is exactly the same.

In every single new generation, you play a young pokemon trainer who grows up in a small town with a single mother. You get your first Pokemon from the kindly professor who also lives in your town. Then you travel the game world catching and battling other Pokemon, while doing battle with your rival and an elite team of international terrorists (Team Rocket, Team Galactic, etc.). And in each game, the point is to put together the ultimate Pokemon team, battle 6 individual Gym Leaders and then finally defeat the Elite Four to become world champion.

That’s it. That’s every single new generation in a nutshell. Sure the graphics get better, the names are different and there are new Pokemon introduced, but each and every game is exactly the same. And we Pokemon fans still love it!

But like I said, there is room for improvement.

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6. New Premise

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Oh look, a plucky young Pokemon trainer out on the same old adventure

This should be rather obvious after what I just told you. Every Pokemon game is about a 10-year-old trainer battling his or her way to the championship, while fighting their rival and a team of bad guys. Here’s a rather novel idea: why not make the next game about ANYTHING ELSE!? Maybe play an adult trainer who is coming out of retirement? Or maybe play the kindly professor earning his graduate degree in Pokemon? How about a game where you play a renegade bad guy who’s decided to rebel against his team? There are three good and new ideas right there. But even the upcoming Pokemon Black/White 2, a direct sequel to the original Pokemon Black/White, is still just going to be about a young Pokemon trainer battling his/her way to the champion ship.

Why? Why are Nintendo and developer Game Freak so glued to this same premise? It’s not like they’re following the Pokemon cartoon. That show follows the games in terms of new Pokemon, characters and places to visit; not the other way around. There’s no reason Ash and Pikachu can’t be incorporated into the new premise for the next season.

Even Mario tries out a new premise every once and awhile. Mario Sunshine, anyone?

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5. Pokemon Open Mic Night

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Sing for your supper

That is a picture of the Pokemon Musical that you can play in Pokemon Black/White. You pick one of your Pokemon, dress them up in little accessories and then they compete in a series of mini-games in order to determine the winner. It is a real thing that exists in the Pokemon games. The Musical has no bearing on your gym badges or the championship. It is completely optional and arbitrary.

And I think it’s awesome! It’s an example of thinking outside the box, of expanding the Pokemon world. People don’t just force their animals to fight each other for amusement. Sometimes they dress them up and make them perform, just like real dog shows. And the best part is that there are no restrictions on which Pokemon can enter the fashion show. You can use your dog or cat-like Pokemon, or you can use the ancient, skyscraper-sized behemoth who has been asleep under the Earth for a million years! You can give him a funny hat.

So why not take it a step further? They should add a ton of new side games to expand the Pokemon world. Seeing-Eye Pokemon, police K-9 units, a Pokemon zoo, the Pokemon circus, and, my own personal suggestion, a Pokemon stand-up comedy open mic night! Players could have their Pokemon tell jokes and try to win the crowd. And I bet they’d have some pretty spectacular ways to deal with a heckler.

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4. Pandas!

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Pandas and kung fu, together at last

Because as we all know, there’s no better way to revive a long-running video game franchise than with pandas!

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3. Nintendogs + Pokemon = Adorableness

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I’ve never played Nintendogs, but as that video shows, you get to play and interact with an adorable, CGI puppy dog. You can pet it and feed it and take care of it like a real puppy. The games are pretty popular, with a lot of sequels and spin-offs. Also cats. Now imagine if you could play with your Pokemon that way. Usually, Pokemon are just cartoon sprites that do only what they’re supposed to do in battles. They’re poorly animated weapons and nothing more. But imagine if they created fully interactive and adorable CGI Pokemon like in that video!

You could pet and cuddle your Pikachu. You could teach your Squirtle to sit up and dance. You could feed your Onix specialty Onix food and watch him smile and role around. This would create a whole new level of interaction with your Pokemon. They really would become your friends and your pets, just like in the cartoon.

Though you probably wouldn’t be as eager to throw them into vicious animal fights anymore…

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2. Mewthree

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The evolution of Mewtwo, duh

How have they not introduced Mewthree yet!? The story practically writes itself!

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1. Just give Us the Damn MMORPG Already!

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Stop holding out on us!

For the love of all that is just and righteous in the world, why the hell has Nintendo not created a massive multiplayer online role-playing game version of Pokemon!? It’s what every Pokemon fan wants! It would and could be the greatest Pokemon game ever created, incorporating not only the classic RPG games, but making the spin-off games like Pokemon Stadium and Pokemon Snap part of the same adventure! Not to mention incorporating every single suggestion I’ve had on this list so far,  and a million others. You could have ultimate character creation, from designing your own character to buying new clothing and gear. You would have the computing space to include all 600+ Pokemon in a single game!

This should be the most obvious decision in video gaming history!

All of the handheld Game Boy games have the same top-down view, which limits movement and exploration. But imagine if your Pokemon trainer had a whole glorious world to explore! You could climb giant mountains and do battle with Pokemon on the top of snowy peaks. Or just take their pictures like Pokemon Snap. Or actually dive down to the bottom of the ocean to track the rarest of the rare. Tall grass would actually look like tall grass. The environments, from jungles to desert, would look real. Pokemon could actually be shown to scale instead of all of them being turned into tiny little sprites.

It’s so beautiful

Every time this has come up, I think Game Freak’s answer has always been that the goal of Pokemon is to bring players together, for battles and trading. And they feel that the handheld system is the best way to do that.

Yeah, maybe it was back in 1998. But a little thing called the Internet has kind of happened since then. Not to mention how handheld devices have grown. If you really want to capture the handheld market, why not make Pokemon for smart phones? Nowadays, PCs and video game consoles can connect players online with the greatest of ease. And with a worldwide online Pokemon game, we could have some real tournaments and competitions.

We would be able to crown a world champion Pokemon master! That should be reason enough for Nintendo and Game Freak to get off their butts!