Well, I really appreciate this topic Hilda. Allow me to address your points as far as Se7en is concerned:
10) Everyone in Se7en agrees with you on this one and in fact, while the first chapter will include a rather straightforward area (what with it being the very beginning etc), later chapters will put a lot of emphasis on exploration. Some areas, like the desert, the dungeon inspired to Ayers Rock and at least one jungle area (if not two) will be HUGE, with a lot of different things to do and different Pokemon to catch.
9) Se7en is going to feature a 100% original Pokedex, and IMO tht is enough to make gym battles VERY difficult (and normal battles as well, to a lesser extent). I mean, you are facing a full team of Pokmon you mostly have never seen before, you know nothing about their stats, secondary typing, and moves, so you have no way to prepare in advance, you cannot say "I will just catch this Pokemon, have it learn that move, and then I win", because you don't know what works and what doesn't until you try. So yeah, I think that is enough of a challenge on our part. We will not implement a "hard mode" because we are being faced with enough complications with the coding without going that far ;-;
8) No. Absolutely no. No way. Sorry, but this is not to be. It is WAY beyond our capabilities, there is no chance in hell we can implement this... At least, not before the post game. We have no guarantees that our playerbase will be large enough to justify haveing a network system, and considering that, as mentioned, we don't even have the ability to implement it, overstepping our limits for the sake of doing something that might very well bomb is a no-no as far as I am concerned.
7) Another point on which I disagree, and on which I really cannot look for a compromise with you: we are going to release our game episodically and, considering our IRL problems, there will be at least one month between a chapter and the next one. So yeah, without a level cap people could simply spend that month level grinding, and then plow through the game unopposed. I myself hate the level cap, but it is a necessary evil.
6) This is a point I agree with wholeheartedly, and I know the rest of the Se7en staff do too. And in fact, each area WILL have at least one "ultra rare" Pokemon, that is, a Pokemon with an insanely low chance of appearing... And again, keep in mind that we will feature a full Pokedex of original Pokemon, about which you won't know anything: the majority of them will actually be completely unknown to you, as we are not planning to announce them all... So yeah, the thrill of wandering an area and suddenly bumping in a Pokemon you had never een before by mere chance is something that we WILL have. As a matter of fact, this is one of the main selling points of our game
5) It will probably happen in the post game, but we will have this too.
4) A villain who is not so blatantly, make-hypocritical-claims-then-kick-Munna evil, uh? Well, I cannot spoil anything but... I think you will like Se7en
3) See the above, and keep in mind that we have Hukuna on board (and I myself am pretty good at planning plots if I do say so myself, and our other staffers are clever guys too).
2) We are not featuring Mega Evolution at all, as we feel that the whole Mega Evolution thing was born as a way to introduce more diversity to the game and attract more customers... An added attraction, if you will. And we don't need it, because the fact that we feature 150+ original Pokemon is all the attraction we need. This being said, there are many Pokemon in Se7en that, if taken out of context, would probably be considered "broken" in the current SD metagame, but in the context of Graterras metagame I dare say we managed to achieve a nice balance, each Pokemon has its counters and there are no Pokemon so good you have no reason not to run them... And there aren't Pokemon so bad you have no reason to run them either.
1) Don't worry, I am beating a certain member of our project (who would LOVE to introduce more... Ah, excessively innovative stuff) over the head with this every day