2. Difficulty
Ever heard of a Nuzlocke Challenge?. These challenges are popular in the Pokemon community because they add much needed difficulty through self-imposed rules. There are two mandatory rules in a Nuzlocke Challenge: You can only catch the first Pokemon you meet in each area, and if a Pokemon faints it must be released.
Nuzlocke Challenges became so popular because, let's face it, Pokemon games lack challenge. Gamefreak answered with two new difficulties in Black 2 and White 2, but the developer implemented these difficulties in an unintuitive manner. Upon taking down the Champion of the Pokemon League, Black 2 players receive a challenge key and White 2 players receive the easy key. Gamefreak created these keys with the idea of player sharing in mind, so each key can be traded between friends. However, if you restart the game, you lose the keys. This means if you don't have any friends—sorry—or if your friends don't play Pokemon, you can't use either difficulty at the start of a new adventure.
Gamefreak needs to introduce much an easier and forever-alone friendly way to obtain a higher difficulty, period. Many Pokemon players aren't children anymore, and naturally crave a more engaging experience.
