It's not limiting the roster for the sake of doing so. There's a reason for the plot to do such thing. And there's not a reason why it should be rejected, unless change terrifies you.

The game would still be Pokemon, but eh. You're the expert, I find Pokemon very boring aside of Colosseum.

EDIT: I think I found where the problem lies. It's because I replied to you about the canonical thing, just offering a solution to the disappearing Pokemons. I didn't mean to this game to be a canonical entry (just that canonically you could make pokemon disappears); so you were trying to discuss it from the canonically point of view.

I think that Pokemon is one of the few franchises in the industry that can afford to do something like this and profit big from it. I think people by handhelds to just play Pokemon. I don't just think the software would be successful, but the hardware as well.

You and I are both in agreement, then.

Eh perhaps, it would have a great advantage because of brand name and being one of Nintendo's core franchises but outside that it could go either way.

I find Colleseum one of the worst spin offs in the series.

If all you want is a dark plot, that's another thing. There can be a Pokemon game where permadeath is a real an signifigant threat. You can have a massive horrific event where many Pokemon die. It's happened before, and it can be visited once again. I get the want for a "darker" plot. But the extinction of half the species doesn't make sense, even from a plot point of view. What about other trainers who own those extinct Pokemon, but weren't near what ever killed them? What about breeders? Again, if all you want is a limited roster, there's no reason to have the death of those Pokemon species to be that reason.

The player is from a remote island country with limited assortment of Pokemon. Done. Limited roster with no betrayal of the franchise. But then it would be like literally every Pokemon game ever.

Pokemon XY is the best selling 3DS game. It's not just one of Nintendo's core franchises; it is Nintendo's core franchise. But it's not AAA at all. It could be, but it isn't. Pokemon with the time, effort, and money that goes into AAA games on a home console would be game changing.

I can see why they wouldn't do it. A game that ambitious and large would cost more than GTA V, with no guarantee of decent profiting or selling nearly as much on the Wii U. They have always gone the way of keeping costs low and profits high and that concept of yours, as cool and interesting as it sounds, would be the complete opposite.

An open world real time pokemon would outsell Mario Kart 8 and bundled with the Wii U 10 mill+ LTD Wii U's on just this game alone.

Pokemon is a turn based RPG. That's what it is and that's probably what it'll always be. You want an open world hack and slash game with a Pokemon skin.

Pokemon is a lot more than simply a turn based rpg. The battle system was made because of the limitiation of the systems it was originally on but just because GameFreak hasn't changed the formula doesn't mean that they can't or its not pokemon any longer. Seriously, there are pokemon spinoffs for every generation, spin offs that have their own gameplay system.

Its completely short sighted to think of any game as its battle system.

Specifically, the trainer (the virtual avatar of the player) gives commands to the pokemon they train. Whether it is real time or turn based or any hybrid of that doesn't mean it will change that fundamental concept.