Once upon a time, it was possible to put Pikachu in a beauty pageant, like a twisted version of "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo." You could have your own secret base amid the volcanic ash of Fallarbor Town. You could even raise a Pokemon with the help of a pedometer, for some reason.

The sad thing is that, cool as all of these ideas might be, many of them have vanished after one generation. What gives, Game Freak? Why do you have to tantalize us with such great ideas, only to take them away? Luckily, Pokémon X/Y will be out this October, so there's still time to make amends. Here are the eight features we'd like to see return for the latest generation of Pokemon.

After selling millions of Wii Balance Boards, Nintendo's fitness mania converged with its most popular franchise via the introduction of the Pokéwalker in 2010. Packed in with Pokémon Heartgold/Soulsilver for DS, it was a pedometer that leveled up your Pokémon while walking. Not only that, it can be used to find certain unusual Pokémon and items, which can then be transferred back to your DS.

The Pokéwalker soon became something of a game in itself as people took their monsters on their morning commute (or a walk through the park) to see what they could find. It ended being a popular peripheral and was sorely missed when Pokémon Black/White rolled around the next year. Even if Nintendo doesn’t want to manufacture another peripheral to accompany X/Y, a Pokéwalker app for the 3DS would be a very nice addition for the new game--especially considering the 3DS already has a pedometer built in.

Contests were a great addition to Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire. For the first time, the AI-judged competitions made it so Pokémon moves were finally useful in a context outside of battle (or breeding, in Ditto's case). If your Pokémon was up to snuff, beating the Master Contests netted you not only a great ribbon, but also a special painting commemorating your winning Pokémon. Subsequent generations had similar features such as the Pokémon Musicals, but they tended to pale in comparison to the original contests.

How? For one thing, Contests had actual strategy, as using the right move combinations at the right time while sabotaging the competition was essential to victory. The later features were more like rhythm games--a fun but comparatively simplistic approach. Pokémon Black and White doesn't even offer ribbons, something X/Y shouldn’t repeat. Speaking of which...

Like contests, ribbons were introduced back in Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire. The cosmetic accessories carried through Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, functioning something like individual achievements for monsters, then disappeared in Pokémon Black and White. If you’d become a ribbon junky by this point, their removal was a very disappointing turn of events.

Between Pokémon Ruby/Sapphire and HeartGold/SoulSilver, it was possible to accrue dozens of ribbons for everything from successfully training a Pokémon to beating the Elite 4 to winning contests. Even better, they carried over from game to game, so some Pokémon could become walking trophy cases with enough effort. Game Freak's decision to remove ribbons is a mystery. Hopefully they return in style for Pokémon X/Y--or the possible Ruby/Sapphire remake that could come after.

Pokémon Yellow hinted at this feature way back in 1999, when Pikachu popped out to walk alongside Red for the majority of the adventure. It finally became a reality for all the Pokémon you collected in HeartGold and SoulSilver, where even heavyweights like Arceus and Groudon could take an afternoon stroll with the protagonist. It was all just a tease though, because the monsters were once again locked away in Pokémon Black and White.

With Pokémon X/Y offering a full 3D world to explore, it would be nice to see the monsters accompanying their masters on the world map once again. As a feature, it may not mean much in the long run, but it's always nice to have your favorite monsters by your side. And Pokémon has always been about playing favorites.

Secret Bases are yet another Ruby/Sapphire feature that became less prominent in later games before largely disappearing in Black and White. The idea was that players could find caves, trees, or other nooks that could be decorated with collectibles such as furniture and Pokédolls. They were also used to house trophies earned from beating the Battle Tower; and in Emerald, Secret Bases made it possible to challenge trainers with level 100 Pokémon.

So where did Secret Bases go? Other Pokemon games have had spaces to decorate, but for various reasons, none of them have approached the utility or novelty of having what amounts to an in-game treehouse. Time for Pokémon X/Y to make Secret Bases bigger and better than ever. We need less of the Myspace aesthetic of Black/White’s Dream World, and more of the insane customization of Animal Crossing.

Ruby and Sapphire introduced one feature that we would rather disappear--the concept of a "friendly rival." More companions than competitors, May, Barry, Cheren, and Bianca weren't particularly memorable. They especially pale in comparison to Blue/Gary Oak, who has spawned his own Internet memes, or the downright evil Silver. Pokémon Black/White 2 got back on the right track with the abrasive Hugh, but even he was a relatively sympathetic character throughout.

What trainers in Pokémon X/Y need is a truly worthy opponent--the kind of character who is always one step ahead of you on the road to the Elite 4. Let’s ditch this friendly competition! This X/Y rival doesn't need to be a Gary Oak redux, but it's been quite a while since Pokémon has had a rival who’s an actual opposing force. The more frustrating, hateful, and condescending, the better.

The regions keep getting bigger with each game; in fact, the latter half of Pokémon Black and White's Unova region was at least as big as the original game's Kanto. But nothing quite matches the thrill of heading back to a classic area to discover that eight more gym leaders were waiting for you. Pokémon Gold and Silver was masterful in that regard, something we were reminded of in the DS remakes, and it's been a puzzling omission ever since.

Who wouldn't want to head back to a fully 3D Kanto, Johto, or even Hoenn in the forthcoming Pokémon X/Y? Heck, when are we going to get a game where it's possible to visit all of the regions to date? At this point, the world of Pokémon feels so big that it's a little weird to be locked away in one tiny corner of it for each new game.

Actually, there's one feature that might trump our desire to revisit a classic region, and that's a new Battle Frontier. Originally introduced in Pokémon Emerald, the Battle Frontier was a theme park of sorts where it was possible to earn badges by completing various challenges. There was the straight-up Battle Tower, but there was also the maze-like Battle Pyramid and the tournament-style Battle Dome. All were fun variants on the normal one-on-one battles, and many offered major challenges for advanced players.

After offering up so much content, the Battle Frontier was sorely missed in Black and White, which only had a beefed up Battle Tower on offer for post-game fun. A return to the Battle Frontier for Pokémon X/Y, or a variant on Black and White 2's excellent Pokémon World Tournament, would be vastly preferable to a simple tower.

So far, Game Freak has been fairly silent on what to expect from Pokémon X/Y. If we were to guess, the new graphics might take up the bulk of Game Freak's resources, but we hope the devs can find time to implement at least a couple of these. Tell us in the comments what you’d like to see come back in X/Y. And even if your preferred feature doesn’t show, there's always the inevitable Pokémon Ruby/Sapphire remake, right?

Need more pocket monsters? Check out our breakdown of the Pokémon X/Y reveal and our collection of enthralling Pokémon trivia.