Pokémon X and Y were my favorite entries in the mainline series of Pokémon games as a kid, so Pokémon Legends: Z-A has a lot to live up to. There were a lot of things that made the games unique, from the visual design to the deep history of the region, but there was one thing that stood out to me that I would love to see return to the Kalos region: roller skating. That's right, Kalos allows you to trade your two-wheeled bike for six-wheeled inline skates, skating around Kalos' major cities and idyllic countrysides.

It's maybe ironic that the first game to introduce an alternative to biking takes place in a region inspired by Europe, one of the biking-est regions in the world, but the roller-skating option that X and Y offer is just so charming that it doesn't matter. Players can grab their skates from Roller Skater Rinka in Stantalune City, which happens fairly early on in the game. This new way of movement isn't essential to beating X and Y, but it adds so much flair in such a fun way that it would be remiss of any new player to skip out on them.

Roller-Skating Was The Perfect Feature For The 3DS

Introducing The Circle Pad And Omni-Directional Movement

As the technology of the DS console series got better, devs were able to integrate new controls into their games, and Pokémon X and Y came out at just the right time to benefit from these new improvements. For one, the Circle Pad allowed devs to introduce a new layer of controls, creating a perfect space for the roller skates to fit.

Instead of using the D-Pad to control your movement like with the bike, players would use the Circle Pad whenever they wished to roller-skate. Most players know the frustration of finding the best binding for actions in games, and the Circle Pad circumvented the issue completely, allowing players to roller-skate with ease.

Pokémon X and Y versions were the first in the series to be released for the 3DS, marking the beginning of Pokémon's move towards 3D animation, and therefore also the first to include the use of the Circle Pad.

Not only did the 3DS's newer features allow for ease of control for players, it also let devs test out a gameplay feature that would become a staple, and essential, to all of its future consoles: omni-directional movement. In previous Pokémon games, players could only move on a four-directional grid, with no diagonal movement at all. Even though joysticks had long been common place in gaming, this was an exciting development for Pokémon, as evidenced by Reddit Setsugami's excitement 12 years ago.

Nowadays, diagonal movement seems limited compared to the non-grid-aligned movement that most RPGs feature. However, X and Y were the first games to introduce diagonal movement in both walking and roller skating, and this truer freedom to move made the skates feel even better. While this was an essential change for the growth of the series, incorporating the movement change with roller skating cemented skating's place as an iconic feature of the installment.

The Convenience Of A Bike With Better Handling

It's A Bit Slower, But Sometimes Bike Speed Is Just Too Fast

Bikes have been a staple of the Pokémon series since Gen 1. Often introduced at the start of the game, before players have access to the HM Fly that allows them to fast-travel, they're the most convenient way to travel longer distances, unless you're going through tall grass. However, bikes can be notoriously difficult to control, depending on the game; the bikes in X and Y aren't too bad when it comes to momentum control, turning, and other steering details, but roller-skating is a bit more precise, allowing for easier movement.

Additionally, the bikes in Pokémon games don't really suit the games' smaller spaces, and this is where roller skating really shines. Because equipping the roller skates is as easy as moving your thumb a centimeter up to the Circle Pad, players can traverse small spaces or distances with ease. It's silly to pull out your bike just to cover the distance between the Pokémon Center and the town's gym, but this is a perfectly reasonable distance to roller-skate.

If you want to experience Kalos' original iteration before Z-A comes out later this year, you can find a copy of these games secondhand, though you will have to deal with one sad truth: overwriting someone else's Pokémon save since 3DS games save to the cartridge.

Keeping Roller-Skating Will Help Kalos Feel Like Kalos

Skating Is Unique To The Region; Leaving It Out Would Be A Missed Opportunity

X and Y are the only games so far that have included roller skating as a method of travel, and bringing them back to the series in Kalos' second game will be essential to retaining the essence of the region. While it's by no means the only thing that makes Kalos unique, it's the thing I best from my time playing the original games when I was younger. Bringing roller skating back in another Kalos game will also breathe life into the mechanic; Pokémon games, and the consoles they're played on, can do a lot more than they were able to in 2013 when the game first came out.

In its original iteration, roller skating was an integral part of the Kalos experience. Alongside increasing exploration complexity, roller skating in Pokémon X and Y offered one additional level of interactivity; if you found the right NPCs in Lumiose City, you could learn how to do tricks. With Pokémon Legends: Z-A taking place in that very city, it would be a crime for the devs to leave the feature behind.

Kalos, like many other regions, featured 'mon from previous games, falling into the same trap as many other Pokémon games, where having a full Pokédex undermines the sense of adventure.

You obtain skating early on, and it becomes another facet of terrain exploration that the devs used to add another layer of challenge to the game's various routes. Notably, there were some areas that could only be accessed by skillful roller-skating; they were hidden on the other side of grindable rails, over which you would have to roller-skate in order to reach the other side. Roller skating was an important part of truly playing X and Y, so it feels like it should be certain to return.

However, what form in which it will return remains to be seen. With many months between us and an official release date for Pokémon Legends: Z-A, we'll just have to wait and see what the devs at Game Freak have in store.

Source: Setsugami/Reddit