Don't feel too bad. I'd argue that this video was pretty poorly constructed overall since Papasea here didn't really go into extensive reasoning for why certain starters didn't work besides type matchups and ... his own opinions on design, I guess. This would be the last video I'd ever point to if I wanted to justify a starter being bad.
@@armaggedon390I always go grass typing in every new entry. Never realized they were the worst in most games. But it won't deter me from continuing to pick them in future games
@@spyroclone152 He's not wrong though; in general, Grass has the most weaknesses, and the least coverage, so it will almost always be the worst in any region that isn't full of rocks, grounds, and waters. It's more likely for a region to be full of bugs, flying, or poison types. Most regions also have similar or better grass type options in the early game, making the grass starter superfluous in most regions that it would excel in. Fire has a similar amount of weaknesses, but generally has more type coverage (especially the dual typed starters) than grass, and most regions don't have easily obtainable fire type alternatives, so it can't be easily replaced in the regions it would excel in. Water is just the best type in general. Few weaknesses, great coverage (since Surf + Ice Beam is so common), and even though there are many alternatives, most aren't available from the start of the game, and few of them are notably better than the water starter. He goes over most of these points, just in a more condensed format, in the video.
No no. You see he clearly means to grind Pidgey to to level 28 (31 if you let it evolve to Pidgeotto) so that it will learn Wing Attack to deal with those pesky level 5 bugs.
I don't know what Game Freak were thinking in Gen 2. They threw Chikorita under the bus, making it weak for over half the game. If Johto does ever gets another remake, they really need to rework Chikorita's moveset and probably even give it a second typing so it isn't so weak to everything around it
@@VCV95It really is ridiculous how many Johto Pokémon aren’t even obtainable until postgame. Then you finally get one, and have to train it 60 some levels because it’s only level 5. I specifically remember houndour is found on the route between Celadon and Saffron and even then it’s only there at night. Although I can understand the fact that they wanted to make Kanto have more diversity in Pokémon, why would they just get rid of that diversity in every later game besides HGSS. Also, since GSC added numerous Pokémon only found in Kanto, why would they not include those in the Kanto Pokédex in games with that sorting system (GO, Home, Bank, etc.).
@BusinessSkrub There's much luck involved even getting a Reflect off if you couldn't reset for a female to be immune to attract. Stomp is too powerful and there's a good chance it'll be flinched if it's not immobilised by love
Meganium is insane, I used it in the Emerald's battle tower to set up screens and toxic-synthesise, and the only threats were those annoying toxic-double teamers that I'd miss every single time lol It's kinda like Charizard, easily the worst most of the game, easily the best for the post game. It's just that Gen 1&2 postgames don't exist
Disagree on the SV starters. Every type in the game is represented by either a gym, a titan, or a star base, so it's not like Gold and Silver where Chikorita has no advantages ever. Sprigatito bodies Klawf. resists Brassius and Iono, steamrolls Kofu, and should have evolved into Meowscarada by the time you're hitting Ryme and Tulip. You don't have great matchups into the star bases though, tbf. Quaxly, on the other hand, has terrible matchups against Brassius and Iono, and Tulip, and Ryme's Toxtricity, and depending on how far you've evolved, Kofu's Veluza and Larry's Staraptor. Grusha also has coverage on his Frosmoth and Altaria. And Flower Trick is far better than Aqua Step.
Yup, Quaxly is definitely the worse option. Meowscarada gets insane coverage moves, has great attack and speed for a starter, has an insane signature move in flower trick, and gets u-turn at level 24 to switch out of anything it can't handle. Quaquaval can't do any of that, and is just as weak all those scary flying types S/V has as Meowscarada is.
@@nothing51286 Yeah, the grass-type slander and not even going into Meowscarada's stats or the fact it can learn TM's (Aerial Ace or Acrobatics which hit with its big attack stat as a Sprigatito or Floragato) to make he first two gyms a cake walk...yeah.
Completely agreed. I never struggled with Sprigatito...in fact it almosg beat everything with Night Slash, Flower Trick, Chilling Water and Play Rough.
@@nothing51286 While I'm not a Meowscarada hater, Quaquaval can do all of that. It has 120 Atk & 85 Speed vs Meowscarada's 110 Atk and 123 Speed. It's signature move Aqua Step raises it's speed while still hitting decently hard, it also gets U-Turn by TM (and as of Teal Mask, Flip Turn). And Larry's Staraptor and Kofu's Veluza is a moot point if you Tera Quaquaval, since you lose your fighting weakness. They're both strong in their own ways to make them just about equal with each other.
All Gen 4 starters are good... Yes, Infernape is probably a little ahead due to the lack of alternative Fire options. Still, Empoleon has a fantastic defensive typing in Water/Steel and Torterra gets access to STAB Earthquake upon evolution at level 32 which is absolutely busted.
@DarkestVoid and most of the story is played in singles, where Meganium is horrifically annoying to use. I tried to use it on a playthrough, but it was so frustrating that I had to start over with Totodile
Quil-uh-den it's a play on Quill and Paladin also overlooking Rowlett's secondary type counters Araquanid's secondary type...the whole reason pure grass would struggle is the reason a Grass/Flying type thrives.
People always oversell how hard it is to use Charmander in gen 1, the fact that Fire is weak to Rock/Ground means nothing in Brock's Gym because none of the mons actually have any Rock or Ground-type moves and Rock-types generally have terrible Special.
This! Also everyone always overvalues the type advantage of Bulbasaur for the first two gyms. Venusaur doesn’t get a good stab move (Flamethrower and Surf are just so far better than…..Mega Drain? Razor Leaf is good in Gen1 but only because of the stupid crit mechanic). After Misty you might as well box your Bulbasaur
@@boks93Bulbasaur/Venusaur remain relevant into the third gym because of type resistance against Surge. It's after that that it's utility falls off a cliff.
@@Sean-mq7wt fair enough point. But who doesn’t just get a Diglett and sweeps the gym with Dig/Magnitude? It’s such a goated encounter next to the electric gym
10:00 in defence of turtwig, it gets access to stab earthquake on becoming torterra at level 32. which is incredibly early, and since it got a really good attack. it will hit like a truck. even earlier on, it gets access to razor leaf at 13, which is probably the best early to mid grass move, and it also get bite and crunch which will melt any psychic or ghost you may face. its only real drawback is the lack of seed bomb for true stab grass move(unless you breed, which kills the point of geting it as a starter), and its atrocious speed. its great atk also makes it a good strength user if you want.
It is good, but Grass/Dark? Even with Tera Types and Protean, it’s hard to make the original typing good. Still, don’t mess with Flower Trick. The fact it always crits and never misses is like MAGIC.
@@Connowot387 I mean it's not meant to be a tank anyway, although grass isn't the best offensive typing it hits pretty hard on even neutral hits. Plus it gets knock off and other useful moves, the type is definatly the disadvantage but that's the case with almost all grass starters.
meowscarada is my favorite of the gen 9 starters by far. sure its typing sucks defensively, but unlike its grass/dark cousin wo-chien it can hit and run well
@@finnsnow2495 Grass/Dark is also weirdly good defensively too. It's immune to Powder and Prankster moves. You're not stopping that thing from hitting and critting you.
To be fair to Charmander, in Gen 1 he can beat Brock because he has no actual Rock moves, and in Gen 3 it at least gives you Metal Claw to deal with Geodude, and maybe Onix.
Meowscarada hits 3 gyms for super effective damage This opposed to Quaxwell hitting 2 (if fully evolved before Larry) but then also gaining the same weakness to Flying Quaquavell also cant use its fighting stab against the ghost gym and is weak to two gyms. So they have the same amount of weaknesses to the gym leaders but Meowscarada hits more for super effective damage.
Ye, it feels like he kinda glossed over the secondary typing meowscarada had which is just objectively good. Quad weak to bug? Who cares, gen 9s bug type is super early on and is honestly pretty weak. Also maybe a hot take, Quaquaavil is so much more unnerving to me with it's dance dance than Meowscarada is for being a bipedal cat magician.
Maybe I’m thinking too hard into this, but it almost feels like each of the three Paldea starters was designed to be good at one of the three “story arcs” or whatever you’d like to call them. The problem is, with the game’s poorly thought out open-world style, I can’t exactly tell who’s good for which one, only that Meowscarada happens to be by far the worst one for Starfall Street for some reason. Seriously, aside from Giacomo, you lose every fight here including Clavell’s and Penny’s 💀
Interestingly, Chespin is the only gen 6 starter than can reliably solo Viola if you do level caps as it gets early access to rollout. The other 2 struggle with Vivillon
It may be a hot take, but Game Freak should swap Sceptile's attacking stats, I think it would even benefit from a nerf in Sp.Atk and a buff to its Atk. Sceptile is so cool and it's a shame that it can't live up to it's potential because the Physical - Special split actually screwed it over, even in Gen 3, you can tell it's supposed to be a physical attacker, but Grass being special was the issue.
From what I remember of X and Y, almost everyone wanted to pick either Chespin or Fennekin, and barely anyone wanted to pick Froakie. That was until the final evolutions got leaked just before the games came out. People were put off by Chesnaught and Delphox, and were amazed when they saw Greninja, so then many of them switched over, including myself.
I remember the leaks, lol, that was an experience. Somebody in...Canada, I think? got the game a couple days early. I remember everyone lost their shit when Goomy was introduced. now people are like 'oh yeah Goomy, that's cute' but then? Goomy was our new god of cuteness.
No? Some people originally really hated Greninja when it leaked, it wasn’t up until people understood how useful he is in competitive and got hit by the “anime makes him popular” ray, he became a fan favorite
@@RayoMcQueen95990 Again, that's not what I remember. Everyone wanted either Chespin or Fennekin until they saw their final evolutions, and then switched over to Greninja.
The funny thing about Charmander in FRLG, is that metal claw isn't quite the buff it may seem. Yes, you're going from a not effective to super effective... but both geodude and onix have nearly 4x the defense compared to their special defense. So it might be just a bit more damage than ember, while bulbasaur and squirtle get super effective special damage.
Poor chikarita, fingers crossed that it gets the legends starter treatment in pokemon Z-A, or another future legends game, I really love the design of her evolution line
A lot of team flare grunts have dark type pokemon, making the fighting type chesnaught not really hard to use against them. This wasn't really addressed. Cool video though! Kind of wish the video addressed more than fire/water/grass types (stat distribution was mentioned in gen two and was very interesting!) (and addressing second type for those who have it would be nice)
I think Team Flare is just so easy you don't need any advantage at all. As someone who beat that game like three times I don't think I even looked at the scene when I fought them and I was not super overleveled. They just give them nothing I think you'd have to try to lose
No problem if you feel Sprigatito does worse in-game but it's worth bringing up how Skeledirge is the most overpowered starter you'll ever get, having a lot of bulk and a powerful typing, along with its signature move Torch Song being a fairly high power move that scales up your damage, allowing you to sweep through teams even if they resist fire.
Quilladin does fit into the naming scheme. Chespin's line is based off the fighting D&D class. Chespin just derives from chestnut, but Quilladin is based off Paladin and Chestnaught is based off Knight. Which are D&D classes.
18:19 Booo, for not comparing the two starters to each other. Eevee obviously has the most options in terms of type coverage, but personally, I had an easier time with Pikachu, since its stat spread focuses on speed and offense, which is especially powerful after getting the PikaSurf move to cover its weaknesses, while my Eevee run struggled to kill almost anything even with super effective damage. Maybe I needed to feed them more candy, but Pikachu should take the win here
Even though Sceptile did get the Dragon typing with it's Mega Evolution, most of the Dragon moves it gets are physical with Dragon Pulse locked to post-Delta Episode and Draco Meteor not being possible
THE SHEER QUILLADIN DISRESPECT And Chespin is actually the _best_ choice for the first Gym! I know the matchups don't look great, but Viola leads with a Surskit who has Water Sport and no Bug moves, and Chespin learns Rollout! By the time Vivillon's out, it's a one-hit KO.
My vote would have to go towards Pikachu; much more speed and higher offensive stats means Pikachu is more likely to outspeed and get the first turn kill, compared to Eevee. Frail defenses mean nothing in that case. Pika's one big weakness (rock/ground) also crumbles to the special water move that it gets.
@@kryzethx That's true but Pika and Eevee are both so jacked in LGPE + affection bonus they kinda just sweep anything anyways 😆Not really a bad choice either way
The same way gen 1 is unkind to fire types, gen 2 is vicious to grass types. Don't do a monotype grass run unless you want to challenge yourself. I'm speaking from experience and I was aware of it before doing so
@@geonunes10 the fact that Houndoom is so blatantly stronger than Jumpluff and Sunflora (Irl originally said Houndour but I used the Grass final forms so I set it equal
I'm surprised you struggled with sprigatito. I used it and I accidentally casually decimated every gym with it. Its signature move is devastating and it is a very fast fully evolved starter. It was my first 100 in Scarlet just due to how much decimation it caused
It's genuinely weird how bad Chikorita is. It's a defensive grass type that doesn't learn leech seed by level up. Worst move pool, worst match ups to basically every major battle there has never been a starter as bad as Chikorita is in it's games and hopefully there never will be. At least Serperior can just coil and leaf blade though a good chunk of it's game, Meganium has one of my favorite designs but has NOTHING going for it.
Saying Grass/Dragon is bad for having a 4x weakness but Water/Ground gets away with its 4x weakness to Grass... But yeah, Grass/Dragon is still worse overall
Meowscarada is by far the coolest looking final evolution of the Paldean starters. You might hate on Intelleon, but just look at Quaquavel for one second and tell me this creepy man duck thing looks better than Meowscarada. Skeledirge.. looks alright, but I don't really like the weird patterns on its face. Just random squares and triangles. Meowscarada has a cool mask and cape thing. It's awesome!
Meganium actually has a pretty good time vs. Clair relative to the other starters, both in GSC and HGSS: - Out of Clair's entire team, only one Dragonair has a super-effective move against it, which could be easily covered by Light Screen before it enters the battle if you levelled it up that much (it learns it around Lv. 40). If you did (a bit much for Johto, I know, but not impossible), you only gotta worry about a stray burn/freeze - It's the only starter than can hit Gyarados and Kingdra for neutral damage with its STAB. Body Slam is still slightly better than Razor Leaf, but Razor Leaf does have a better crit chance (and in HGSS can ignore Gyarados' Intimidate if you didn't cancel it out through a switch), Magical Leaf in HGSS is stronger anyway and neutral Grass STAB suddenly looks better when the other 2's STAB moves only do half damage (or even worse, 1/4 damage on Kingdra). They _need_ coverage to make things easier and even that isn't a perfect solution (it doesn't help Typhlosion lost Thunder Punch as a viable option in HGSS) - As it resists Kingdra's strongest move (Surf/Hydro Pump), Meganium forces it to rely on either the Dragon STAB or Hyper Beam, and it can tank the former better than Feraligatr can I can tell you from experience since it's always been the starter I picked the most in Johto, Typhlosion is the real one who got it the worst on this Gym. Gym 7 is also very misleading, as Pryce's pokémon do have Ice moves, but _every single_ pokémon on Pryce's team is also weak to Grass. It's pretty much a race to see which one knocks the other out first, and considering Pryce's actually _weaker_ than Jasmine level-wise, chances are you'll win. Jasmine herself is a way worse matchup than Pryce, and even then it isn't a hopeless one (only starter that resists Magnemite's Thunderbolts and can still hit Steelix for full damage through its weaker Sp. Def), just a worse time than the other 2 starters.
Gyms 1 and 2: only their aces are a threat to Grass-types, and neither of them appreciate Reflect, so Chikorita is in a good position to support the rest of the team. Gym 6: If you mean Jasmine, Bayleef resists Magnemite's Thunderbolt, and her ace, Steelix, is her only mon not resistant to Grass. Razor Leaf targets its lower Sp. Def, and it won't appreciate Reflect. Gym 7: Pryce is a joke as an Ice-type specialist. You can _sweep_ him with Bayleef. Yes, speaking from personal experience. Gym 8: I would argue Meganium could help against her ace. Resists Surf, Reflect helps with Hyper Beam, Poison Powder to burn through those Full Heals and get in some chip damage, and it doesn't resist Grass. Fair on the rest.
@@dvillines26 In a purely double battle format, having a bulky support Pokemon isn't the worst thing. Helping Hand and status moves can be good on the right team. Then again, maybe I'm underestimating Flareon. Shadow Ball could actually hit pretty hard coming from 130 Attack, and it *does* get access to Flamethrower (via TM) a bit earlier than Jolteon gets Thunderbolt TM. 95 Special Attack isn't unusable in that case, compared to Umbreon's pitiful 60 and 65, which won't really be killing anything.
For BW, the starter choice doesn't matter vs Elesa since everyone struggles against her in some form or another, but Snivy gets the shaft in Unova because of not only having type disadvantages everywhere, but the offensive movepool is even worse than Chikorita's
Every playthrough I do on a Pokemon game is a "catch em' all" run. So my team will be quite varied throughout as I'll need to level many Pokemon to max out my dex. That being said my starter will most likely be in my final team, and will absolutely be the fire Pokemon because the first game I played was Red and therefor I must use fire for all time.
Chikorita was the first name that popped into my head. Sorry, Chikorita. I don't hate you by any means, but you don't really measure up to your 2 buddies
Popilio is by far the best starter in Sun and Moon, it was so good that it was actually NERFED in Ultra Sun and Moon. Litten is GOOD but compared to Poppilo line there's no contest.
Oshawott is my favorite starter out of them all too! I'm sad that Treecko is the worst of the Hoenn starters, but I must agree that my Alpha Sapphire journey dragged a bit and I didn't use my Treecko as much as I would have liked. He's still my favorite of the three though. On the other hand, I regret choosing Chespin in my Pokemon X playthrough. I had to remember to use it and I didn't bond with it much which is probably why out of all of my pokemon, it was the only one who didn't really love me by the end. I don't like Sobble's design either. I feel like its the weakest of the Galar starters in that regard. Great video!! I hope you get your Shiny Turtwig soon!
0:21 Who in the flying fuck of everything holy calls them that?! Never have I ever heard a soul even say those words in that order in a sentence before, I mean wtf!
I will not stand for the Chespin/Quilladin/Chesnaught slander! Chespin is my 3rd favorite starter of ALL TIME after Decidueye and Swampert. He’s such a cute little guy.
*Fun fact: Besides starter Pokémon being officially known as “First partner Pokémon”, Psudo legendary Pokémon are officially called “Powerhouse Pokémon”.*
i personally am sick of Greninja think it got boring real quick in the anime and honestly Fennikin is just cuter and doesn't get ugly as it evolves gotta applaud you for acknowledging ScarVio´s superiority so many hate on them when they're clearly the best multiple stories in any order you want is how Pokemon should be
It's so funny to me what an outlier the first generation is with it's starters. In almost every other generation the grass starter is weak to like half of the entire game and there are so few fire types that if you want a fire type Pokemon at ALL you have to pick the fire starter. But in gen 1 Charmander is weak to the first 2 gyms and it's secondary flying typing only really hurts it, where as I swear I think the main reason Bulbasaur is so good is because of the secondary poison type covering a lot of grass's usual weaknesses. (I love Bulbasaur so much~!)
I struggled with Greninja so much in my Y playthrough that I temporarily booted it off my team. It constantly struggled with moves it was weak to like Fighting and Fairy type moves, and those kinds of moves appear a lot in the game. It could just be my bad battling skills that make it look bad, though. Meanwhile, I was training up a Fennekin and was surprised on how easy it was to evolve. I think it only fainted once when I was training it into a Delphox. Granted, it's not very balanced since I didn't do a full playthrough with Fennekin, but I believe had I chose it, I probably would've had an easier time with Y.
As people have pointed out Sprigatito and it's evolutions do much better than quaxly. In these latest generations the grass starters are doing much better than the water types. Also, Treecko does hit team aqua if you are fighting them in sapphire or Emerald while swampert beats team magma where as combusken is somewhere in the middle since it can hit both dark types they have in either team with team aqua having the sharpedo line and there's mightyena line in both.
13:08 I was wondering why my Serperior didn't get to 200+ attack until I got past level 80, gahlee I felt so weak throughout my playthrough of White last year and now I know why
2:14 - Brock's Geodude and Onix both have a Special of 30, so Ember ended up still being satisfactory. It also wasn't impacted by Defense Curl, and both Pokemon don't have any Rock moves. They can only hit you with Normal moves.
So I recently did a playthrough of Emerald and I had both Treecko and Torchick on my team and Treecko got way more use, water type gym and champion, plus all the water routes, resists electric, technically super effective against Tate and Liza because 3/4 of their team members are rock or ground. By the time I beat the game Sceptile way out-leveled Blaziken despite Blaziken being a traded mon and getting bonus Exp
Torterra has STAB Earthquake that alone makes it worth having. 4x weaknesses are fine especially in a region with lots of Steel Rock and Fighting type options for that pesky Ice gym
I was one of those kids who choosed Chespin as my first starter in X and Y. I had in the previously games always choosed the grass stater. So I found it naturally to do in X and Y. I kept Chespin until it reached Chesnaught and then proceeded to switch it out for Venusaue
Poor Turtwig was even worse in BDSP since the Gym Leaders and important trainers had really excellently crafted teams with good stats, items and movesets and so a load of the Water type Pokémon that you could count on Torterra for in DP will likely KO Torterra in BDSP due to being fast and having some kind of strong Ice move to take it out 😅
Not gonna lie, when you asked what IS Chespin, my brain mixed porcupine and quill, so I just answered "It's a Quilladin". Then you said no one remembers the name of the second stage.... guess I am the weird one.
You stopped too early when selling how badly Chespin has the deck stacked against it in X/Y. Around the fifth gym, it'll have evolved into Chesnaught. So it'll likely get STAB against Heliolisk and Magneton while getting a lot weaker against Emolga. Then, the next two gyms? Fairy and Psychic, perfect to punish you for your newly gained fighting STAB. The legendaries (which you have to fight/catch) are also fairy or flying, meaning brutal STAB against you. At least you are great against Lysandre's Mega Gyarados. The elite four - you'll stomp Siebold. But one's Drasna, whose dragons and flyings will resist you, Pachira will destroy you, and Wikstrom's steels? One's Scizor, a bug/steel, one's Aegislash, steel/ghost and one's Klefki, steel/fairy. It's insane how a steel type trainer isn't a free fight for a fighting type. Diantha... got a Hawlucha (murders you), a Pampujin (resists you harshly), an Aurorus (can murder you back), a Mega Gardevoir (murders you) and Goodra (resist grass and can fire blast you). Tyrantrum, in difference to the fight with Grant, is now more of a freebie because of fighting unambiguously besting rock. It's honestly crazy how Kalos vs. Chesnaught might rival Johto vs. Chikorita in how absolutely stacked it is against you.
Chikorita is actually one of my favorite grass starters but man it's hard to use it not only in it's generation but in general. It would very much be my mascot but not actually on the team mon if possible.
My person preferences: Gen 1- Charmander (even though I know it's hard mode) Gen 2- Cyndequill Gen 3- toss up between Treeko and Torchick Gen 4- Chimchar Gen 5- Snivy Gen 6- Fennekin Gen 7- that fire cat thing (forgot it's name) Gen 8- Scorbunny Gen 9- don't like any of them, but I ended up using Fuecoco in my initial playthrough Clearly I have a bias for fire types.
Personally casually playing RB I found Bulba being worst, yeah it was good for the 1sr few gyms but sucked everything else in between with its many weakness and pokemon that resist it with how common poison, bug and flying pokemon are. It typically takes stuff out much slower. And it lacked move variety too. Bulba is great competitively, but personally, as a casual play through, it drags and kinda replies on a glitch as its main gimmick. I dont see a reason to really have a grass type with 2 other grass/poison types to choose from Grass types in general typically draw the shorter straw compared to the other 2
Wait did you actually use leech seed toxic and are complaining it sucked? Seems like a you problem. Sleep powder is insane, razor leaf hits like fire blast with the autocrit and swords dance body slam sweeps the entire game from the point you can get it
@bvd_vlvd I just didn't like how stally it is and felt like almost everything resistant to it outside of gyms, in a single battle in competitive is 1 thing but going though multiple battles on a casual play through it gets boring when u don't 1 shot many mon and just drags
@@Rikoyasha15 I get that, grass in general has strong setting up options but they don't just one shot stuff like ground types do with earthquake and water types can with surf. I hope you give any mon a swords dance body slam combo, especially something with sleep powder, like Venusaur or Victreebel. I promise you'll fall in love with those pokemon again
I have a new theory that Bulbasaur was among a large list of Kanto’s Poison-Types who had the type added on after their primary type for the sake of “game balance” (notice the air quotes). Not only would this improve Bulbasaur’s Gym matchups against Giovanni and especially Sabrina if they were pure Grass-Types, but the same can also be said for the Bellsprout and Oddish families who we have at least some evidence to suggest were some of the last Pokémon added to Gen 1 outside of Mew. They even gave Misty’s Psyduck Confusion in Let’s Go as an added bonus. In the meantime, here’s my picks for every region using their base forms (assuming no remakes): Kanto: Charmander is the obvious pick, but it’s honestly pretty even as Squirtle has the worst mid game and Bulbasaur has the worst lategame Johto: Chikorita is the obvious pick, but recently I’ve started think Gen 2 Totodile specifically is pretty overrated too, and is only as famous as it is because of Rage strats in speedruns (Gen 2 Rage is so broken it could make anything the best by default) Hoenn: Treecko is the obvious pick, but similar to Gen 2, Torchic suffers from a lack of physical STAB on one of its types (and no Speed Boost lol) Sinnoh: The fact that your worst fully evolved choice is a Torterra says a lot about how stacked this region’s choices actually are (at least it’s the only one that beats Volkner) Unova: Snivy and Oshawott tie for me here because of their lack of a secondary Type; which one is worse depends on if you’re playing the originals (Oshawott) or the sequels (Snivy). Note that BW1 are one of the very few games where Surf isn’t required to beat the game Kalos: Fennekin is my pick for the worst choice, though to be fair it does get screwed over by a significantly buffed Charizard later on as competition for the Fire-Type slot. Oh btw Squirtle is the worst Kanto starter here if you’re wondering Alola: Litten is only the worst in Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon, since Flying-Types across the board got a massive buff in these games with the early Flyinium Z and the Roost TM, thus meaning Rowlet is only the worst in the base games Galar: Sobble isn’t terrible at face value, but when your competition consists of Grookey and Scorbunny, especially if you have the DLC and can get their Hidden Abilities, these Water-Types don’t age nearly as well as the other two especially for the first three Gyms I’m not picking for Hisui and Paldea; the former is barely focused on battles and the latter is an open-world game
Bulbasaur being so amazing in Gen 1 really hurt the grass starters in the following generations. Also, don't you dare insult my boy Chespin. Its evolutions may suck but Chespin itself is super cool
I feel the pain on losing the Ruby version. And for that, I mean legitimately losing in the game lol. Where I left off, I remember wandering around an obscure route where my Swampert was poisoned to hell and I didn’t want to faint and lose all my money. And as a perfectionist 9 year old afraid of failure…I refused to play it after that lol. But now it’s 20 years later, my sister found the original cartridges in her storage basement, and the cartridge is dead. Once we replace the battery in it though, I want redemption!! Haha
I love how almost every one of my favorite starters are the worst of their respective regions 💀
Right there with you
Don't feel too bad. I'd argue that this video was pretty poorly constructed overall since Papasea here didn't really go into extensive reasoning for why certain starters didn't work besides type matchups and ... his own opinions on design, I guess. This would be the last video I'd ever point to if I wanted to justify a starter being bad.
That's just what life is like for Grass type trainers.
@@armaggedon390I always go grass typing in every new entry. Never realized they were the worst in most games. But it won't deter me from continuing to pick them in future games
@@spyroclone152 He's not wrong though; in general, Grass has the most weaknesses, and the least coverage, so it will almost always be the worst in any region that isn't full of rocks, grounds, and waters. It's more likely for a region to be full of bugs, flying, or poison types. Most regions also have similar or better grass type options in the early game, making the grass starter superfluous in most regions that it would excel in.
Fire has a similar amount of weaknesses, but generally has more type coverage (especially the dual typed starters) than grass, and most regions don't have easily obtainable fire type alternatives, so it can't be easily replaced in the regions it would excel in.
Water is just the best type in general. Few weaknesses, great coverage (since Surf + Ice Beam is so common), and even though there are many alternatives, most aren't available from the start of the game, and few of them are notably better than the water starter. He goes over most of these points, just in a more condensed format, in the video.
Grass types being really awful makes me sad
Um… actually… (snorts, adjusts glasses)
Pidgey’s gust is normal type in gen 1. Spearow supremacy!
No no. You see he clearly means to grind Pidgey to to level 28 (31 if you let it evolve to Pidgeotto) so that it will learn Wing Attack to deal with those pesky level 5 bugs.
Nidoran male tho
Doesn’t it get peck quite early?
Another whacky gen 1 fact I didn't know
@@jfei64 Wing Attack isn't even that powerful in Gen 1
I agree
I like Meowscarada. It looks like a Phantom Thief. How is that not cool? Plus, I'm a sucker for moves that can't miss, and I like auto-crit moves too.
So basically, if you want a hard mode Pokémon game: pick the Grass starter.
Nah, the games are too easy lol
Except for gen 1
@@MrFrog-kq4rw Charmander isn't hard mode outside the first two gyms. Meanwhile, the Chikorita like struggles against everything.
Yeah, gen 1 is the exception. I had such a hard time in the beginning with charmander in pokemon red
@@Purriahcry harder
I don't know what Game Freak were thinking in Gen 2. They threw Chikorita under the bus, making it weak for over half the game. If Johto does ever gets another remake, they really need to rework Chikorita's moveset and probably even give it a second typing so it isn't so weak to everything around it
and actually give Johto gym leaders actual Johto pokemon.
@@TheShiningEnergyand actually give johto johto pokemon
@@VCV95It really is ridiculous how many Johto Pokémon aren’t even obtainable until postgame. Then you finally get one, and have to train it 60 some levels because it’s only level 5. I specifically remember houndour is found on the route between Celadon and Saffron and even then it’s only there at night. Although I can understand the fact that they wanted to make Kanto have more diversity in Pokémon, why would they just get rid of that diversity in every later game besides HGSS. Also, since GSC added numerous Pokémon only found in Kanto, why would they not include those in the Kanto Pokédex in games with that sorting system (GO, Home, Bank, etc.).
@BusinessSkrub There's much luck involved even getting a Reflect off if you couldn't reset for a female to be immune to attract. Stomp is too powerful and there's a good chance it'll be flinched if it's not immobilised by love
It isn't official, obviously, but check out Crystal Legacy.
Meganium may struggle in its home region, but it does pretty well in coliseum! The doubles format let's it make better use of its support moves
Meganium is insane, I used it in the Emerald's battle tower to set up screens and toxic-synthesise, and the only threats were those annoying toxic-double teamers that I'd miss every single time lol
It's kinda like Charizard, easily the worst most of the game, easily the best for the post game. It's just that Gen 1&2 postgames don't exist
Disagree on the SV starters. Every type in the game is represented by either a gym, a titan, or a star base, so it's not like Gold and Silver where Chikorita has no advantages ever.
Sprigatito bodies Klawf. resists Brassius and Iono, steamrolls Kofu, and should have evolved into Meowscarada by the time you're hitting Ryme and Tulip. You don't have great matchups into the star bases though, tbf.
Quaxly, on the other hand, has terrible matchups against Brassius and Iono, and Tulip, and Ryme's Toxtricity, and depending on how far you've evolved, Kofu's Veluza and Larry's Staraptor. Grusha also has coverage on his Frosmoth and Altaria.
And Flower Trick is far better than Aqua Step.
Yup, Quaxly is definitely the worse option. Meowscarada gets insane coverage moves, has great attack and speed for a starter, has an insane signature move in flower trick, and gets u-turn at level 24 to switch out of anything it can't handle. Quaquaval can't do any of that, and is just as weak all those scary flying types S/V has as Meowscarada is.
@@nothing51286 Yeah, the grass-type slander and not even going into Meowscarada's stats or the fact it can learn TM's (Aerial Ace or Acrobatics which hit with its big attack stat as a Sprigatito or Floragato) to make he first two gyms a cake walk...yeah.
Completely agreed. I never struggled with Sprigatito...in fact it almosg beat everything with Night Slash, Flower Trick, Chilling Water and Play Rough.
@@nothing51286 While I'm not a Meowscarada hater, Quaquaval can do all of that. It has 120 Atk & 85 Speed vs Meowscarada's 110 Atk and 123 Speed. It's signature move Aqua Step raises it's speed while still hitting decently hard, it also gets U-Turn by TM (and as of Teal Mask, Flip Turn). And Larry's Staraptor and Kofu's Veluza is a moot point if you Tera Quaquaval, since you lose your fighting weakness. They're both strong in their own ways to make them just about equal with each other.
How would Rowlet do poorly against Araquanid if it takes neutral damage from bug and can hit it super effectively with flying moves?
Especially a flying type Z move.
#1 Chikorita fan since OG gold/silver. In HGSS, mine wore the gold leaf crown showing that we were super besties. 💚
...... I like Meowscarada..... It's not my favourite Pokemon, but I like it.....
All Gen 4 starters are good... Yes, Infernape is probably a little ahead due to the lack of alternative Fire options. Still, Empoleon has a fantastic defensive typing in Water/Steel and Torterra gets access to STAB Earthquake upon evolution at level 32 which is absolutely busted.
i am pausing the video at 0:01 to guess that it's chikorita
Literally using Meganium is torture, I guess it could be OK in VGC but it's beyond useless in singles
@@JohnnyHikesSWtoo bad for you the point isn’t about shitty competitive play it’s based on playing through the story.
@DarkestVoid and most of the story is played in singles, where Meganium is horrifically annoying to use. I tried to use it on a playthrough, but it was so frustrating that I had to start over with Totodile
Quil-uh-den it's a play on Quill and Paladin also overlooking Rowlett's secondary type counters Araquanid's secondary type...the whole reason pure grass would struggle is the reason a Grass/Flying type thrives.
People always oversell how hard it is to use Charmander in gen 1, the fact that Fire is weak to Rock/Ground means nothing in Brock's Gym because none of the mons actually have any Rock or Ground-type moves and Rock-types generally have terrible Special.
This!
Also everyone always overvalues the type advantage of Bulbasaur for the first two gyms. Venusaur doesn’t get a good stab move (Flamethrower and Surf are just so far better than…..Mega Drain? Razor Leaf is good in Gen1 but only because of the stupid crit mechanic). After Misty you might as well box your Bulbasaur
@@boks93Bulbasaur/Venusaur remain relevant into the third gym because of type resistance against Surge. It's after that that it's utility falls off a cliff.
@@Sean-mq7wt fair enough point. But who doesn’t just get a Diglett and sweeps the gym with Dig/Magnitude? It’s such a goated encounter next to the electric gym
10:00 in defence of turtwig, it gets access to stab earthquake on becoming torterra at level 32. which is incredibly early, and since it got a really good attack. it will hit like a truck. even earlier on, it gets access to razor leaf at 13, which is probably the best early to mid grass move, and it also get bite and crunch which will melt any psychic or ghost you may face.
its only real drawback is the lack of seed bomb for true stab grass move(unless you breed, which kills the point of geting it as a starter), and its atrocious speed.
its great atk also makes it a good strength user if you want.
I'd argue it's better than Prinplup that spams bubblebeam and peck (or pluck) until it evolves. Very very weak and hard to use around Wake and Maylene
It can be fun to setup sweep with Curse lol that's what I did in Platinum a lot
The Meowscarada slander is unfounded, she’s a cool jester freak :(
Also flower trick being a guaranteed crit that can’t miss is pretty good
It is good, but Grass/Dark? Even with Tera Types and Protean, it’s hard to make the original typing good. Still, don’t mess with Flower Trick. The fact it always crits and never misses is like MAGIC.
Meowscarada slaps HARD.
@@Connowot387 I mean it's not meant to be a tank anyway, although grass isn't the best offensive typing it hits pretty hard on even neutral hits. Plus it gets knock off and other useful moves, the type is definatly the disadvantage but that's the case with almost all grass starters.
meowscarada is my favorite of the gen 9 starters by far. sure its typing sucks defensively, but unlike its grass/dark cousin wo-chien it can hit and run well
@@finnsnow2495 Grass/Dark is also weirdly good defensively too. It's immune to Powder and Prankster moves. You're not stopping that thing from hitting and critting you.
To be fair to Charmander, in Gen 1 he can beat Brock because he has no actual Rock moves, and in Gen 3 it at least gives you Metal Claw to deal with Geodude, and maybe Onix.
Meowscarada hits 3 gyms for super effective damage
This opposed to Quaxwell hitting 2 (if fully evolved before Larry) but then also gaining the same weakness to Flying
Quaquavell also cant use its fighting stab against the ghost gym and is weak to two gyms.
So they have the same amount of weaknesses to the gym leaders but Meowscarada hits more for super effective damage.
Ye, it feels like he kinda glossed over the secondary typing meowscarada had which is just objectively good. Quad weak to bug? Who cares, gen 9s bug type is super early on and is honestly pretty weak.
Also maybe a hot take, Quaquaavil is so much more unnerving to me with it's dance dance than Meowscarada is for being a bipedal cat magician.
Maybe I’m thinking too hard into this, but it almost feels like each of the three Paldea starters was designed to be good at one of the three “story arcs” or whatever you’d like to call them. The problem is, with the game’s poorly thought out open-world style, I can’t exactly tell who’s good for which one, only that Meowscarada happens to be by far the worst one for Starfall Street for some reason. Seriously, aside from Giacomo, you lose every fight here including Clavell’s and Penny’s 💀
@bdt2002gaming so every type is represented in the three story lines so including those it'll just be type chart for the starters
Also why would you even go for some of these gyms with it unless he's assuming we will be doing a solo run
Interestingly, Chespin is the only gen 6 starter than can reliably solo Viola if you do level caps as it gets early access to rollout. The other 2 struggle with Vivillon
lol not Sea calling me out for forgetting Quilladin's name RIGHT when I was thinking "Uhhh what was this one's name again" lmao
Bulbasaur won me over way back in 1997. He will never be dethroned
It may be a hot take, but Game Freak should swap Sceptile's attacking stats, I think it would even benefit from a nerf in Sp.Atk and a buff to its Atk.
Sceptile is so cool and it's a shame that it can't live up to it's potential because the Physical - Special split actually screwed it over, even in Gen 3, you can tell it's supposed to be a physical attacker, but Grass being special was the issue.
From what I remember of X and Y, almost everyone wanted to pick either Chespin or Fennekin, and barely anyone wanted to pick Froakie. That was until the final evolutions got leaked just before the games came out. People were put off by Chesnaught and Delphox, and were amazed when they saw Greninja, so then many of them switched over, including myself.
Bro didn't I see you before in another comment section with the same pfp. How tf did I find you again lmao
I remember the leaks, lol, that was an experience. Somebody in...Canada, I think? got the game a couple days early. I remember everyone lost their shit when Goomy was introduced. now people are like 'oh yeah Goomy, that's cute' but then? Goomy was our new god of cuteness.
No? Some people originally really hated Greninja when it leaked, it wasn’t up until people understood how useful he is in competitive and got hit by the “anime makes him popular” ray, he became a fan favorite
@@RayoMcQueen95990 Again, that's not what I remember. Everyone wanted either Chespin or Fennekin until they saw their final evolutions, and then switched over to Greninja.
The totem pokemon are different in SuMo and USUM. Rowlet has the advantage in SuMo because it's a Wishiwashi.
Im genuinely curious: When did they change the terminology for starter pokemon???
Starter is a fan term, but fairly recently a promotional thing came out and called them "First Partner Pokemon" And nobody uses it
The funny thing about Charmander in FRLG, is that metal claw isn't quite the buff it may seem. Yes, you're going from a not effective to super effective... but both geodude and onix have nearly 4x the defense compared to their special defense. So it might be just a bit more damage than ember, while bulbasaur and squirtle get super effective special damage.
Pidgey has no flying moves until Fly/wing attack gen 1. Gust normal move lol
Also charizard cant learn Fly in R/B
Poor chikarita, fingers crossed that it gets the legends starter treatment in pokemon Z-A, or another future legends game, I really love the design of her evolution line
A lot of team flare grunts have dark type pokemon, making the fighting type chesnaught not really hard to use against them. This wasn't really addressed. Cool video though!
Kind of wish the video addressed more than fire/water/grass types (stat distribution was mentioned in gen two and was very interesting!) (and addressing second type for those who have it would be nice)
I think Team Flare is just so easy you don't need any advantage at all. As someone who beat that game like three times I don't think I even looked at the scene when I fought them and I was not super overleveled. They just give them nothing I think you'd have to try to lose
@@finnsnow2495 honestly, good point
No problem if you feel Sprigatito does worse in-game but it's worth bringing up how Skeledirge is the most overpowered starter you'll ever get, having a lot of bulk and a powerful typing, along with its signature move Torch Song being a fairly high power move that scales up your damage, allowing you to sweep through teams even if they resist fire.
Quilladin does fit into the naming scheme. Chespin's line is based off the fighting D&D class. Chespin just derives from chestnut, but Quilladin is based off Paladin and Chestnaught is based off Knight. Which are D&D classes.
Um actually, Chestnut isn't a D&D martial class so clearly its not the line's inspiration.
Dreadnaught is tho, in 5e for example @@oddsmile1234
Knight also isn’t a D&D class
@@Alusion94 in 5e it is
@@wrathofthesageI can’t find anything that says Knight is a class, closest thing would be Fighter
“If you pick Chespin, good luck”
Chespin rollout go brrrrrrrrrr
18:19 Booo, for not comparing the two starters to each other. Eevee obviously has the most options in terms of type coverage, but personally, I had an easier time with Pikachu, since its stat spread focuses on speed and offense, which is especially powerful after getting the PikaSurf move to cover its weaknesses, while my Eevee run struggled to kill almost anything even with super effective damage. Maybe I needed to feed them more candy, but Pikachu should take the win here
Even though Sceptile did get the Dragon typing with it's Mega Evolution, most of the Dragon moves it gets are physical with Dragon Pulse locked to post-Delta Episode and Draco Meteor not being possible
THE SHEER QUILLADIN DISRESPECT
And Chespin is actually the _best_ choice for the first Gym! I know the matchups don't look great, but Viola leads with a Surskit who has Water Sport and no Bug moves, and Chespin learns Rollout! By the time Vivillon's out, it's a one-hit KO.
Thought, from the title, that this was going to be which was worst overall.
I guess if you have to pick for LGPE, the better choice would probably be Eevee since it gets way more special moves.
My vote would have to go towards Pikachu; much more speed and higher offensive stats means Pikachu is more likely to outspeed and get the first turn kill, compared to Eevee. Frail defenses mean nothing in that case. Pika's one big weakness (rock/ground) also crumbles to the special water move that it gets.
@@kryzethx That's true but Pika and Eevee are both so jacked in LGPE + affection bonus they kinda just sweep anything anyways 😆Not really a bad choice either way
Meowscarada is my favorite. Come at me, I'm not afraid!
Generation 2's Totodile, Cyndaquil and Chikorita will always be my favourites, they're just so vibrant and full of personality.
The same way gen 1 is unkind to fire types, gen 2 is vicious to grass types. Don't do a monotype grass run unless you want to challenge yourself. I'm speaking from experience and I was aware of it before doing so
@@geonunes10 the fact that Houndoom is so blatantly stronger than Jumpluff and Sunflora (Irl originally said Houndour but I used the Grass final forms so I set it equal
I gotta say, your memes on X have been hysterical
The ‘hello security?’ meme regarding Scarlet/Violet shiny hunting got me good
Mudkip isn't just good, It's Supreme! In ORAS if you are playing Omega Ruby Primal Groudon's ability doesn't even matter, BOOM Earthquake, good bye!
I'm surprised you struggled with sprigatito. I used it and I accidentally casually decimated every gym with it. Its signature move is devastating and it is a very fast fully evolved starter. It was my first 100 in Scarlet just due to how much decimation it caused
Same for me. Meowscarada is even my favorite from generation 9
It's genuinely weird how bad Chikorita is. It's a defensive grass type that doesn't learn leech seed by level up. Worst move pool, worst match ups to basically every major battle there has never been a starter as bad as Chikorita is in it's games and hopefully there never will be. At least Serperior can just coil and leaf blade though a good chunk of it's game, Meganium has one of my favorite designs but has NOTHING going for it.
Saying Grass/Dragon is bad for having a 4x weakness but Water/Ground gets away with its 4x weakness to Grass... But yeah, Grass/Dragon is still worse overall
Meowscarada is by far the coolest looking final evolution of the Paldean starters. You might hate on Intelleon, but just look at Quaquavel for one second and tell me this creepy man duck thing looks better than Meowscarada. Skeledirge.. looks alright, but I don't really like the weird patterns on its face. Just random squares and triangles. Meowscarada has a cool mask and cape thing. It's awesome!
Chikorita struggles are immense. Gyms 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, E4 2, Champion, all of Team Rocket and the rival. Yikes
Literally the only routes a grass type is useful are the ones before Union Cave and near Cianwood City
@@BusinessSkrub It's almost as if using any other Pokemon would be better than using Chikorita :D
Meganium actually has a pretty good time vs. Clair relative to the other starters, both in GSC and HGSS:
- Out of Clair's entire team, only one Dragonair has a super-effective move against it, which could be easily covered by Light Screen before it enters the battle if you levelled it up that much (it learns it around Lv. 40). If you did (a bit much for Johto, I know, but not impossible), you only gotta worry about a stray burn/freeze
- It's the only starter than can hit Gyarados and Kingdra for neutral damage with its STAB. Body Slam is still slightly better than Razor Leaf, but Razor Leaf does have a better crit chance (and in HGSS can ignore Gyarados' Intimidate if you didn't cancel it out through a switch), Magical Leaf in HGSS is stronger anyway and neutral Grass STAB suddenly looks better when the other 2's STAB moves only do half damage (or even worse, 1/4 damage on Kingdra). They _need_ coverage to make things easier and even that isn't a perfect solution (it doesn't help Typhlosion lost Thunder Punch as a viable option in HGSS)
- As it resists Kingdra's strongest move (Surf/Hydro Pump), Meganium forces it to rely on either the Dragon STAB or Hyper Beam, and it can tank the former better than Feraligatr can
I can tell you from experience since it's always been the starter I picked the most in Johto, Typhlosion is the real one who got it the worst on this Gym.
Gym 7 is also very misleading, as Pryce's pokémon do have Ice moves, but _every single_ pokémon on Pryce's team is also weak to Grass. It's pretty much a race to see which one knocks the other out first, and considering Pryce's actually _weaker_ than Jasmine level-wise, chances are you'll win. Jasmine herself is a way worse matchup than Pryce, and even then it isn't a hopeless one (only starter that resists Magnemite's Thunderbolts and can still hit Steelix for full damage through its weaker Sp. Def), just a worse time than the other 2 starters.
Gyms 1 and 2: only their aces are a threat to Grass-types, and neither of them appreciate Reflect, so Chikorita is in a good position to support the rest of the team.
Gym 6: If you mean Jasmine, Bayleef resists Magnemite's Thunderbolt, and her ace, Steelix, is her only mon not resistant to Grass. Razor Leaf targets its lower Sp. Def, and it won't appreciate Reflect.
Gym 7: Pryce is a joke as an Ice-type specialist. You can _sweep_ him with Bayleef. Yes, speaking from personal experience.
Gym 8: I would argue Meganium could help against her ace. Resists Surf, Reflect helps with Hyper Beam, Poison Powder to burn through those Full Heals and get in some chip damage, and it doesn't resist Grass.
Fair on the rest.
@@BusinessSkrubit’s almost like grass types overall are useless in a Johto playthrough
I was honestly waiting for the “and bye bye” moment
10:16 Candice
He is also on his own, saying no one remembers her name. We do, he doesn’t
This has got to be some kind of gag or inside joke, but if it is, I don't get it.
Ladies and gentlemen, we got him.
But what is the worst Eeveeloution in XD: Gale of Darkness
Flareon for sure. Fire being special, but Flareon having a much higher Attack then Special Attack, then having no physical moves is quite awful.
Flareon or Umbreon. maybe Umbreon because it's entirely a support Pokemon. Vaporeon's kind of mid. You want to go with Jolteon or Espeon.
@@dvillines26 In a purely double battle format, having a bulky support Pokemon isn't the worst thing. Helping Hand and status moves can be good on the right team.
Then again, maybe I'm underestimating Flareon. Shadow Ball could actually hit pretty hard coming from 130 Attack, and it *does* get access to Flamethrower (via TM) a bit earlier than Jolteon gets Thunderbolt TM. 95 Special Attack isn't unusable in that case, compared to Umbreon's pitiful 60 and 65, which won't really be killing anything.
Chikorita my beloved, I will never understand why they did you so dirty
For BW, the starter choice doesn't matter vs Elesa since everyone struggles against her in some form or another, but Snivy gets the shaft in Unova because of not only having type disadvantages everywhere, but the offensive movepool is even worse than Chikorita's
Every playthrough I do on a Pokemon game is a "catch em' all" run. So my team will be quite varied throughout as I'll need to level many Pokemon to max out my dex.
That being said my starter will most likely be in my final team, and will absolutely be the fire Pokemon because the first game I played was Red and therefor I must use fire for all time.
Chikorita was the first name that popped into my head.
Sorry, Chikorita. I don't hate you by any means, but you don't really measure up to your 2 buddies
Popilio is by far the best starter in Sun and Moon, it was so good that it was actually NERFED in Ultra Sun and Moon. Litten is GOOD but compared to Poppilo line there's no contest.
wait it was nerfed in the ultra games?
Oshawott is my favorite starter out of them all too! I'm sad that Treecko is the worst of the Hoenn starters, but I must agree that my Alpha Sapphire journey dragged a bit and I didn't use my Treecko as much as I would have liked. He's still my favorite of the three though. On the other hand, I regret choosing Chespin in my Pokemon X playthrough. I had to remember to use it and I didn't bond with it much which is probably why out of all of my pokemon, it was the only one who didn't really love me by the end. I don't like Sobble's design either. I feel like its the weakest of the Galar starters in that regard. Great video!! I hope you get your Shiny Turtwig soon!
0:21 Who in the flying fuck of everything holy calls them that?! Never have I ever heard a soul even say those words in that order in a sentence before, I mean wtf!
One of the newer official reveals renamed them that. I personally feel it's too late into the game series to change things now.
I will not stand for the Chespin/Quilladin/Chesnaught slander! Chespin is my 3rd favorite starter of ALL TIME after Decidueye and Swampert. He’s such a cute little guy.
I will not stand for this cyndaquil slander
IKR? So rude
Womp womp
It’s not slander if it’s reasonable
Indeed! They were my first Pokémon. Give my boy a little credit, he may be the worst but he’s not *that* bad ;-;
9:03 briefcase simulator
I'm just happy to hear someone pronounce Arceus correctly lol. Also, Treecko squad 4 life.
PaPaSea's try not to shiny hunt challenge, impossible difficulty
Hammer away has officially been added to the vocab
*Fun fact: Besides starter Pokémon being officially known as “First partner Pokémon”, Psudo legendary Pokémon are officially called “Powerhouse Pokémon”.*
Not criticising, I swear, but snivy is the only one who can beat the first gym with the move growth! xD
Say you've never played Chespin without saying you've never played Chespin.
I have. I also have a video on my channel of me picking Chespin in a playthrough you could find pretty easily
I don't care, I'm using Chikorita. I'd prefer pokemon I like using over meta.
Pretty sure there was an Elite Four member that mentioned something about using your favorites regardless of power; I think that applies here lol
@@kryzethx Yeah, too bad it doesn't apply to competitive play.
Love Chespin
Used it in my first play through of X
i personally am sick of Greninja think it got boring real quick in the anime and honestly Fennikin is just cuter and doesn't get ugly as it evolves
gotta applaud you for acknowledging ScarVio´s superiority so many hate on them when they're clearly the best multiple stories in any order you want is how Pokemon should be
Primarina is, like, way better then Incieneroar. She's the best to use for the whole game.
Nah Primarina is the worst starter of Gen 7 lmao
@@DarkestVoid NEVERRR MAMA EATS BOTH OF THEM
It's so funny to me what an outlier the first generation is with it's starters. In almost every other generation the grass starter is weak to like half of the entire game and there are so few fire types that if you want a fire type Pokemon at ALL you have to pick the fire starter. But in gen 1 Charmander is weak to the first 2 gyms and it's secondary flying typing only really hurts it, where as I swear I think the main reason Bulbasaur is so good is because of the secondary poison type covering a lot of grass's usual weaknesses. (I love Bulbasaur so much~!)
'Nothing has changed much in Sinnoh'
The inclusion of fairy type changed everything.
my Gardevoir curbstomped Cynthia with a DKO against her Garchomp.
I struggled with Greninja so much in my Y playthrough that I temporarily booted it off my team. It constantly struggled with moves it was weak to like Fighting and Fairy type moves, and those kinds of moves appear a lot in the game. It could just be my bad battling skills that make it look bad, though.
Meanwhile, I was training up a Fennekin and was surprised on how easy it was to evolve. I think it only fainted once when I was training it into a Delphox. Granted, it's not very balanced since I didn't do a full playthrough with Fennekin, but I believe had I chose it, I probably would've had an easier time with Y.
As people have pointed out Sprigatito and it's evolutions do much better than quaxly. In these latest generations the grass starters are doing much better than the water types. Also, Treecko does hit team aqua if you are fighting them in sapphire or Emerald while swampert beats team magma where as combusken is somewhere in the middle since it can hit both dark types they have in either team with team aqua having the sharpedo line and there's mightyena line in both.
13:08 I was wondering why my Serperior didn't get to 200+ attack until I got past level 80, gahlee I felt so weak throughout my playthrough of White last year and now I know why
2:14 - Brock's Geodude and Onix both have a Special of 30, so Ember ended up still being satisfactory. It also wasn't impacted by Defense Curl, and both Pokemon don't have any Rock moves. They can only hit you with Normal moves.
fair point, but squirtle and bulbasaur do that better and aren’t weak to rock
Grass types are frequently the weakest because Grass types tend to have super common weaknesses. Mostly because Flying types are everywhere.
Cand-ice is how I remember her name.
Meowscarada is a beast 😢
So I recently did a playthrough of Emerald and I had both Treecko and Torchick on my team and Treecko got way more use, water type gym and champion, plus all the water routes, resists electric, technically super effective against Tate and Liza because 3/4 of their team members are rock or ground. By the time I beat the game Sceptile way out-leveled Blaziken despite Blaziken being a traded mon and getting bonus Exp
Torterra has STAB Earthquake that alone makes it worth having. 4x weaknesses are fine especially in a region with lots of Steel Rock and Fighting type options for that pesky Ice gym
I was one of those kids who choosed Chespin as my first starter in X and Y. I had in the previously games always choosed the grass stater. So I found it naturally to do in X and Y. I kept Chespin until it reached Chesnaught and then proceeded to switch it out for Venusaue
If Meganiun learned leech seed by level up itd be soooo much better
Don't you mean "first partner pokémon"?
Poor Turtwig was even worse in BDSP since the Gym Leaders and important trainers had really excellently crafted teams with good stats, items and movesets and so a load of the Water type Pokémon that you could count on Torterra for in DP will likely KO Torterra in BDSP due to being fast and having some kind of strong Ice move to take it out 😅
Hisui Typhlosion sweeps Arceus in Legends. The Ghost typing keeps it from using Judgment & you can just stall it with drain punch
Not gonna lie, when you asked what IS Chespin, my brain mixed porcupine and quill, so I just answered "It's a Quilladin". Then you said no one remembers the name of the second stage.... guess I am the weird one.
You stopped too early when selling how badly Chespin has the deck stacked against it in X/Y.
Around the fifth gym, it'll have evolved into Chesnaught. So it'll likely get STAB against Heliolisk and Magneton while getting a lot weaker against Emolga.
Then, the next two gyms? Fairy and Psychic, perfect to punish you for your newly gained fighting STAB. The legendaries (which you have to fight/catch) are also fairy or flying, meaning brutal STAB against you. At least you are great against Lysandre's Mega Gyarados.
The elite four - you'll stomp Siebold. But one's Drasna, whose dragons and flyings will resist you, Pachira will destroy you, and Wikstrom's steels? One's Scizor, a bug/steel, one's Aegislash, steel/ghost and one's Klefki, steel/fairy. It's insane how a steel type trainer isn't a free fight for a fighting type.
Diantha... got a Hawlucha (murders you), a Pampujin (resists you harshly), an Aurorus (can murder you back), a Mega Gardevoir (murders you) and Goodra (resist grass and can fire blast you). Tyrantrum, in difference to the fight with Grant, is now more of a freebie because of fighting unambiguously besting rock.
It's honestly crazy how Kalos vs. Chesnaught might rival Johto vs. Chikorita in how absolutely stacked it is against you.
I feel so bad for Chikorita 😔 next time i play a gen 2 game I'm gunna pick her
Chikorita is actually one of my favorite grass starters but man it's hard to use it not only in it's generation but in general. It would very much be my mascot but not actually on the team mon if possible.
My person preferences:
Gen 1- Charmander (even though I know it's hard mode)
Gen 2- Cyndequill
Gen 3- toss up between Treeko and Torchick
Gen 4- Chimchar
Gen 5- Snivy
Gen 6- Fennekin
Gen 7- that fire cat thing (forgot it's name)
Gen 8- Scorbunny
Gen 9- don't like any of them, but I ended up using Fuecoco in my initial playthrough
Clearly I have a bias for fire types.
Personally casually playing RB I found Bulba being worst, yeah it was good for the 1sr few gyms but sucked everything else in between with its many weakness and pokemon that resist it with how common poison, bug and flying pokemon are. It typically takes stuff out much slower.
And it lacked move variety too.
Bulba is great competitively, but personally, as a casual play through, it drags and kinda replies on a glitch as its main gimmick. I dont see a reason to really have a grass type with 2 other grass/poison types to choose from
Grass types in general typically draw the shorter straw compared to the other 2
Wait did you actually use leech seed toxic and are complaining it sucked? Seems like a you problem. Sleep powder is insane, razor leaf hits like fire blast with the autocrit and swords dance body slam sweeps the entire game from the point you can get it
@bvd_vlvd I just didn't like how stally it is and felt like almost everything resistant to it outside of gyms, in a single battle in competitive is 1 thing but going though multiple battles on a casual play through it gets boring when u don't 1 shot many mon and just drags
@@Rikoyasha15 I get that, grass in general has strong setting up options but they don't just one shot stuff like ground types do with earthquake and water types can with surf. I hope you give any mon a swords dance body slam combo, especially something with sleep powder, like Venusaur or Victreebel. I promise you'll fall in love with those pokemon again
I have a new theory that Bulbasaur was among a large list of Kanto’s Poison-Types who had the type added on after their primary type for the sake of “game balance” (notice the air quotes). Not only would this improve Bulbasaur’s Gym matchups against Giovanni and especially Sabrina if they were pure Grass-Types, but the same can also be said for the Bellsprout and Oddish families who we have at least some evidence to suggest were some of the last Pokémon added to Gen 1 outside of Mew. They even gave Misty’s Psyduck Confusion in Let’s Go as an added bonus.
In the meantime, here’s my picks for every region using their base forms (assuming no remakes):
Kanto: Charmander is the obvious pick, but it’s honestly pretty even as Squirtle has the worst mid game and Bulbasaur has the worst lategame
Johto: Chikorita is the obvious pick, but recently I’ve started think Gen 2 Totodile specifically is pretty overrated too, and is only as famous as it is because of Rage strats in speedruns (Gen 2 Rage is so broken it could make anything the best by default)
Hoenn: Treecko is the obvious pick, but similar to Gen 2, Torchic suffers from a lack of physical STAB on one of its types (and no Speed Boost lol)
Sinnoh: The fact that your worst fully evolved choice is a Torterra says a lot about how stacked this region’s choices actually are (at least it’s the only one that beats Volkner)
Unova: Snivy and Oshawott tie for me here because of their lack of a secondary Type; which one is worse depends on if you’re playing the originals (Oshawott) or the sequels (Snivy). Note that BW1 are one of the very few games where Surf isn’t required to beat the game
Kalos: Fennekin is my pick for the worst choice, though to be fair it does get screwed over by a significantly buffed Charizard later on as competition for the Fire-Type slot. Oh btw Squirtle is the worst Kanto starter here if you’re wondering
Alola: Litten is only the worst in Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon, since Flying-Types across the board got a massive buff in these games with the early Flyinium Z and the Roost TM, thus meaning Rowlet is only the worst in the base games
Galar: Sobble isn’t terrible at face value, but when your competition consists of Grookey and Scorbunny, especially if you have the DLC and can get their Hidden Abilities, these Water-Types don’t age nearly as well as the other two especially for the first three Gyms
I’m not picking for Hisui and Paldea; the former is barely focused on battles and the latter is an open-world game
Bulbasaur being so amazing in Gen 1 really hurt the grass starters in the following generations. Also, don't you dare insult my boy Chespin. Its evolutions may suck but Chespin itself is super cool
The grass starter is always number one in the dex and in my heart.
12:24 I'd only put Tepig as the worst because it's unable to use Cut, but even then, that's not too bad.
I feel the pain on losing the Ruby version. And for that, I mean legitimately losing in the game lol. Where I left off, I remember wandering around an obscure route where my Swampert was poisoned to hell and I didn’t want to faint and lose all my money. And as a perfectionist 9 year old afraid of failure…I refused to play it after that lol. But now it’s 20 years later, my sister found the original cartridges in her storage basement, and the cartridge is dead. Once we replace the battery in it though, I want redemption!! Haha
Lmfao I totally didn’t know what chespins evo was called
Am I the only one who doesn’t care at all about a starter hitting the first or second gen for super effective? They’re going to be so easy regardless
Charmeleon vs Misty gym isn't exactly easy without overleveling
Saying Turtwig is worst than Piplup is wild. Enjoy your Fury Attack.