– Greetings fans! Michael here and most peoplechoose their favorite starter when playing througha Pokémon game, because you can beatany Pokémon game with any starter because allof them are reasonably strong.
Heck, you can solo any Pokémongame with just your starter because you'll end upsuper over leveled.
But while you can pickany starter that you want, the reality isthat in every game, there is one particular starter that makes the gameeasier than it would be if you chose the other two, based on how well it matches up against the big plotbattles of the game.
I thought it would be fun to go through everysingle main series game and figure out which starterPokémon is the best pick in each of them, based on how well it matches up against that particularregion's gym leader, Elite Four member, evil team, and other big importantstory battles.
So don't forget tosubscribe to my channel 'cause I'm getting reallyclose to one million subs, and let's start with generationone: Pokémon Red and Blue.
Where your starter choicesare, of course, Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle.
They're all lovely Pokémon, but the best oneof them to pick, will be revealed after I quickly thank thesponsor of this video, Castle Clash.
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Alright now thatI've covered that, the best starter topick in Red and Blue is hands down, bya mile, Bulbasaur.
One of the biggest reasons that Bulbasaur is the beststarter for Red and Blue is that it can single-handedly take out the firsttwo gym leaders.
Vine Whip is super effectiveagainst all of Brock's Pokémon and all of Misty's Pokémon.
Meanwhile Squirtleis good against Brock but mutually resistedagainst Misty, while Charmander isweak to both of them.
When deciding the best starter, the early game match ups are the most importantin my opinion because your options for teammembers are far more limited and your starter's alreadygonna be your strongest Pokémon from the get go.
If you wanna beat Brock butdon't have Bulbasaur or Squirtle you have to go out ofyour way to find a Mankey that has a fighting move or maybe a Nidoran withDouble Kick as well.
If you wanna have supereffective damage against Misty and didn't pick Bulbasaur, you have to find aPikachu in Viridian Forest which is really rare, or you have to go out ofyour way to find grass type, north of Cerulean.
It's kind of annoyingto have to do this, especially if you don'tintend to keep those Pokémon on your team for therest of the time.
Having Bulbasaur just allows you to easily beat thosegym leaders immediately.
Now, the importance ofwhat starter you pick does down the furtherinto the game you get because you get moreaccess to more good Pokémon as you go along.
However, Venusaur stillcontinues to perform well throughout the rest of thegame, not just the beginning.
It resists the electricmoves of Lieutenant Surge, which is nice if your groundtype Pokémon goes down.
It does not do well offensivelyagainst Erica or Koga but its poison typingprevents their Pokémon from poisoning it, which is a nice bonus.
It's not good againstSabrina or Blaine, but like I said, bythat time in the game, you've had accessto other Pokémon that are good againstthem for a while.
And lastly it matches upwell against Giovanni, not just the gymbattle with him, but the other twobattles against him from earlier in the game.
While his Nidosaren't weak to grass, they can't reallytouch Venusaur.
But it doesn't stop there, I think it's the best starterfor taking on The Elite Four, at the very least, it's definitely the beststarter for taking on Lorelei.
This may surprise you becauseshe is an ice type specialist and Venusaur is weak to ice.
While Venusaur may not be greatdefensively against Lorelei, it is great off offensively, since four of her fivePokémon are weak to Grass.
It's especiallygood against Slowbro because while it'sa psychic type and Venusaur is weak to psychic, Slowbro doesn't have anattacking psychic type move.
Meanwhile Charizard isonly good against Jynx, and while Blastoise is thebest starter defensively for this fight, it can'ttouch her Pokémon offensively.
Then comes Bruno, andVenusaur again does well.
It easily decimateshis two Onix, and it resists thefighting type attacks of his other Pokémon.
The only one that's abit scary is Hitmonchan with ice punch.
Meanwhile Charizardisn't any good because it doesn'tget any flying typemoves in Red and Blue and is of courseweak to the Onix.
And Blastoise, while it'sgood against the Onix, just like Venusaur, does not resist the attacksof his other Pokémon.
Venusaur unfortunately can'treally touch Agatha or Lance, I mean it can't be poisonedby Agatha's Pokémon but she tends to go mostlyfor sleep over poison and then against your rival, Venusaur fares about as wellas all the other starters do because your rivalsteam is balanced.
In the end, Venusauroverall does way better against more big plot battles, especially the early onesthan the other two starters.
So to me, thatmakes it hands down the easiest choice for thebest starter in Red and Blue.
Next up is Pokémon yellowand this entry is a fast one because you don't geta choice in starter.
Your starter is Pikachu, it's the best starterand the worst starter because it's the only starter.
Moving on to generation two, it's now time for Pokémongold, silver, and crystal.
Where your options areChikorita, Cyndaquil, and Totodile.
And I think the best starterto pick of these three, is Cyndaquil.
First off, I willaddress Chikorita, which is far and away theworst choice of the three.
It is weak to thefirst two gym battles.
Remember how I said the earliest gym battles arekinda the most important ones? So that's really bad but it doesn't getmuch better after that.
The only gym battle Pokémon that Meganium has asuper effective move for, that it is also nowweak to in return, are Pryce's Seel andChuck's Poliwrath.
That's it.
Every other gym battleeither resists grass or is neutral against it so Meganium is just notviable in a Johto playthrough.
I mean it's not reallyMeganium's fault, I mean maybe it'd be betterif it had a dual type but it's already ata big disadvantage because Johto didn't repeatany gym type from Kanto and the three types thatgrass is strong against, rock, water and ground, allhad their gyms in Kanto.
Speaking of Kanto, I'm not taking that into account for determining the beststarter in a Johto game because those gymsare post-game.
You're gonna have acomplete team by that point so your choice in startermatters very little once you've gotten to Kanto.
As for the remaining two, I'm giving Cyndaquilthe edge here because while Totodile isneutral to almost every gym, Cyndaquil is strongagainst some of them.
The two of them fair aboutequally against Falkner but Cyndaquil excelsagainst Bugsy.
Quilava is a bitworse against Whitney since rollout is supereffective against it, but every starter is gonnastruggle against Whitney, it's frickin' Whitney.
Just use the in-gametrade Machop, that's how you beat Whitney.
Don't use a starter.
Then they're bothneutral against Morty, but Feraligatr is slightlybetter against Chuck because it's notweak to Poliwrath.
Typhlosion excelsagainst Jasmine though, being strong againsther entire team.
While Feraligatr is onlygood against Steelix.
Typhlosion is alsobetter against Pryce, because while his Pokémon all have typesstrong against Fire, none of them haveattacks for those types.
That means both Feraligatrand Typhlosion beat Piloswine but Typhlosion hits hisother two neutrally, while Feraligatr is resisted.
Then they both stinkagainst Clair, but come on, every starter stinksagainst Clair.
So Typhlosion completelybodies two gyms one of which is oneof the first two gyms, while Feraligatr isonly offensively good against a fewselect gym Pokémon.
But Typhlosion'sadvantages don't end there.
Because it's also goodagainst other story battles that Feraligatr isn'tas good against.
One example are thebattle against your rival.
None of the startersare super effective against his Golbat, Gengar, Alakazam or his own starter but Typhlosion is good againsthis Sneasel and Magneton, two Pokémon he has for a verylarge percentage of the game.
As for the Pokémon league, Typhlosion is strong againsttwo of Will's Pokémon, three of Koga's, and one of Karen's.
That totals to six differentPokémon within the league.
Feraligatr is onlystrong against three and Meganium is onlystrong against two.
With all of these advantages, Typhlosion is definitelythe best starter for Pokémon gold, silver, and crystal.
But that's mainlythanks to its typing.
Remember how I said thatno gym types were repeated from Kanto to Johto, well grass is good againstrock, water and ground and water is good againstrock, round and fire.
And those four typesall got gyms in Kanto.
Meanwhile fire is good againstbug, ice, steel and grass and only grassgot a gym in Kanto and the other threetypes got gyms in Johto.
So Typhlosion was justadvantaged by it's typing from the start.
Now onto generation three and first I will real quickcover FireRed and LeafGreen, the remakes of theoriginal Kanto games.
And unsurprisingly, the beststarter remains the same.
It's still Bulbasaur.
All of the big plot battlesremain the same, pretty much and the only real change of note is that Charizardactually has flying type attacking options now, but that really only helpsits viability against Bruno Now for the Hoenngames, those being Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald.
Where your starter choiceis between Treecko, Torchic, and Mudkip.
It was a bit trickier todecide the best starter here because of the versiondifferences betweenthe three games.
Depending on whichone you're playing, you'll fight adifferent evil team a different number of times and the champion changes betweenEmerald and the other two.
However, after analyzingall the different options between the different versions.
I still think the beststarter is the same throughout all three games.
In my opinion thatbest starter is Mudkip.
The primary reason I thinkit's the best starter is because it isstrong against three of the first four gyms and it's not weakto the fourth one.
Mudkip and Marshtomp isstrong against Roxanne, Wattson, and Flannery, while being neutralagainst Brawly.
And remember, the earliergym battles matter more to me because your teamoptions are more limited.
So it being good against threeagainst of the first four is incredible.
Past that it's goodagainst yet another gym, that being Tate & Liza, along with being strongagainst Team Magma's Numels and Camerupts, plustwo-thirds of Steven's team.
Therefore in Rudy, it's farand away the best option because you fightTeam Magma and Steven.
It's still good in theother ones too though because in Sapphire, yeah you fight Team Aqua but you still fight Steven.
In Emerald Steven isreplace by Wallace which Swampert can'tdo much to offensively, but you fight Maxie three timesas much as you fight Archie.
As an added bonus, Swampertgets ice type coverage that the other starters do not, which gives it some powerfulmoves against Winona and Drake.
Which, while they'renot stab attacks, it'll still come in handy.
As for the other two, Sceptile has super effectivedamage against three gyms, but struggles if you'refacing off against Team Magma rather than Aqua.
It is a bit betterin Emerald though, because it's alsogood against Wallace.
Blaziken is strongagainst three gyms, all of which arein the first five.
It's also the beststarter for the league due to being strong againstboth Sydney and Glacia, plus decent against someof Steven's Pokémon, but it strugglesagainst both evil teams since it's weak to bothCamerupt and Sharpedo.
So clearly theyall have benefits, so I don't think any starterperforms severely badly compared to the otherones like like Meganium in the Johto games.
However with Mudkipbeing good against three of the first four gyms, plus another gym after that and basically an entireevil team and champion, that's really good.
So it's definitely thebest one in my opinion.
Moving on to generation four, I will again real quickcover the remakes first, those being HeartGoldand SoulSilver.
And, much like withthe last remakes, the best starterremains unchanged because most of the big plotbattles remain unchanged.
So the best starteris again, Cyndaquil.
The only real detrimentCyndaquil has in these new games is that Pryce's Piloswinegets a Ground type move now, but Typhlosion is stillmuch faster than Piloswine so it's probably just gonna OHKO with a flamethrower anyways.
Now for the Sinnoh games, those being diamond, pearl, and platinum, wherethe options are Turtwig, Chimchar, and Piplup.
I will say upfront, that Piplup is definitelythe worst starter because Empoleon is ugly.
I'm kidding.
I mean I'm notkidding it is ugly but that's not thereason it's the worst.
Piplup is the worst starter because it's strong againstthe fewest number of gyms, that being three.
Which is more than I cansay for some other starters in some other games but it's still less than theother two Sinnoh starters.
It's strong against Roark, but then not good againstany other gyms until Byron, and while it's good againstSteelix and Bastiodon, it's weak to Magneton.
It's then strong against Candicethanks to its Steel typing, but after that it's reallyonly strong against Bertha and Flint, and Bertha's risky since Empoleon isweak to Ground.
Meanwhile Turtwig and Chimchar are good against four gyms each.
Assuming you make it a Monferno before taking on the first gym, the Chimchar line isgood against Roark, Gardenia, Byron, and Candice.
Turtwig is good against Roark, Wake, Byron, and Volkner.
They're also both good againstone Elite Four member each, Aaron for Infernape andBertha for Torterra, while also being good against two of Cynthia'sPokémon in Platinum.
Infernape is good againsttwo in diamond and pearl, while Torterra isgood against three because she has a Gastrodon.
They seem to be pretty balanced, but I think I have togive the edge to Chimchar.
Two of Chimchar's good gymmatchups are in the first four and they're actuallythe very first two.
Which, like withBulbasaur, is a big deal.
Meanwhile Torterra, two ofit's are in the first four in Diamond and Pearl butonly one is in the first four in Platinum because Wake gotmoved to be the fifth gym.
Also, some ofTurtwig's advantages aren't as good as theymight seem at first.
Against Wake, only twoof his three Pokémon are weak to grass, and twoof them carry ice moves which decimate Torterra.
Also while Torterra's Earthquake is good against Team Galactic'smyriad of poison types, it doesn't get earthquakeuntil it's a Torterra meaning up until that point it's really weak toall those poison types.
Infernape also has theadvantage of being fast and not having afour-times weakness, so because it canout-speed opponents, it's more likelyto take them out before it can take them out.
Whereas Torterra, if theopponent has a stray ice move it could be in trouble.
Additionally you fight aton of Bronzor in this game because pretty much everygalactic admin has one and Infernapeexcels against them because they have levitate so Torterra can't hitthem with Earchquake.
Infernape also has anextremely wide move pool which benefits in givingit a lot more coverage than the other two starters.
So, with all of that inmind Infernape / Chimchar is the best Sinnoh starter.
Now on to generation five, and I'll start withblack and white, because black two and whitetwo have very different gyms so they could result ina different best starter.
The options for your starter in all four of thegames are Snivy, Tepig, and Oshawott.
For Black andWhite specifically, the best starter isdefinitely Tepig.
Thanks to it gaining thefighting type upon evolution that gives it a lot moreoffensive advantages that the others otherstarters don't get because they remain pure typed.
It's strong againstLenora's normal types and Burgh's bug types, twoof the first three gyms, then later excelsagainst Brycen.
It also hits two of clay'sthree Pokémon super effectively, but that's more risky sincethey're good against it too.
In the league it's verygood against Grimmsley and can hit for of N's Pokémon and three of Ghetsis's forsuper effective damage.
Additionally, Team Plasma tends to carry alot of dark types, which Emboar, thanks to itsfighting type handles with ease It's also strongagainst Cheren's Liepard and Bianca's Stoutland, the two Pokémon that they getfirst after their starters.
So you'll be able to takeadvantage of that advantage for pretty much theentire playthrough.
As for Snivy and Oshawott, they're really onlygood against one gym, that being Clay and even then they're only good againsttwo of his Pokémon each, which Emboar is too.
So because they havealmost no advantages, while Emboar has quite a few, Emboar is clearly the beststarter for Black and White.
But what about Blacktwo and White two? These games replacedthe triplet's, Lenora's, and Brycen's gyms withCheren's, Roxie's, and Marlon's.
So is Emboar stillthe best starter? Yes, yes it is, but it'snot as good as it was.
If you get your Pignite toLevel 17 to learn Arm Thrust, it crushes Cheren, but thatis over-levelling a bit, so that gym is a maybe.
While the matchup againstRoxie's Koffing is neutral, Pignite crushes Whirlipede.
It's good againstBurgh like before, along with two of Clay'sthree Pokémon like before.
Skyla now has a Skarmorythat she didn't have before, which Emboar's fireattacks are good against but Eboar is also weakto Skarmory flying moves so it's kind of a fifty fiftylike with Clay's Pokémon.
After that though, it's notmuch use until the Elite Four with Grimmsley again.
So Emboar went from being strongagainst three gyms for sure to one plus two iffy ones due to the levelingthing with Cheren and with Roxie it's onlygood against one of the two.
However, all three of those gyms that it's at least maybe goodagainst are the first three.
Meanwhile Snivy is now weakto two of the first three, While Oshawott is in thesame situation it was before.
It's just good against Clay and like neutral toalmost everything else.
Also Emboar also stillhas the advantage against the TeamPlasma's dark types, plus it's good againstHugh's Bouffalant and can hit Iris's Hydreigonand Aggron really hard.
So while it's definitelynot as good as it was in Black and White, it's still betterthan the other two.
Now onto Generation 6, and I will again get theremake out of the way first.
Those being OmegaRubyand AlphaSapphire where the best starteris again, Mudkip.
The big plot battlesremain mostly unchanged and all three startersdo get mega evolutions but since that doesn't happenuntil about the sixth gym, I don't think those comeinto play a whole lot in regard to a particularstarters viability.
Mega Blaziken is definitelythe best mega evolution but Marshtomp is still amazingagainst the first four gyms.
In fact Swampertgets a huge buff in the fact that it can nowuse it's water tight moves on it's hugephysical attack stat.
So that makes it hit evenharder than it did before, which is fantastic.
Then comes X and Y.
The best starter for thesegames is much harder to select than all the other gamesbecause you make two choices.
You first choose anative Kalos starter, picking from Chespin, Fennekin, and Froakie, then beat the first gym, but then you pick a Kantostarter in addition to that.
This makes things tricky because if oneparticular starter type is better against theregion as a whole, and then you look at eachstarter choice individually, you would end up picking twostarters of the same type.
Which would not leadto a balanced team.
Therefore, I'm gonna tellyou which starter combo is the best.
Which Kalos starter and which Kanto starter make for the easiestplaythrough together.
It was really toughfor me to decide this so if you disagreewith this entry, I definitely understand.
But the combinationsI narrowed it down to were Fennekin and Bulbasaurversus Froakie and Charmander.
The reason I selectedthese pairs is that I felt like the firetype was necessary.
Fire is half-good againstViola, half-good against Grant, dominates Ramos and Wulfric, beats Valerie's Mawileand resists her other two, and beats two ofClemont's three Pokémon due to Heliolisk's Dry Skin.
So of course the firstfire option is Fennekin's and I chose Bulbasaurto be its partner because its offensivepoison type attacks are really good againstValerie and Ramos.
Yes those are battles that Fennekin wasalready good against, but the otheroption is Blastoise which is just nothelpful in this game, it's good against Grant'sAmaura and that's basically it.
Charmander's partnerwould then be Froakie, because it's reallygood against Grant and is excellent against Olivia.
Chespin unfortunately justis kinda underwhelming in most gym battles.
Now to compare the pairs.
So Fennekin and Froakie areevenly matched against Viola but Froakie isbetter against Grant.
After that, they're both strong against about the samenumber of gym leaders and Elite Four members.
So because of that, that might seem likeI'm gonna pick Froakie as the better starter here because it's betterin the early game gyms and as I've saidI value that more.
However, there are otherfactors that play here that make me selectFennekin and Bulbasaur as the best starter combo.
And there a five reasons why I'm picking themover the others.
Number one, they'rebetter for Korrina.
Braixen can hitKorrina with Psybeam even if it hasn't evolved yet, but you have to have Charizardto get the Flying coverage.
Ivysaur also resiststhe fighting attacks, while Frogadier does not.
Reason number two, Delphox is not weak to the electric type movesthat Charizard is weak to which matters bigagainst Clemont.
Mega Charizard X fixes this, but you may be playing Y.
Reason number three, if you are playing Y, Mega Charizard Y's Drought can harm your Greninja'seffectiveness.
Reason number four, having anoffensive poison type attack to handle Fairies super early on thanks to Venoshock onIvysaur is extremely helpful.
And number fiver, while nothaving Greninja against Olympia means you don't have supereffective offense against her, Delphox still resists her.
Now for the Generation7 Alola games, where the starter options areRowlet, Litten, and Popplio.
and I think the best starteris the same in sun, moon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon and that starter is Popplio.
Popplio does alright againstthe Totem boss fights.
It's good against the Raticateif you're playing Moon or Ultra Moon thanksto Disarming Voice, but it's neutralon the Gumshoos.
It's neutral againstthe water trial, excels at the fire trial, does poorly in the grass and electric trials, isneutral in the ghost trial, and decimates the dragon trial.
Incineroar fairs similarly well, swapping the fire anddragon trial advantages for the grass and electric ones, plus ghost against thenon-Mimikyu Pokémon, while Decidueye does muchworse than the other two.
So Primarina and Incineroarfare pretty similarly against the Totem battles.
But what makes Primarinamuch better than Incineroar in my opinion, is how it how it performsagainst the Kahunas.
In which it has super effectiveattacks for all of them.
Disarming Voice isgood against Hala, Olivia's team is weak to water, Nanu's is weak to Fairy, and Hapu's is weak to water or Fairy with her Flygon.
Primarina can singlehandedly beat all of them.
Incineroar does a bitbetter against Team Skull, 'cause they tend to havea lot of poison types but you can't ignorethat Primarina beatsall of the Kahunas and does well inthe Totem battles, it is the best starterin Alola, definitely.
Next is let's go Pikachuand let's go Eevee, and like with the yellowversion that they are based on, you do not get anoption in starter.
Let's go Pikachuyou get Pikachu, let's go Eevee you get Eevee.
So those two Pokémon arethe best and worst starters because they arethe only starters.
And finally we have generation8, Pokémon Sword and Shield, where the starteroptions are of course Scorbunny, Sobble and Grookey.
I must say of all the gamesin all of the generations, I think these are the games where the starters arethe most evenly matched.
A big reason for thatis the first three gyms are Grass, Fire and Water.
And then the fourth gym is one that all of the startersmatch up neutrally against, so therefore all of themare good against exactly one of the first four gym battles.
After the first four, Inteleon and Rillaboom do wellagainst the Rock gym if you're in Sword, with Inteleon being better here since only half of Gordie'sPokémon are weak to grass.
They're also bothgood against Raihan, since two of his four Pokémonare weak to grass and water.
Cinderace does wellin the Fairy gyms since it resists allthe fairy attacks, and it dominates in theShield-exclusive ice gym aside from the Lapras.
It's not much helpagainst Raihan, but it does reallywell against Rose.
With all this in mind, I've decided that Ithink the best starter in Sword and Shieldis Scorbunny.
While it's only good againstone of the first four gyms, just like the other two, the one it's good againstis the very first one, where you have the fewestnumber of team options, so that's pretty nice.
It's the only starter equippedto handle the Fairy gym so it gets an extragym point there and in Shield, it'samazing in the Ice gym.
And in Sword, it still canhelp out in the rock gym because it getsfighting type coverage.
That fighting coverage can alsocome in handy against Raihan because two of his fourPokémon are weak to fighting.
Also, being able tosweep through Rose's team which is not a gym battle, itmight as well be counted one, is really impressive.
It has four-timessuper effective hits for two of his five Pokémon and the other threeare all weak to fire, that's really good.
Cinderace also handles Hop's regularly-appearing Corviknight, plus his Dubwool and Snorlaxthanks to fighting coverage, which also helps against Marnie.
It's not that greatin the Champion's Cup, but it can handle Leon'sMr.
Rime and Aegislash.
Also I think Pyro Ball is thebest starter exclusive move because it's extremely strong, its Fire Blast but physicaland stronger and 100% accurate.
That's really good! So in my opinion, all threeof the starters are good but Cinderace edges theother two out by a bit.
So in the end, the best starters ingenerational/regional order are Bulbasaur, Cyndaquil, Mudkip, Chimchar, Tepig, Fennekin and Bulbasaur together, Popplio, and Scorbunny.
Wow that's a lot of fire types.
Thanks so much for watching and an extra special thanksto my patrons over on Patreon who are helping supportme and the channel independent of the fluctuatingYouTube ad revenue.
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Also if you want tocheck out some more of my fun Pokémon content, Irecommend these videos here, also don't forget tocheck out Castle Clash, thanks to them for sponsoring.
All right that'sall I have for now.
So 'til next time, fans, gotta catch them all.
.
