Ranking the BEST Starter in Every Pokémon Game!

7.8/10 Too much water

So what you're saying is water type is the best type?

This video was so well made at the start, but got SOOOOO half assed at the ending. The so called "scientific formula" was likely dropped in favor of "ah I feel like there's no debate for this one," he rushed so much that he forgot to consider that in LGPE the starter choice is actually between pikachu and eevee (would've been a fresh comparison to watch instead o fire/grass/water).

Like why rush things at this point, we don't even get a recap at the end comparing how dominant each best starter was at their respective games in relation to each other, just a vague "haha gen 9 best starter in history haha." Him rushing the ending completely botched the answer to the other interesting question of which is the WORST starter overall. Like the idea of the formula was there, he just gave up on collecting data to make a cool video halfway through and decided to rush for the upload.

I'm late to the party, but I'm just now knowing this poketuber and I hope he has learned, or at least can learn to not do this for his other videos, but I think I might pass on watching other long videos of his because of this bad first impression...

Bulbasaur is best for gen 1 but I'll always choose Charmander lol. The real best starter is Nidoran lol

Hoenn with the best trio hands down

As always, blastoise on top

My selection:
Gen 1: Tossup (I like all of them as they have their own pros and cons)
Gen 2: Typhlosion
Gen 3 Hoenn: Swampert
Gen 3 Kanto: Tossup
Gen 4 Sinnoh: Infernape
Gen 4 Johto: Feraligatr
Gen 5 BW: Emboar
Gen 5 B2W2: Samurott
Gen 6 Kalos: Greninja
Gen 6 Hoenn: Swampert (though I hate its mega)
Gen 7 SM and USUM: Primarina (sorry Decidueye, I still love you)
Let’s Go: Pikachu
Gen 8 Sword: Inteleon
Gen 8 Shield: Cinderace
Gen 8 Sinnoh: Infernape
Gen 9: Skeledirge

As someone who used chespin im very sad

I love totadile

i remember hating chespin when its reavleded but then it became my fav kalos starter

TORO carries johto runs fr!

Welcome to Pokemon, grass is ass

I really think they should fix the type chart to make grass type better.

I managed to beat pokemon x with chespin so your opinion is invalid

Rip to the grass types

So basically what you're telling me is to never pick the grass type starter... Ever... For any reason.

But I think they look good so I'll keep picking them.

Loving the point system and the video, but the problem with this list is it neglects that you can get the same sweep from a lot of different available Pokémon of the same type, not just the starter.

Primarina is such a fun Pokemon, I wish they were in more games other than pretty much just Alola. Primarina was pretty much the only reason I played Gen 7 to begin with, after Gen 8 I basically quit the mainline games, except for Legends. I have been so disinterested in Gen 9 and while I'll keep an eye out for Gen X, I likely won't pick it up, unless they do some major changes to it and stop treating children like braindead toddlers.

Water type is an insanely good type (especially for one of the original types, who never received a buff, and also don't really get the overpowerness of some of the more recent types, for example Fairy) with usually very consistent coverage across the board to check their weaknesses.

The Water Starter is almost always going to perform well, and quite often outperform the other two Starters, because that's how good the Water Type is as a whole, generally speaking. But that's also kind of the issue with it as well. It is so good of a Type that you can usually just get a much better (wild) Water Pokemon elsewhere and get even better results than you would by using the Water Starter. That's why some people don't pick the Water Starter. Not to forget, early accessibility (for a type that technically is somewhat limited (to some extent) by fishing and surf, lots of Good Water Pokemon can be picked up quite early, surprisingly, whereas sometimes in the earlier Gens you might struggle to find a good Fire pokemon early on and while Grass Pokemon can be picked up early, they're not always good).

Which brings me to my other point... it's not quite uncommon for some Gens (especially the earlier ones) for the Fire and Grass Starters to quite literally be the best Fire and Grass Pokemon in their respective Gen alltogether. See the imbalance?

This general rule of "Water > Fire > Grass" has changed a little bit over the years because Fire got somewhat of a buff by being super-effective against Steel and Fairy which were two new (VERY strong) types. That's why we're starting to see the Fire Starter slowly creeping up to the top as the video advances.

The persona music makes this so much better!!

Water types being able to learn all ice type attacks is too umbalanced.

Actually it's bulbasaur because it has one of the best coverages for gyms and for the ones its bad against you're gonna have a full team by the time and you're not gonna use your starter for the entire playthrough.

Chikorita is the best in my heart.
Definitely not in Johto, though.

You know who im rooting for

Edit: god dammit

Gen 6 are fantastic pokemon games that are over hated and I'm tired of pretending they're not

My boyfriend is an old Pokemon person, while the first game I played was pokemon Shield.
He watched me and my younger brother play it for a little sometimes, and when he watched my brother picking his starter he said that in the older games it was better, because the games wouldn't go so easy on you to just hand your rival the weaker starter type to your own. It made you struggle just a little bit.
At first I agreed with him, but watching this video, I remembered what happens to the third starter: Leon takes it, so in the championship battle, he can kick your ass with it and hand it to you whole.
In my first run I picked Scorbunny, so that gave Sobble to Leon, and even though I came to the battle properly leveled, Inteleon absolutely SWEEPED through my team with babydoll eyes and snipe shots. It was a straight up MASSACRE and since I didn't have any more revives, I finished the battle with 2 very bruised and battered pokemon. That Inteleon was a literal BEAST.

Idk man I swept everything with Quaxly

man fuck 12

So basically: turtle, gator, fish, monke, otter, frog, puppy, bunny and gator again

Can you make a video of all the winers from all generations against each other?

Okay I will concede that Totadile is mechanically better than Cyndaquil but just look at Cyndaquil. Look at it! It's so cute!

I like that you sprinkled in some video in all these ads holy shit

For me cinderace piro ball is just broken any Pokémon that is a level weaker gets destroyed by cinderace

Moral of the story: no one needs grass-types, catch an electric-type against water instead

Nono, not mentioning sleep powder at all is where you went wrong ranking gen 1 Pokémon. Bulbasaur is the best starter not just because it gives you the easiest time against the first gym leaders until you can get your hands on a Gyarados and Alakazam and steamroll the second half of the game, but because the endgame of Gen 1 is catching all the Pokémon. What gives you the easiest time catching pokémon? Status effects. And no status effect is more effective than the sleep status effect, due to the pokémon not being able to run away while asleep, also not able to attack while asleep, and lastly, do not take damage over time unlike poison or burn, so you have way more chances to catch them.

And you could argue that Vileplume fills the same role, you must remember that if your goal is to steamroll the game as easily as possible, unnecessary levelling is really bad. You must have a pokémon that knows surf anyway before Blaine, the only direct counter to Venusaur, so that is not unnecessary. Sabrina is the only tough gym for Venusaur, but again, sleep powder and STAB moves can do wonders here, so just save Sabrina for later and overlevel your Venusaur and you'll be just fine. That's ONE gym where Venusaur isn't absolutely baller at, compared to Charmander and Squirtle that not only have several (Charmander has Brock and Misty, Squirtle has Lt. Surge and Erika), but those gyms are in the first half of the game, and you're supposed to level a second Pokémon for stat variety at some point during the midgame anyway, so Venusaur is just covered throughout the entire playthrough.

The reason speedrunners use Squirtle is because Speedrunners are not playing the game, they are ending the game quickly, meaning they have to skip as much of the game's content as possible. Which is not really applicable if you're just looking for the best starter to beat the game with.

A ranking that assigns arbitrary points, don't take into account some acquirable moves (In Jotho in Goldenrod casino you can acquire Fire Punch or Fire Blast, so the fact that the Cyndaquil line is stuck with ember for long is fake) , not consider enough how easy is to replace a starter with other similar types (All the good mid-late matchups for Blastoise are best handled by Gyarados or Lapras, so Blastoise is better only for speedrunner so they don't spend time in catching and evolving new mons, and also Feraligatr in Jotho is easy replaceble to other water mons for the late game, mainly again Lapras or Gyarados) take into account coverage moves only for some, on similar matchups give more to some mons and less to other, don't take into account some other fixed storyline figths (for example evil team or rivals).

I think I've redone maybe 20 times crystal version and never thought if picking Chikotita.

Then the first time I chose it, I half tge time boxed it because so many regular pokemon are better than this starter for doing Johto. It is just so meh.

I still get confused as to why people think cyndaquil and torchic are the best starters in their games, even though I like them, their still overrated

It only one answer Charmander

Love him or hate him, Totodile was my childhood Pokémon of choice and will always be the best in my heart 🫡

Rip my grass types, there always my fave but i guess it was never ment to be. Its all good though i always end up trading with my freind for all 3 starters

About the Hoenn starters:

Treecko isn't good as a counter to Water Types. You illustrated its lacking in the champion battle well, but on the water routes, the ONLY Pokemon you find by Surfing on most routes are Tentacool, Wingull, and Pelipper.

They are a low enough level at that point that they don't give you trouble, but if you're choosing Treecko and expecting to have a late-game advantage, you're out of luck because that advantage isn't there.

For Water Types more broadly, the Ludicolo line, Pelipper line, Gyarados, Tentacruel line, Kingdra, make up 9/42 Water Types in Hoenn, but Lombre, Pelipper, Tentacool, and Gyarados make up a disproportionately larger scale of trainer battles. Just try to think of how many trainers use the Swampert line, Whiscash line, or Corsola/Relicanth which could be one-shot by Sceptile.


Torchic has a better move-pool than you give it credit for. I've solo-ran it more than once and the combination of Normal, Fire, and Fighting moves with Aerial Ace gives it more than sufficient neutral to Super-Effective damage.

It destroys Roxanne, fares evenly with Brawly, destroys Watson, fares evenly with Flannery, destroys Norman (with Fighting moves and the Dig TM to abuse Truant), and by the time the first 5 gyms are out of the way, it's levelled up enough and packs enough of a punch that the rest don't matter. It does fare a bit worse in the Elite Four than it did in Ruby/Sapphire, so it is significantly throttled by the late game.

Good video. I always see the question "who is the best starter" as the best starter you can pick when you are NEW to Pokemon. Obviously you would know if there are better Pokemon out there once you get into Pokemon deeply. But when you are new, the best criteria is to have a Pokemon that will be "reliable" as in you can rely on it most, if not, all the time. This means for me, the one who performs the best in "solo mode" or "speedrun", without relying on teammates. So for me, the answer would always be the Pokemon that can solo the entire game with minimal grind (not overleveling).

My fav starter out of all starter is Bulbasaur btw. Immunity to poison is just awesome. The way I wish other grass starters in other gens are poison type just so I dont have to worry about them dying from poison. 😩 The only starter who can't be poisoned! (From starting of its evo line up until the last evolution). Blessed be the number 001 Pokemon, Bulbasaur! 💚 (I acknowledge that Squirtle is the best starter fyi).

Edit: Oops, forgot about our adorable penguin Empoleon who is a water/steel type! Can't also be poisoned!

totodile

TOTODILE SUPREMACY

nothing can beat an mega swampert whitch cloud be easy level 70 when you get to the elite 4

He said insinroar insted of in fernape

I sense a bias towards water starters..

Charmeleon can learn Metal Claw and can BREEZE through brocks gym, i think all the starters can handle Brock just fine

Swampert best starter ever. It can solo beat the game plus it can be used in the battle frontier in emerald which is where the true best pokemon play.