Starter Pokemon

[Dagger Dias]

In the Pokemon series you always begin your collection with one of that generation's "starter pokemon". These starters would include representatives from three different types. Grass, Fire, and Water. The only exception was in the Yellow version where you start with Pikachu and could catch each of the Red/Blue starters on the way through events in the game. Every other version has started players off with the same type sets.


GRASS STARTERS
Bulbasaur - Red/Blue
Chikorita - Gold/Silver/Crystal
Treecko - Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald
Turtwig - Diamond/Pearl/Platinum
Snivy - Black/White

WATER STARTERS
Squirtle - Red/Blue
Totodile - Gold/Silver/Crystal
Mudkip - Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald
Piplup - Diamond/Pearl/Platinum
Oshawott - Black/White

FIRE STARTERS
Charmander - Red/Blue
Cyndaquil - Gold/Silver/Crystal
Torchic - Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald
Chimchar - Diamond/Pearl/Platinum
Tepig - Black/White


So with the background out of the way.... My questions are these:

Should more games have deviated from the 3 main starter types like Yellow did, why or why not? If yes, what are some species you would like to have had as potential starters? (disregarding legends or evolutions)

I personally would have liked to see more deviation from always doing Grass/Water/Fire as starters. There are 17 types and 13 of them have never had a starter before, while Electric has only been represented by Pikachu in one version. It comes off as lazy when it continues to be the same three starter types in every single version in my opinion, and it's a small part of the reason why my interest in the series dropped. Part of the reason may have been due to not being able to come up with a Rock/Paper/Scissors format of the starters being effective against each other. Given the diverse types and effective rates, it's possible to come up with a new starter trio that would work. Fighting/Psychic/Dark, for example could work. Or maybe the developers just subscribe to the "it it ain't broke, don't fix it" philosophy, which is fine, but eventually all ideas lose their appeal if done too much without some type of change.

Discuss!

 

[Bernkastel]

3 starters to choose from is plenty. Every Pokemon game that I've played, it takes a lot of care to raise a starter properly, and with 3 to choose from that's 3 potentially different paths to take. For me, personally, if I choose a water type in the beginning my journey will be different than if I choose a grass or fire type. It's strategy. And with each new game the attributes of each pokemon type continue to change. There are pokemon classified as starters or children that have duel type abilities now.

Grass, fire, and water types are all pretty balanced and easy to control. I don't like using physic or ghost types because I'm not good with using their moves effectively, where as I'll rape someone and their mother with a fire type.

As for Yellow, I feel it was a tribute to both Pikachu and the character Yellow more than it was an alternative to the other games. It's like playing the Mortal Kombat Origins games where you have to beat everything with Sub Zero or Scorpion.

 

[Remix]

Should more games have deviated from the 3 main starter types like Yellow did, why or why not? If yes, what are some species you would like to have had as potential starters? (disregarding legends or evolutions)

No they shouldn't for two reasons. Firstly because that trio is pretty darn perfect at illustrating the super effective/not very effective types. Remember Dagger, that lots of young kids play Pokemon who wouldn't know that different types do different amounts of damage to others until they found out in game (how many six year olds read the manual?). Fire/water/grass makes sense both from a mental level (fire burns grass, water puts out fire, grass drinks water) and a practical level (the only other viable trio is fighting/rock/fire due to dark's immunity to psychic and both lack the intuitiveness of the FWG trio). Yellow got Pikachu (and Eevee) because it was a special anime inspired edition, not because it would have made sense as a long term move.

The second reason is that by now it's a tradition. It wouldn't feel right to have other primary typed starters after so long. It's like not knowing why Elder Scrolls' protagonists were on their way to prison at this point. Why fix something that's not broken?

As for Yellow, I feel it was a tribute to both Pikachu and the character Yellow more than it was an alternative to the other games. It's like playing the Mortal Kombat Origins games where you have to beat everything with Sub Zero or Scorpion.

Ech, I love Yellow from PokeSpe, but she exists because of Pokemon Yellow the game, not the other way around. Pokemon Yellow was a blatant cash in on the Pokemon Anime, what with Pigeottos in Veridian Forrest, Lt Surge's Raichu and the Pikachu that refuses to stay in its ball.

 

[Shotaro]

I'm not going to lie. I have two DS consoles. I usually just use my other DS to trade with and start with all three (me and a buddy even went so far as to get two of each starter so we both had all of the starting trio)

That being said, I think that the classic trio helps kids understand the rock/paper/scissors nature of the core gameplay - even if it is more like rock/paper/scissors/lizard/Spock

 

[Slowdude]

I'm going to add to the discussion. Besides the second generation at least one of the trio has a secondary type after evolution (Venusaur, Charizard, Blaziken, Swampert, Empoleon, Infernape, Torterra, Emboar). Out of those I'd say the whole fire/fighting is where they truly are getting lazy with each generation creating a lesser being (as Blaziken reach god like status thanks to dream world, infernape gets to remained overused while Emboar is worthless).

At the end of the day as people already have mentioned the fire/grass/water is the perfect combination to start a game and at the end of the day the moto of don't change what isn't broken works wonders for the pokemon franchise.

 

[The 1-2-3 Killam]

As cool as Pikachu was in Yellow Version, I always wanted the Eevee that Gary gets to start with...

The Grass/Fire/Water starter combo has worked brilliantly. A lot of people miss the subtlety here, but it's not just about starting with three awesome Pokemon you can't get anywhere else in the game (usually). It teaches the player about strengths and weaknesses right off the bat. Plus, Fire/Grass/Water are all good types that are stronger than some (normal, poison, etc.), but not as hefty as others you get later in the game (dark, psychic, steel, etc.). They're also pretty basic, so for those getting into the series for the first time (yeah...because in 2012 that still happens...) they can ease into things with something entirely awesome, and they don't have to try and understand the complexities of different status effects, etc etc.

Yellow Version balanced things out, because while you got to destroy Misty in about a second and a half, you MUST catch something else to get through Brock at the very beginning.

I thought Crystal (Yes DD, I'm on Crystal AGAIN ) was great. You started with your classic Fire/Water/Grass trio, but the selection of wild catches BEFORE the first gym leader was incredible. I just started it again, and within the first hour I had Totodile, Geodude, Poliwag, Ghastly, Bellsprout and Phanpy as my starting six. Awesome.

 

[Dagger Dias]

As cool as Pikachu was in Yellow Version, I always wanted the Eevee that Gary gets to start with...

That's brilliant, and I think that would have been a perfect solution to the problem. Eevee has a very unique evolutionary path and would honestly be an excellent starter pokemon. It offers so many different types to play with. I've always liked Eevee. It resembles my dogs (Papillons) and has so many different evolutions that are fun to collect.

Eevee - Leaving him unevolved allows for a Normal type to start. I never EVER use Normal types (boring!!!!) but it allows for a challenge and another option.

Vaporeon - Water types are a common starter, so why not. It is also a rather useful type. I often started with Water types to get past the Rock gym's easily. He has very high HP too.

Jolteon - A chance to start with an Electric other than Pikachu and in a version other than the Yellow version. Jolteon also learned a lot of moves outside of its type, making it an under-rated species.

Flareon - Fire type, and one of my favorite oldschool species. Although I never really start with a Fire type other than in Emerald where I beat the entire game using only Torchic in its evolved form.

Umbreon - Here we go. I mentioned Dark types as a good candidate to start off with in the opening post, and Umbreon is one of the better ones.

Espeon - Like Umbreon, I had also stated interest in starting with a Psychic type. They are one of the most popular types, so I know I'm not the only one who would like to see that happen. These guys can be rather powerful, one of the Eevee's I'd be most likely to start with.

Glaceon - I don't use many Ice types, but having that as an additional option doesn't hurt.

Leafeon - Of course we would end up with yet another Grass starter, been there done that. Yet another option though, and I do like all Eevee's. Leafeon is probably the Eevee form I have used the least, but I would like having him as a starter too. It could be fun.



The game would need to supply you with the necessary item and/or method from the beginning to evolve the Eevee if you chose to. It could work and would be a great deviation from the traditional three starter types. It might make it more difficult to determine the type that the rival character(s) will pick, but do we really have to have a rival in EVERY Pokemon game? That's something else that they could change up. Or create more Eevee types so that the rival gets the type that is strong against yours. Eevee is destined to have a representive evolution for every type someday anyhow.

Make it happen, Nintendo!

 

[Silly Willy Nilly Vanilly in the Milly]

I always found the element trio to be sufficient. Of course, there are other triangles out there too, such as...

Fighting, Psychic, Dark

Water, Electric, Ground

Grass, Poison, Ground

Fire, Ground, Ice

The list goes on. I always thought it would be interesting to have any of these other trios as a starter option, but whatever.
I also do like the Eevee starter idea- this happened in XD: Gale of Darkness, but I think it would be nice to bring to fruition in the core games.

 

[aza1294]

It would be pretty nice to have a new 3 types for the starter pokemon, something fresh and not the same formula as normal. I always wanted a psychic ghost and fighting starter set mainly because I love the fighting type and enjoy smashing the invincible and annoying psychic types, but the gyms would have to suit as well. The thing that always interests me is that the gyms difficult would change depending on your starter. For example if you choose Charmander the first two gyms are difficult but in the long run you get a better pokemon for the later stages, whilst if you choose Bulbasaur the first two are super easy however the fire type gym near the end is extremely frustrating, plus Gary gets a Charmander which can know dragon type moves which are well a pain. So I'm all for new starters if the gyms correlate with them to make the game interesting

 

[Skairipa Matrix]

I agree with you Dagger I always thought it would have been cool to have some different type pokemon in the other games as starters espically a ghost cause that was my favorite type to use they really came in handy as the later gym battles came in the red & blue games, Also one thing that just SUCKED about red and blue was at the safari zone you could never get the best pokemon there like Chansey,Kangaskhan and Scyther that always pissed me off cause I REALLY wanted those three but they would run away or get out of the safari balls every time!

 

[DirtyJosé]

Eevee is a prize, and shouldn't be something you start with. Why not just give them the legendary pokemen from the start? I'm leaning towards the camp of "this is a primarily a kid's game". You want the first important choice in the game to require as little prior knowledge as possible. Let them look at the three; it's pretty obvious by their elements how they work. You don't need the game to tell you that grass is probably weak to fire and that fire is weak to water. Water being weak to grass is probably the hardest part to figure out.

Now look at some random fighters, psychics, and dark pokemen. Dark and Psychic types are probably going to get confused for each other because they tend to look similar. There are no visual cues helping you figure out the nature of the relationship of the three. There isn't enough information given to the player. The choice ends up feeling random to newer or younger players.

I understand the need to break the cycle and change things up. Perhaps more "Yellow"-like spin-offs designed for veteran players is the answer.

 

[ABMorales787]

The thing with the fire/water/grass starters is that they are basic, the starters you are given become very strong and finding over Pokemon under those types with equal power is highly rare. Tentacruels and Poliwhraths were a dime a dozen. But Blastoise was literally a tan by the time you had him. Gyarados was an utter chore and Lapras was too. Same can be said in the future games about Pokemon under those types. Not to mention they tend to be the most needed throughout the games.

 

[Thriller Ant]

The biggest problem with the fire/water/grass trio is that grass is significantly weaker than the other two. They have more weaknesses (5) and the types they are super-effective against can be damaged just as, if not more easily by other types. Add in the fact that their offensive repertoires are so much weaker than water or fire, and you have a type that I completely avoid using at all.

 

[Snitsky4GM]

I really don't have a problem with the water, fire, grass starters. It has its ups and downs, but so would making a trio of other types. I would like to see them experiment a little more with the secondary typing of the starters.

 

[Jerichoholic Ninja]

I like the starters being the three most basic types of fire, grass, and water. Yellow was cool with Pikachu but it also presented it's disadvantages (the first gym battle with Brock, i.e. rock Pokemon) and then again, the other three did as well. It would've been cool if you received an Eevee like Gary did in Yellow version and then once you get to Celadon City, you buy the stone of your choosing and make it evolve into whichever stage best suits you. If I had to choose a creature type to have as a starter it would have to be psychic. I always thought psychic was the most badass type and it's effective against almost all other types. Imagine having Abra from the start, how cool would that be?!