- Greetings fans! Michael here and most people
choose their favorite starter when playing through
a Pokémon game, because you can beat
any Pokémon game with any starter because all
of them are reasonably strong. Heck, you can solo any Pokémon
game with just your starter because you'll end up
super over leveled. But while you can pick
any starter that you want, the reality is
that in every game, there is one particular starter that makes the game
easier than it would be if you chose the other two, based on how well it matches up against the big plot
battles of the game. I thought it would be fun to go through every
single main series game and figure out which starter
Pokémon is the best pick in each of them, based on how well it matches up against that particular
region's gym leader, Elite Four member, evil team, and other big important
story battles. So don't forget to
subscribe to my channel 'cause I'm getting really
close to one million subs, and let's start with generation
one: Pokémon Red and Blue. Where your starter choices
are, of course, Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle. They're all lovely Pokémon, but the best one
of them to pick, will be revealed after I quickly thank the
sponsor of this video, Castle Clash. Castle Clash is one of the
best mobile strategy games published by IGG. It includes tons of gameplay
features such as tower defense, city-building, and
hero development. It's even better
than Clash of Clans with its large selection
of troops to choose from, well crafted building designs and much more diverse features. Castle Clash is a game
that you can play anywhere at any time and in
any way you want. If you want to play
peacefully, take your time and gradually train your troops. As you progress, you can
cultivate your heroes and build your fortress
to be impenetrable. In the event you
feel like battling and want to smash
thousands of troops, you can raid your enemies and
destroy their territories. They also just added a
new Tower Defense mode, which is a super fun way
to play a classic game type upgraded for Castle Clash, where you can defend against
waves of unruly monsters. So go download Castle Clash using the link in
the description below and once you have, you'll be
offered an in-game gift pack that's worth 100 bucks. Thanks again to Castle
Clash for sponsoring and thanks to you
viewers for watching and supporting the channel. Alright now that
I've covered that, the best starter to
pick in Red and Blue is hands down, by
a mile, Bulbasaur. One of the biggest reasons that Bulbasaur is the best
starter for Red and Blue is that it can single-handedly take out the first
two gym leaders. Vine Whip is super effective
against all of Brock's Pokémon and all of Misty's Pokémon. Meanwhile Squirtle
is good against Brock but mutually resisted
against Misty, while Charmander is
weak to both of them. When deciding the best starter, the early game match ups are the most important
in my opinion because your options for team
members are far more limited and your starter's already
gonna be your strongest Pokémon from the get go. If you wanna beat Brock but
don't have Bulbasaur or Squirtle you have to go out of
your way to find a Mankey that has a fighting move or maybe a Nidoran with
Double Kick as well. If you wanna have super
effective damage against Misty and didn't pick Bulbasaur, you have to find a
Pikachu in Viridian Forest which is really rare, or you have to go out of
your way to find grass type, north of Cerulean. It's kind of annoying
to have to do this, especially if you don't
intend to keep those Pokémon on your team for the
rest of the time. Having Bulbasaur just allows you to easily beat those
gym leaders immediately. Now, the importance of
what starter you pick does down the further
into the game you get because you get more
access to more good Pokémon as you go along. However, Venusaur still
continues to perform well throughout the rest of the
game, not just the beginning. It resists the electric
moves of Lieutenant Surge, which is nice if your ground
type Pokémon goes down. It does not do well offensively
against Erica or Koga but its poison typing
prevents their Pokémon from poisoning it,
which is a nice bonus. It's not good against
Sabrina or Blaine, but like I said, by
that time in the game, you've had access
to other Pokémon that are good against
them for a while. And lastly it matches up
well against Giovanni, not just the gym
battle with him, but the other two
battles against him from earlier in the game. While his Nidos
aren't weak to grass, they can't really
touch Venusaur. But it doesn't stop there, I think it's the best starter
for taking on The Elite Four, at the very least, it's definitely the best
starter for taking on Lorelei. This may surprise you because
she is an ice type specialist and Venusaur is weak to ice. While Venusaur may not be great
defensively against Lorelei, it is great off offensively, since four of her five
Pokémon are weak to Grass. It's especially
good against Slowbro because while it's
a psychic type and Venusaur is weak to psychic, Slowbro doesn't have an
attacking psychic type move. Meanwhile Charizard is
only good against Jynx, and while Blastoise is the
best starter defensively for this fight, it can't
touch her Pokémon offensively. Then comes Bruno, and
Venusaur again does well. It easily decimates
his two Onix, and it resists the
fighting type attacks of his other Pokémon. The only one that's a
bit scary is Hitmonchan with ice punch. Meanwhile Charizard
isn't any good because it doesn't
get any flying type
moves in Red and Blue and is of course
weak to the Onix. And Blastoise, while it's
good against the Onix, just like Venusaur, does not resist the attacks
of his other Pokémon. Venusaur unfortunately can't
really touch Agatha or Lance, I mean it can't be poisoned
by Agatha's Pokémon but she tends to go mostly
for sleep over poison and then against your rival, Venusaur fares about as well
as all the other starters do because your rivals
team is balanced. In the end, Venusaur
overall does way better against more big plot battles, especially the early ones
than the other two starters. So to me, that
makes it hands down the easiest choice for the
best starter in Red and Blue. Next up is Pokémon yellow
and this entry is a fast one because you don't get
a choice in starter. Your starter is Pikachu, it's the best starter
and the worst starter because it's the only starter. Moving on to generation two, it's now time for Pokémon
gold, silver, and crystal. Where your options are
Chikorita, Cyndaquil,
and Totodile. And I think the best starter
to pick of these three, is Cyndaquil. First off, I will
address Chikorita, which is far and away the
worst choice of the three. It is weak to the
first two gym battles. Remember how I said the earliest gym battles are
kinda the most important ones? So that's really bad but it doesn't get
much better after that. The only gym battle Pokémon that Meganium has a
super effective move for, that it is also now
weak to in return, are Pryce's Seel and
Chuck's Poliwrath. That's it. Every other gym battle
either resists grass or is neutral against it so Meganium is just not
viable in a Johto playthrough. I mean it's not really
Meganium's fault, I mean maybe it'd be better
if it had a dual type but it's already at
a big disadvantage because Johto didn't repeat
any gym type from Kanto and the three types that
grass is strong against, rock, water and ground, all
had their gyms in Kanto. Speaking of Kanto, I'm not taking that into account for determining the best
starter in a Johto game because those gyms
are post-game. You're gonna have a
complete team by that point so your choice in starter
matters very little once you've gotten to Kanto. As for the remaining two, I'm giving Cyndaquil
the edge here because while Totodile is
neutral to almost every gym, Cyndaquil is strong
against some of them. The two of them fair about
equally against Falkner but Cyndaquil excels
against Bugsy. Quilava is a bit
worse against Whitney since rollout is super
effective against it, but every starter is gonna
struggle against Whitney, it's frickin' Whitney. Just use the in-game
trade Machop, that's how you beat Whitney. Don't use a starter. Then they're both
neutral against Morty, but Feraligatr is slightly
better against Chuck because it's not
weak to Poliwrath. Typhlosion excels
against Jasmine though, being strong against
her entire team. While Feraligatr is only
good against Steelix. Typhlosion is also
better against Pryce, because while his Pokémon all have types
strong against Fire, none of them have
attacks for those types. That means both Feraligatr
and Typhlosion beat Piloswine but Typhlosion hits his
other two neutrally, while Feraligatr is resisted. Then they both stink
against Clair, but come on, every starter stinks
against Clair. So Typhlosion completely
bodies two gyms one of which is one
of the first two gyms, while Feraligatr is
only offensively good against a few
select gym Pokémon. But Typhlosion's
advantages don't end there. Because it's also good
against other story battles that Feraligatr isn't
as good against. One example are the
battle against your rival. None of the starters
are super effective against his Golbat, Gengar,
Alakazam or his own starter but Typhlosion is good against
his Sneasel and Magneton, two Pokémon he has for a very
large percentage of the game. As for the Pokémon league, Typhlosion is strong against
two of Will's Pokémon, three of Koga's,
and one of Karen's. That totals to six different
Pokémon within the league. Feraligatr is only
strong against three and Meganium is only
strong against two. With all of these advantages, Typhlosion is definitely
the best starter for Pokémon gold,
silver, and crystal. But that's mainly
thanks to its typing. Remember how I said that
no gym types were repeated from Kanto to Johto, well grass is good against
rock, water and ground and water is good against
rock, round and fire. And those four types
all got gyms in Kanto. Meanwhile fire is good against
bug, ice, steel and grass and only grass
got a gym in Kanto and the other three
types got gyms in Johto. So Typhlosion was just
advantaged by it's typing from the start. Now onto generation three and first I will real quick
cover FireRed and LeafGreen, the remakes of the
original Kanto games. And unsurprisingly, the best
starter remains the same. It's still Bulbasaur. All of the big plot battles
remain the same, pretty much and the only real change of note is that Charizard
actually has flying type attacking options now, but that really only helps
its viability against Bruno Now for the Hoenn
games, those being Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald. Where your starter choice
is between Treecko, Torchic, and Mudkip. It was a bit trickier to
decide the best starter here because of the version
differences between
the three games. Depending on which
one you're playing, you'll fight a
different evil team a different number of times and the champion changes between
Emerald and the other two. However, after analyzing
all the different options between the different versions. I still think the best
starter is the same throughout all three games. In my opinion that
best starter is Mudkip. The primary reason I think
it's the best starter is because it is
strong against three of the first four gyms and it's not weak
to the fourth one. Mudkip and Marshtomp is
strong against Roxanne, Wattson, and Flannery, while being neutral
against Brawly. And remember, the earlier
gym battles matter more to me because your team
options are more limited. So it being good against three
against of the first four is incredible. Past that it's good
against yet another gym, that being Tate & Liza, along with being strong
against Team Magma's Numels and Camerupts, plus
two-thirds of Steven's team. Therefore in Rudy, it's far
and away the best option because you fight
Team Magma and Steven. It's still good in the
other ones too though because in Sapphire,
yeah you fight Team Aqua but you still fight Steven. In Emerald Steven is
replace by Wallace which Swampert can't
do much to offensively, but you fight Maxie three times
as much as you fight Archie. As an added bonus, Swampert
gets ice type coverage that the other starters do not, which gives it some powerful
moves against Winona and Drake. Which, while they're
not stab attacks, it'll still come in handy. As for the other two, Sceptile has super effective
damage against three gyms, but struggles if you're
facing off against Team Magma rather than Aqua. It is a bit better
in Emerald though, because it's also
good against Wallace. Blaziken is strong
against three gyms, all of which are
in the first five. It's also the best
starter for the league due to being strong against
both Sydney and Glacia, plus decent against some
of Steven's Pokémon, but it struggles
against both evil teams since it's weak to both
Camerupt and Sharpedo. So clearly they
all have benefits, so I don't think any starter
performs severely badly compared to the other
ones like like Meganium in the Johto games. However with Mudkip
being good against three of the first four gyms, plus another gym after that and basically an entire
evil team and champion, that's really good. So it's definitely the
best one in my opinion. Moving on to generation four, I will again real quick
cover the remakes first, those being HeartGold
and SoulSilver. And, much like with
the last remakes, the best starter
remains unchanged because most of the big plot
battles remain unchanged. So the best starter
is again, Cyndaquil. The only real detriment
Cyndaquil has in these new games is that Pryce's Piloswine
gets a Ground type move now, but Typhlosion is still
much 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, where
the options are Turtwig, Chimchar, and Piplup. I will say upfront, that Piplup is definitely
the worst starter because Empoleon is ugly. I'm kidding. I mean I'm not
kidding it is ugly but that's not the
reason it's the worst. Piplup is the worst starter because it's strong against
the fewest number of gyms, that being three. Which is more than I can
say for some other starters in some other games but it's still less than the
other two Sinnoh starters. It's strong against Roark, but then not good against
any other gyms until Byron, and while it's good against
Steelix and Bastiodon, it's weak to Magneton. It's then strong against Candice
thanks to its Steel typing, but after that it's really
only strong against Bertha and Flint, and Bertha's risky since Empoleon is
weak 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 is
good against Roark, Gardenia, Byron, and Candice. Turtwig is good against Roark,
Wake, Byron, and Volkner. They're also both good against
one Elite Four member each, Aaron for Infernape and
Bertha for Torterra, while also being good against two of Cynthia's
Pokémon in Platinum. Infernape is good against
two in diamond and pearl, while Torterra is
good against three because she has a Gastrodon. They seem to be pretty balanced, but I think I have to
give the edge to Chimchar. Two of Chimchar's good gym
matchups are in the first four and they're actually
the very first two. Which, like with
Bulbasaur, is a big deal. Meanwhile Torterra, two of
it's are in the first four in Diamond and Pearl but
only one is in the first four in Platinum because Wake got
moved to be the fifth gym. Also, some of
Turtwig's advantages aren't as good as they
might seem at first. Against Wake, only two
of his three Pokémon are weak to grass, and two
of them carry ice moves which decimate Torterra. Also while Torterra's Earthquake is good against Team Galactic's
myriad of poison types, it doesn't get earthquake
until it's a Torterra meaning up until that point it's really weak to
all those poison types. Infernape also has the
advantage of being fast and not having a
four-times weakness, so because it can
out-speed opponents, it's more likely
to take them out before it can take them out. Whereas Torterra, if the
opponent has a stray ice move it could be in trouble. Additionally you fight a
ton of Bronzor in this game because pretty much every
galactic admin has one and Infernape
excels against them because they have levitate so Torterra can't hit
them with Earchquake. Infernape also has an
extremely wide move pool which benefits in giving
it a lot more coverage than the other two starters. So, with all of that in
mind Infernape / Chimchar is the best Sinnoh starter. Now on to generation five, and I'll start with
black and white, because black two and white
two have very different gyms so they could result in
a different best starter. The options for your starter in all four of the
games are Snivy, Tepig, and Oshawott. For Black and
White specifically, the best starter is
definitely Tepig. Thanks to it gaining the
fighting type upon evolution that gives it a lot more
offensive advantages that the others other
starters don't get because they remain pure typed. It's strong against
Lenora's normal types and Burgh's bug types, two
of the first three gyms, then later excels
against Brycen. It also hits two of clay's
three Pokémon super effectively, but that's more risky since
they're good against it too. In the league it's very
good against Grimmsley and can hit for of N's Pokémon and three of Ghetsis's for
super effective damage. Additionally, Team Plasma tends to carry a
lot of dark types, which Emboar, thanks to its
fighting type handles with ease It's also strong
against Cheren's Liepard and Bianca's Stoutland, the two Pokémon that they get
first after their starters. So you'll be able to take
advantage of that advantage for pretty much the
entire playthrough. As for Snivy and Oshawott, they're really only
good against one gym, that being Clay and even then they're only good against
two of his Pokémon each, which Emboar is too. So because they have
almost no advantages, while Emboar has quite a few, Emboar is clearly the best
starter for Black and White. But what about Black
two and White two? These games replaced
the triplet's, Lenora's, and Brycen's gyms with
Cheren's, Roxie's, and Marlon's. So is Emboar still
the best starter? Yes, yes it is, but it's
not as good as it was. If you get your Pignite to
Level 17 to learn Arm Thrust, it crushes Cheren, but that
is over-levelling a bit, so that gym is a maybe. While the matchup against
Roxie's Koffing is neutral, Pignite crushes Whirlipede. It's good against
Burgh like before, along with two of Clay's
three Pokémon like before. Skyla now has a Skarmory
that she didn't have before, which Emboar's fire
attacks are good against but Eboar is also weak
to Skarmory flying moves so it's kind of a fifty fifty
like with Clay's Pokémon. After that though, it's not
much use until the Elite Four with Grimmsley again. So Emboar went from being strong
against three gyms for sure to one plus two iffy ones due to the leveling
thing with Cheren and with Roxie it's only
good against one of the two. However, all three of those gyms that it's at least maybe good
against are the first three. Meanwhile Snivy is now weak
to two of the first three, While Oshawott is in the
same situation it was before. It's just good against Clay and like neutral to
almost everything else. Also Emboar also still
has the advantage against the Team
Plasma's dark types, plus it's good against
Hugh's Bouffalant and can hit Iris's Hydreigon
and Aggron really hard. So while it's definitely
not as good as it was in Black and White, it's still better
than the other two. Now onto Generation 6, and I will again get the
remake out of the way first. Those being OmegaRuby
and AlphaSapphire where the best starter
is again, Mudkip. The big plot battles
remain mostly unchanged and all three starters
do get mega evolutions but since that doesn't happen
until about the sixth gym, I don't think those come
into play a whole lot in regard to a particular
starters viability. Mega Blaziken is definitely
the best mega evolution but Marshtomp is still amazing
against the first four gyms. In fact Swampert
gets a huge buff in the fact that it can now
use it's water tight moves on it's huge
physical attack stat. So that makes it hit even
harder than it did before, which is fantastic. Then comes X and Y. The best starter for these
games is much harder to select than all the other games
because you make two choices. You first choose a
native Kalos starter, picking from Chespin,
Fennekin, and Froakie, then beat the first gym, but then you pick a Kanto
starter in addition to that. This makes things tricky because if one
particular starter type is better against the
region as a whole, and then you look at each
starter choice individually, you would end up picking two
starters of the same type. Which would not lead
to a balanced team. Therefore, I'm gonna tell
you which starter combo is the best. Which Kalos starter and which Kanto starter make for the easiest
playthrough together. It was really tough
for me to decide this so if you disagree
with this entry, I definitely understand. But the combinations
I narrowed it down to were Fennekin and Bulbasaur
versus Froakie and Charmander. The reason I selected
these pairs is that I felt like the fire
type was necessary. Fire is half-good against
Viola, half-good against Grant, dominates Ramos and Wulfric, beats Valerie's Mawile
and resists her other two, and beats two of
Clemont's three Pokémon due to Heliolisk's Dry Skin. So of course the first
fire option is Fennekin's and I chose Bulbasaur
to be its partner because its offensive
poison type attacks are really good against
Valerie and Ramos. Yes those are battles that Fennekin was
already good against, but the other
option is Blastoise which is just not
helpful in this game, it's good against Grant's
Amaura and that's basically it. Charmander's partner
would then be Froakie, because it's really
good against Grant and is excellent against Olivia. Chespin unfortunately just
is kinda underwhelming in most gym battles. Now to compare the pairs. So Fennekin and Froakie are
evenly matched against Viola but Froakie is
better against Grant. After that, they're both strong against about the same
number of gym leaders and Elite Four members. So because of that, that might seem like
I'm gonna pick Froakie as the better starter here because it's better
in the early game gyms and as I've said
I value that more. However, there are other
factors that play here that make me select
Fennekin and Bulbasaur as the best starter combo. And there a five reasons why I'm picking them
over the others. Number one, they're
better for Korrina. Braixen can hit
Korrina with Psybeam even if it hasn't evolved yet, but you have to have Charizard
to get the Flying coverage. Ivysaur also resists
the fighting attacks, while Frogadier does not. Reason number two,
Delphox is not weak to the electric type moves
that Charizard is weak to which matters big
against 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's
effectiveness. Reason number four, having an
offensive poison type attack to handle Fairies super early on thanks to Venoshock on
Ivysaur is extremely helpful. And number fiver, while not
having Greninja against Olympia means you don't have super
effective offense against her, Delphox still resists her. Now for the Generation
7 Alola games, where the starter options are
Rowlet, Litten, and Popplio. and I think the best starter
is the same in sun, moon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon and that starter is Popplio. Popplio does alright against
the Totem boss fights. It's good against the Raticate
if you're playing Moon or Ultra Moon thanks
to Disarming Voice, but it's neutral
on the Gumshoos. It's neutral against
the water trial, excels at the fire trial,
does poorly in the grass and electric trials, is
neutral in the ghost trial, and decimates the dragon trial. Incineroar fairs similarly well, swapping the fire and
dragon trial advantages for the grass and electric ones, plus ghost against the
non-Mimikyu Pokémon, while Decidueye does much
worse than the other two. So Primarina and Incineroar
fare pretty similarly against the Totem battles. But what makes Primarina
much better than Incineroar in my opinion, is how it how it performs
against the Kahunas. In which it has super effective
attacks for all of them. Disarming Voice is
good 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 single
handedly beat all of them. Incineroar does a bit
better against Team Skull, 'cause they tend to have
a lot of poison types but you can't ignore
that Primarina beats
all of the Kahunas and does well in
the Totem battles, it is the best starter
in Alola, definitely. Next is let's go Pikachu
and let's go Eevee, and like with the yellow
version that they are based on, you do not get an
option in starter. Let's go Pikachu
you get Pikachu, let's go Eevee you get Eevee. So those two Pokémon are
the best and worst starters because they are
the only starters. And finally we have generation
8, Pokémon Sword and Shield, where the starter
options are of course Scorbunny, Sobble and Grookey. I must say of all the games
in all of the generations, I think these are the games where the starters are
the most evenly matched. A big reason for that
is the first three gyms are Grass, Fire and Water. And then the fourth gym is one that all of the starters
match up neutrally against, so therefore all of them
are good against exactly one of the first four gym battles. After the first four, Inteleon and Rillaboom do well
against the Rock gym if you're in Sword, with Inteleon being better here since only half of Gordie's
Pokémon are weak to grass. They're also both
good against Raihan, since two of his four Pokémon
are weak to grass and water. Cinderace does well
in the Fairy gyms since it resists all
the fairy attacks, and it dominates in the
Shield-exclusive ice gym aside from the Lapras. It's not much help
against Raihan, but it does really
well against Rose. With all this in mind, I've decided that I
think the best starter in Sword and Shield
is Scorbunny. While it's only good against
one of the first four gyms, just like the other two, the one it's good against
is the very first one, where you have the fewest
number of team options, so that's pretty nice. It's the only starter equipped
to handle the Fairy gym so it gets an extra
gym point there and in Shield, it's
amazing in the Ice gym. And in Sword, it still can
help out in the rock gym because it gets
fighting type coverage. That fighting coverage can also
come in handy against Raihan because two of his four
Pokémon are weak to fighting. Also, being able to
sweep through Rose's team which is not a gym battle, it
might as well be counted one, is really impressive. It has four-times
super effective hits for two of his five Pokémon and the other three
are all weak to fire, that's really good. Cinderace also handles Hop's regularly-appearing Corviknight, plus his Dubwool and Snorlax
thanks to fighting coverage, which also helps against Marnie. It's not that great
in the Champion's Cup, but it can handle Leon's
Mr. Rime and Aegislash. Also I think Pyro Ball is the
best starter exclusive move because it's extremely strong, its Fire Blast but physical
and stronger and 100% accurate. That's really good! So in my opinion, all three
of the starters are good but Cinderace edges the
other two out by a bit. So in the end, the best starters in
generational/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 thanks
to my patrons over on Patreon who are helping support
me and the channel independent of the fluctuating
YouTube ad revenue. If you wanna sign up and
help support the channel and get some cool perks
like early ad free videos in exchange, the link is
in the description below. Also if you want to
check out some more of my fun Pokémon content, I
recommend these videos here, also don't forget to
check out Castle Clash, thanks to them for sponsoring. All right that's
all I have for now. So 'til next time, fans, gotta catch them all.
