Unpopular opinions

[SandVeil10]

I think a lot of people exaggerate how difficult it is to use the Snivy line in BW1.

Tepig and Oshawott are definitely easier to use and more immediately impactful in battle ; so are their evos. And I have to admit that from Pinwheel Forest to Elesa's Gym, Servine faces many tough matchups while being stuck with the low PP, 90% accurate Leaf Tornado.

However, the combination of Tackle // Leaf Tornado // Growth // Leech Seed for Servine is more than usable in neutral matchups. It's got reliable speed and bulk, which give it decent set up opportunities and make its job easier.

Serperior can also perform pretty admirably with sweeper-type sets such as Leaf Blade // Coil // Leech Seed // Protect anytime the lead matchup isn't a Grass quad resist, or a strong special attacker.
Since NPC's never switch out, Serp can often snowball out of control and make tons of progress. Access to Normal coverage with Strength is nothing to write home about, but it helps it bypass some of those Grass resists too.
Even in bad matchups, it can instead run a fast support set with Dual Screens, as a way to enable its teammates to break through the opposing team.

I reckon many of the issues players have with Serperior are tied to its lack of immediate power, and that leads them to think Serp can't do anything even though it has viable movesets it can use in-game. It's cool that the Snivy line stands out from the usual all-out attacker profile most starters have.

 

[girazard]

I think a lot of people exaggerate how difficult it is to use the Snivy line in BW1.

Tepig and Oshawott are definitely easier to use and more immediately impactful in battle ; so are their evos. And I have to admit that from Pinwheel Forest to Elesa's Gym, Servine faces many tough matchups while being stuck with the low PP, 90% accurate Leaf Tornado.

However, the combination of Tackle // Leaf Tornado // Growth // Leech Seed for Servine is more than usable in neutral matchups. It's got reliable speed and bulk, which give it decent set up opportunities and make its job easier.

Serperior can also perform pretty admirably with sweeper-type sets such as Leaf Blade // Coil // Leech Seed // Protect anytime the lead matchup isn't a Grass quad resist, or a strong special attacker.
Since NPC's never switch out, Serp can often snowball out of control and make tons of progress. Access to Normal coverage with Strength is nothing to write home about, but it helps it bypass some of those Grass resists too.
Even in bad matchups, it can instead run a fast support set with Dual Screens, as a way to enable its teammates to break through the opposing team.

I reckon many of the issues players have with Serperior are tied to its lack of immediate power, and that leads them to think Serp can't do anything even though it has viable movesets it can use in-game. It's cool that the Snivy line stands out from the usual all-out attacker profile most starters have.

Whenever I was speedrunning the earlygame of BW1 (duplicating mystery gift attempts and can't trade until after the Dreamyard sequence) I found myself using Snivy to set up Growths on Chilli's Lillipup and sweep rather than use Panpour, far more tolerable. Every other fight could be equally swept with any of the starters, but nice to be able to set up with Snivy for that one fight. Work Up would have been great but isn't available until you beat the gym, leaving Snivy as the only one with that option.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

I think a lot of people exaggerate how difficult it is to use the Snivy line in BW1.

Tepig and Oshawott are definitely easier to use and more immediately impactful in battle ; so are their evos. And I have to admit that from Pinwheel Forest to Elesa's Gym, Servine faces many tough matchups while being stuck with the low PP, 90% accurate Leaf Tornado.

However, the combination of Tackle // Leaf Tornado // Growth // Leech Seed for Servine is more than usable in neutral matchups. It's got reliable speed and bulk, which give it decent set up opportunities and make its job easier.

Serperior can also perform pretty admirably with sweeper-type sets such as Leaf Blade // Coil // Leech Seed // Protect anytime the lead matchup isn't a Grass quad resist, or a strong special attacker.
Since NPC's never switch out, Serp can often snowball out of control and make tons of progress. Access to Normal coverage with Strength is nothing to write home about, but it helps it bypass some of those Grass resists too.
Even in bad matchups, it can instead run a fast support set with Dual Screens, as a way to enable its teammates to break through the opposing team.

I reckon many of the issues players have with Serperior are tied to its lack of immediate power, and that leads them to think Serp can't do anything even though it has viable movesets it can use in-game. It's cool that the Snivy line stands out from the usual all-out attacker profile most starters have.

I'll go beyond.

Most people bashing Grass starters are suffering from Skill Issues.

 

[ScraftyIsTheBest]

Snivy I feel is the starter who's best at sweeping a team multiple Pokemon in a row of the three, despite what its statline may suggest. It's not an immediately powerful hard hitter, but it combines good bulk with high Speed which is a very interesting combo. It gets Growth early on and then Coil later, and it tends to strike first a lot, so it can boost and accumulate offensive firepower using its good bulk to take hits and survive, then go for the sweep and strike down multiple Pokemon among NPC opponents. Leech Seed helps in passive damage/recovery which Serperior does have the bulk to work in tandem with.

Unova is also ripe with powerhouses who can cover the Pokemon Serperior can't sweep, those including Darmanitan/Chandelure, Conkeldurr, Haxorus later on, and vice versa, and those teammates excel at burst damage against opponents Serperior's long haul setup sweeping gameplay may not be optimal against.

It's better at outright sweeping and cleaning in-game opponents than the other two in BW1 for that matter. Emboar and Samurott are both fairly slow, and have more immediate firepower but thrive more on taking down a few opponents at a time in-game. Emboar hits like a truck and does really well at dealing large burst damage with Hammer Arm, Heat Crash, and Flamethrower, but is fairly slow (though Flame Charge might not be bad as a Speed boost) and Samurott has a solid mixed offensive profile on both sides and has Blizzard, Megahorn, and Grass Knot as coverage and Aqua Jet as priority which makes it a good offensive all rounder. But Serperior despite being less immediately powerful is the best of the three at sweeping in game NPCs with multiple Pokemon in a speedy manner imo.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

Fast Leech Seed is such a cheat code, Snivy can really just clutch 1v1s and support a lot if you don't have a clean counter.

 

[Hugin]

I'll go beyond.

Most people bashing Grass starters are suffering from Skill Issues.

Depends a lot on the region as much as the starter.
Chikorita is trash, we don't need to relitigate that.
Bulbasaur had some weird hurdles in gen 1(needs 13 for Vine Whip, gets Sleep Powder very late, has trouble with Koga/Sabrina/Blaine/Erika), but isn't terrible. In later gens, it gets a much better movepool for the early game and other changes(Return exists) make it actually good against previously poor matchups.
Treecko suffers from Wattson/Flannery/Winona wrecking it in the midgame, and lategame when it should be crushing the massive amount of water, your other options have also come online. Also Blaziken/Swampert are goated, it's really hard to take Sceptile over one of them.
I can't speak to Turtwig/Snivy, haven't played those games much, but my impression is they aren't bad.

Gen VI and on, I actually have a different complaint from everyone else about the grass starters: They're good starter pokemon, but bad grass pokemon. GF has focused on grass types being either bulky attackers or fast attackers, with powerful signature moves and secondary typings that come with Close Combat or similar. That's really not how a mon with Grass's movepool and type chart should be played. The point of the type is to spam status, recover HP, and whittle down the oppt. Meowscarada doesn't play like a grass type, it plays the same as a fire-type.

 

[Samtendo09]

Gen VI and on, I actually have a different complaint from everyone else about the grass starters: They're good starter pokemon, but bad grass pokemon. GF has focused on grass types being either bulky attackers or fast attackers, with powerful signature moves and secondary typings that come with Close Combat or similar. That's really not how a mon with Grass's movepool and type chart should be played. The point of the type is to spam status, recover HP, and whittle down the oppt. Meowscarada doesn't play like a grass type, it plays the same as a fire-type.

While I agree with the rest, I prefer bulky or speedy attackers than strictly formulaic Pokémon of the type, because we already have status-spreading Grass-type Pokémon in the past which can be picked back up for anyone wanting to use a status-spreading Pokémon again. Fighting and Electric Pokémon were laughed at due to being far more formulaic, with Electric-type Pokémon that tries to play differently ends up suffering for it due to not having any tool nor stats necessary for the differing roles.

I do think that powerful signature moves and the secondary type trifecta of Fighting/Fairy/Psychic/Ghost/Dark on starters specifically are pushing it too far though.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

Chikorita is trash, we don't need to relitigate that.

That's the primary example that comes to mind.

I understand Falkner being a bad matchup, that's fair. After that? If you're getting pressed by Zubat, there's nothing that can't be done for you except pointing to the direction of Earl's Academy.

 

[Hugin]

That's the primary example that comes to mind.

I understand Falkner being a bad matchup, that's fair. After that? If you're getting pressed by Zubat, there's nothing that can't be done for you except pointing to the direction of Earl's Academy.

Falkner's a bad matchup. So is Bugsy, who's SE and resists Grass, and his move builds damage over time, which is bad for a bulky mon with no quick way to kill. Whitney is bad for everyone. Morty resists Chikorita's entire movepool and uses Curse to kill. Once you pass that point, it gets easier, but the early game is when your starter matters most.

Also, Chikorita needs a better movepool. Give it Leech Seed early on. The support movepool is better than other grass starters get, but not being able to damage Ghastly/Magnemite even with your DOT effects is miserable. Toss in Sleep Powder or Stun Spore, so that it can contribute to catching mons, and you'd find people objecting a lot less.

 

[Castersvarog]

While I agree with the rest, I prefer bulky or speedy attackers than strictly formulaic Pokémon of the type, because we already have status-spreading Grass-type Pokémon in the past which can be picked back up for anyone wanting to use a status-spreading Pokémon again. Fighting and Electric Pokémon were laughed at due to being far more formulaic, with Electric-type Pokémon that tries to play differently ends up suffering for it due to not having any tool nor stats necessary for the differing roles.

I concur, its similar to Fighting types where there's so many Mons of that type that already fall into the same niche that after a while they all sort of bleed together. Grass has plenty of options for doing Status attacks.

I do think that powerful signature moves and the secondary type trifecta of Fighting/Fairy/Psychic/Ghost/Dark on starters specifically are pushing it too far though.

Agreed 100%, I am genuinely so tired of the Repeating Fighting/Ghost/Dark secondary types on the starters since Gen 6, Psychic/Fairy less so because it's only really happened Once/Twice respectively. Here's hoping Gen 10 does something more interesting, like I know a lot of people are speculating Browt with Ground, Rock, Fighting (Ugh) and even Electric sometimes, Pombom with Fairy and Gecqua with Psychic or Poison

 

[Krockodile]

Chikorita is trash, we don't need to relitigate that.

I'm playing HGSS right now with Chikorita as the starter and I've heard that it is the worst starter in HGSS, if not the worst starter in the mainline games. But from what i heard from others, it actually is pretty underrated if not good in spite of its typing. There are bad matchups but there aren't hard to plan a decent team build around:

• Falkner's Pidgeotto and Bugsy's Scyther - use a Rock Type like Geodude or the traded Rocky to take them down. Be careful of overlevelling Rocky over level 10, as it could disobey orders tho. Geodude and Onix aren't just useful for one fight either, as when evolved into Graveler/Golem or Steelix they can be incredibly helpful
• Morty's Ghost types - Bring in a normal type (since most of their offensive moves include ghost types) that have a super effective move like Noctowl, Raticate (with TM Shadow Claw), Girafarig or even Tauros and it'll be good.
• Team Rocket's poison and fire types - They're really weak and underlevelled, even Archer's Houndoom as Fire Fang instead of Flamethrower.
• Jasmine - Not exactly a tough fight sadly.

Think the only bad matchups that Meganium could face is Lance and Koga (Elite Four), but by then the player would have a team to plan for this.

I think Chikorita should be focused on the matchups that can be difficult, like Whitney, Kingdra and even Chuck. Meganium can naturally learn Reflect to use against Whitney's assault and use Poison Powder (though she does have a Lum Berry), has Light Screen to withstand Kingdra's Hydro Pump attacks and can act as a decent check to Chuck's Poliwrath, thanks to resisting Surf and has Magical Leaf to punish his Focus Punch.

It might be versatile in theory, with Swords Dance (Goldenrod Game Corner) that pairs well Razor Leaf in the Early Game and in the late game with Body Slam, Return or even the Earthquake TM. It has Synthesis for healing as a tank, Screens so that its teammates can safely switch in, Natural Gift that would give it the ability to hit a super effective move with the right berry. I think Typhlosion might be worse than Meganium as it's not as versatile and whilst it can beat Bugsy and Jasmine, does struggle against Whitney, Clair and Chuck. It's not terrible tho.

I think maybe the reason people undermind Chikorita is because Pokemon Games tend to focus on super-effective matchups and not necessarily care about support mons/moves, hence why its weakness against the first two gym leaders give it a unfair bad rep.

Edit: I haven't finished playing HGSS with the starter yet, I'll have to see whether Meganium can be pretty solid.

 

[Ironmage]

Also, Chikorita needs a better movepool. Give it Leech Seed early on. The support movepool is better than other grass starters get, but not being able to damage Ghastly/Magnemite even with your DOT effects is miserable. Toss in Sleep Powder or Stun Spore, so that it can contribute to catching mons, and you'd find people objecting a lot less.

In other words, it needs to be Bulbasaur instead of Chikorita.

 

[CynicalGiant]

Nah dog people hate it because it sucks the entire game. Imagine having the bench your starter at the Elite Four because the one fight it does well in is such a joke that it's a freebie.

yeah like, I don't think I have ever seen a need to click a button that doesn't immediately do damage in any pokemon game. They have not really ever provided a reason to do it. People trying to sell the like set-up and/or stall for several turns strategy when the click a button and immediately kill them exists. leech seed and swords dance and screens is cool I guess but I already defeated the trainer by spamming Surf/Waterfall or Flare Blitz/Flamethrower

like sure, you can beat the game with Meganium or Serperior but you are actively engaging in a hard mode compared to how effortlessly strong the other 2 options are in their gens. I am not at all sad that they decided that grass moves are allowed to have real base powers as the gens went on.

I am not the biggest fan of the games or region itself, but Gen 4 had the like most solid starters in the older gens just from all 3 of them being very good and different in playstyle still while not having to rely on stall for like 5 turns because you want to roleplay as a troll trainer.

 

[Castersvarog]

yeah like, I don't think I have ever seen a need to click a button that doesn't immediately do damage in any pokemon game. They have not really ever provided a reason to do it. People trying to sell the like set-up and/or stall for several turns strategy when the click a button and immediately kill them exists. leech seed and swords dance and screens is cool I guess but I already defeated the trainer by spamming Surf/Waterfall or Flare Blitz/Flamethrower

like sure, you can beat the game with Meganium or Serperior but you are actively engaging in a hard mode compared to how effortlessly strong the other 2 options are in their gens. I am not at all sad that they decided that grass moves are allowed to have real base powers as the gens went on.

I am not the biggest fan of the games or region itself, but Gen 4 had the like most solid starters in the older gens just from all 3 of them being very good and different in playstyle still while not having to rely on stall for like 5 turns because you want to roleplay as a troll trainer.

Really the only time I’ve ever really needed to use a Strategy beyond ‘hit it until I win’ is the early game where it’s much harder to even do that, so you actually have an incentive to use Leech Seed and even Growl.
By the time Gym 3 is beaten that strategy just isn’t needed anymore

 

[Blitz]

Last thing I saw before she clicked Ingrain and crashed my XD yesterday, forcibly making me lose 8 hours of progress because the “Save” function on the NSO emulator is useless.

Never before have I developed such a hatred for a Pokémon until now, and I can’t stand her. Dumb rose. Fuck Roselia.

 

[WinterArcanine]

There are bad matchups but there aren't hard to plan a decent team build around:

• Falkner's Pidgeotto and Bugsy's Scyther - use a Rock Type like Geodude or the traded Rocky to take them down. Be careful of overlevelling Rocky over level 10, as it could disobey orders tho. Geodude and Onix aren't just useful for one fight either, as when evolved into Graveler/Golem or Steelix they can be incredibly helpful
• Morty's Ghost types - Bring in a normal type (since most of their offensive moves include ghost types) that have a super effective move like Noctowl, Raticate (with TM Shadow Claw), Girafarig or even Tauros and it'll be good.
• Team Rocket's poison and fire types - They're really weak and underlevelled, even Archer's Houndoom as Fire Fang instead of Flamethrower.
• Jasmine - Not exactly a tough fight sadly.

This is the exact opposite of proof that Chikorita isn't as bad as people say lol.

 

[Karxrida]

View attachment 819573

Last thing I saw before she clicked Ingrain and crashed my XD yesterday, forcibly making me lose 8 hours of progress because the “Save” function on the NSO emulator is useless.

Never before have I developed such a hatred for a Pokémon until now, and I can’t stand her. Dumb rose. Fuck Roselia.

I am extremely curious as to how this happened since the Save function seems to work fine otherwise. (I've been using it and resetting the game to get different RNG seeds for Pokémon stats.) Maybe it has something to do with the crash.

 

[doipy hooves]

I am extremely curious as to how this happened since the Save function seems to work fine otherwise. (I've been using it and resetting the game to get different RNG seeds for Pokémon stats.) Maybe it has something to do with the crash.

This is a general issue across all the NSO emulator apps where they don't actually write to save unless you close the game/whole NSO app, so a crash or the battery dying will not save progress. I remember the same issue being noted for GBA NSO in other games.

https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/1of5p91/psa_quit_the_nso_app_regularly_when_playing_fe78

The other issue is Pokemon XD being prone to crashing which Nintendo has addressed.

https://twitter.com/x/status/2036326737911619614

 

[DrPumpkinz]

Gen VI and on, I actually have a different complaint from everyone else about the grass starters: They're good starter pokemon, but bad grass pokemon. GF has focused on grass types being either bulky attackers or fast attackers, with powerful signature moves and secondary typings that come with Close Combat or similar. That's really not how a mon with Grass's movepool and type chart should be played. The point of the type is to spam status, recover HP, and whittle down the oppt. Meowscarada doesn't play like a grass type, it plays the same as a fire-type.

Chesnaught seems like it fits the typing to me. It learns Leech Seed very early, its signature move is a special Protect, and it didn't actually get Close Combat until Gen 9, which is also when it got Body Press which it vastly prefers. I'd argue it's at least a better Grass-type than Torterra.

In other words, it needs to be Bulbasaur instead of Chikorita.

Game Freak really knocked it out the park when making Bulbasaur. Its gameplan is so quintessentially Grass-type that any attempt to make anything play into Grass's strengths will necessarily make it more similar to Bulbasaur.

 

[ant4456]

View attachment 819573

Last thing I saw before she clicked Ingrain and crashed my XD yesterday, forcibly making me lose 8 hours of progress because the “Save” function on the NSO emulator is useless.

Never before have I developed such a hatred for a Pokémon until now, and I can’t stand her. Dumb rose. Fuck Roselia.

piggybacking off this, this was my first time beating XD and this game genuinely sucks and is only carried by being Pokemon

if this kind of game released today it would have people more mad than Scarlet/Violet. 90% of your gametime is in trainer battles and most of that is waiting for animations, the areas are almost all reused, the story writing is below the level of any game in the *franchise*, genuinely bad game... except its Pokemon

the AI is worse than the main series where it doesn't seem to understand type effectiveness and will blatantly target my magneton with aerial ace and not the breloom standing next to it

the level design is god awful. half of it is you taking 5 steps into a dungeon and a trainer spawns on you. you take 2 turns where you one shot them but each one takes 45 seconds minimum anyways. take 5 steps a trainer teleports onto you

the graphics are ass outside of the models, and some of them are still bad. what the fuck is flygon. some are good, gardevoir has much more character. but really i moreso mean the like Windows XP ass environments like agate and the human models. the bodybuilders look like an alien

for some reason every NPC mentions you are a kid like this is some cartoon show trying to appeal to the youth. im not even really exaggerating it comes up in the dialogue on average like 50% of the battle encounter lines, and almost all of the cipher/snagem ones

the game even has some contenders for worst tracks in the series. what is that wild battle theme

but it's still fun because it's Pokemon and i had a lot of fun trying to craft a team that works lol

this franchise is so whack

 

[Karxrida]

the graphics are ass outside of the models, and some of them are still bad. what the fuck is flygon. some are good, gardevoir has much more character. but really i moreso mean the like Windows XP ass environments like agate and the human models. the bodybuilders look like an alien

Maybe it's because I grew up in this era of gaming but the graphics are fine lol. Not the best you could get out of the GameCube but worse visuals do exist. Plus the whack character designs are super memorable. Trying to look at a 480p 3D game meant for CRTs from a modern lens when we have 1080p+ digital displays as the default is kind of unfair.

Oh also the animations don't even take that long and at least look nice.

 

[ant4456]

Maybe it's because I grew up in this era of gaming but the graphics are fine lol. Not the best you could get out of the GameCube but worse visuals do exist. Trying to look at a 480p 3D game meant for CRTs from a modern lens when we have 1080p+ digital displays as the default is kind of unfair.

i grew up with the wii which is really just a souped up gamecube and ive played gamecube games on native hardware. this game is next to

mario sunshine
pikmin
kirby air ride
wind waker
twilight princess
double dash
paper mario the thousand year door

etc. and there is another point: this is a 2005 sequel. half of these complaints have less merit talking about colosseum, but when it's the sequel? Sequels imo have way less excuse

Sometimes with the cost cutting in XD I genuinely was like, how little was the budget. Them pointing the camera to the player when you catch a Pokemon is not them trying to do cool stuff, it's them trying to avoid animating or doing effects for the traditional Pokeball *click* that is super satisfying. there isn't even a click sound

Really I'm hard on this game because of scope. This is not a big game. To me you can get away with less scope if you're gonna put in the polish but IMO XD is not polished. At the game design level, graphical level, writing level. The audio is mostly good.

if you cut out the time in each battle for the animations which is using the same gameplay system these developers didn't have to make, using models they already made, using animations they already made, in areas that they already made for colosseum, using mostly assets they already made for colosseum, there's like an hour of original content in this sequel. therefore: where the fuck is the polish? what was the budget? two sticks and a stone?

like I wouldn't be so hard on any of this if it wasn't a sequel or it had some big scope increase

imagine if this was done for anything else and this game wasn't carried by how solid the pokemon formula is. in my opinion this is the weakest official title with the pokemon formula, and I still had fun and kinda liked it because the formula is good, but it's also bad enough that I can't even really defend it from myself in my own head

 

[Krockodile]

yeah like, I don't think I have ever seen a need to click a button that doesn't immediately do damage in any pokemon game. They have not really ever provided a reason to do it. People trying to sell the like set-up and/or stall for several turns strategy when the click a button and immediately kill them exists. leech seed and swords dance and screens is cool I guess but I already defeated the trainer by spamming Surf/Waterfall or Flare Blitz/Flamethrower

like sure, you can beat the game with Meganium or Serperior but you are actively engaging in a hard mode compared to how effortlessly strong the other 2 options are in their gens. I am not at all sad that they decided that grass moves are allowed to have real base powers as the gens went on.

Ngl that sounds very disingenuous, especially since you haven't mentioned in which matchups that would actually be effective. Sure, clicking Surf strat can work on Jasmine's Steelix, but it's not great against Chuck’s Water Absorb Poliwrath that could in return put you to sleep with Hypnosis and use Focus Punch or any of Clair's Pokemon, which all resist Water moves.

Also, the only Pokémon that can even learn Flare Blitz in HGSS is the Rapidash line (Ponyta at 49, Rapidash at 58) and Growlithe at Level 48 and that's extremely late in the game.

Could you provide real strats where you can just spam a move that's not from an OP mon?

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

Also, Chikorita needs a better movepool. Give it Leech Seed early on.

I could wax some poetry about how Fury Cutter starts with 10 BP and you got Reflect and how Whitney being so tough is what makes Bayleef stand out because it provides some much needed bulk for it, but...

You nailed it. If Chikorita got Leech Seed over Poisonpowder, we would NEVER be having that kind of discussion.

In other words, it needs to be Bulbasaur instead of Chikorita.

Not really, if anything, Poisonpowder makes it play more like Bulbasaur and the other status spam Grass-types.

Speaking of which, I got Chikorita over Bulbasaur in Leaf Green as a starter. It's hilarious. It just fixes everything people complain about it (Chikorita does have sucktastic early matchups in GSC, my argument is that is shows up in the harder matchups instead, which is much more valuable.)

Chikorita in Kanto is legit bonkers.

 

[pika pal]

Ngl that sounds very disingenuous, especially since you haven't mentioned in which matchups that would actually be effective. Sure, clicking Surf strat can work on Jasmine's Steelix, but it's not great against Chuck’s Water Absorb Poliwrath that could in return put you to sleep with Hypnosis and use Focus Punch or any of Clair's Pokemon, which all resist Water moves.

Also, the only Pokémon that can even learn Flare Blitz in HGSS is the Rapidash line (Ponyta at 49, Rapidash at 58) and Growlithe at Level 48 and that's extremely late in the game.

Could you provide real strats where you can just spam a move that's not from an OP mon?

I feel like it was a generalization, not a literal definition on using Surf and Flare Blitz specifically. The point is that most Pokemon games do not incentivize you to play defensively or a long game against them when the options almost always exist to simply roll over the boss battles in less time, or the same time with prep that then can make future battles faster as well.

Just off the top of my head for GSC Johto alone

• Falkner: Geodude, Mareep depending on version, or just your Starter's STAB special if they're not Chikorita
• Bugsy: Geodude rock again, the various early game birds like Pidgey, Cyndaquil/Quilava again takes this for free
• Whitney: the Machop trade comes to mind. Geodude again works as a neutral attacker that tanks hits but isn't really playing a defensive/stall strategy
• Morty: Graveler has Magnitude, the Dig TM exists for coverage, and if you choose to raise it, Abra/Kadabra hits for SE damage while Morty's only good attack into it is Phys Shadow Ball. In general Morty's only good way to attack your team is Gengar, while a lot of his members use Curse and Night Shade that actively discourages playing a long game considering the former softens them up on top of heavily draining your health.
• Chuck's weak to the previously mentioned Abra line and the Birds if you're sticking with them beyond early game. His entire playstyle with Poliwrath is anti-Stall because the more turns it's allowed to take, the more Confusion rolls there are to disrupt your actions. Taking him out fast is optimal since he's doing the same.
• Jasmine's Magnemite literally cannot touch a Ground type outside Sonic Boom (remember the Geodude line keeps coming up?) and Steelix has a low Special DEF stat while being weak to STAB from the two offensively inclined starters (and Feraligatr will have the Surf option by now)
• Pryce's Seel and Dewgong are Rest users, so they can undo slow damage progress and status inherently. Offense is objectively the best approach for this fight, granted this is the first opponent that doesn't get swept by a single mon you already were inclined to bring (Starter, Geodude, Abra, Mareep/Magmar by version)
• Clair is when we finally come to a Gym Leader that might be worth utility play because her Kingdra is one of the worst designed encounters in a main Pokemon campaign. Unless you got a Dratini from the Goldenrod Game Corner, sidetracked for a Dratini on Route 45, or grabbed the Dragon Scale for Kingdra and a Horsea/Seadra from the Whirl Islands, you have no way to deal SE damage to her Ace on top of only maybe having Ice damage for the preceding Dragonair
  • The reason I cite Clair as badly designed is because this is the first battle, 15-20 hours into the game, that is effectively designed to reward play besides Unga Bunga (and I stress "reward" as opposed to "make an option"). This plus the constant flow of Rocket Grunts in the other major battle content has been most efficiently handled by just plowing through things and thus putting your focus on mons that do that more efficiently, often at the expense of alternatives.
• Will has pretty bad offensive presence, you can probably match him pound-for-pound using Alakazam, and secondary types mean his team is "sweepable" with Electric and Fire, a type combo multiple Pokemon can run on their own via the Elemental Punches like Alakazam or Typhlosion
• 4/5 of Koga's team gets stomped by Graveler/Golem, and the remaining Forretress can't really do anything besides Blow Up (this assuming you didn't bring one of the Fire options)
• Bruno gets smacked by Kadabra/Alakazam and has one Onix that your token Surf Mon can drown
• Karen is almost tricky but 4 of her mons are relatively unremarkable defensively with Gengar being more equipped to KO itself than you. 2/5 mons are immune to Poison, one of which has Recovery, along Sand Attack Umbreon if you need to hit repeatedly instead of going with status for the tank. So playing defensively I GUESS can work but just sounds miserable to wait out.
• Lance's entire team is weak to Rock, 4/6 are weak to Ice, 3/6 are weak to Electric, all of which you have options for. Basically the only thing to worry about is keeping your Rock away from Gyarados and maybe the Blizzard Dragonite (or ensure it's healthy enough for one hit).

So you can sweep the Johto League battles related battles using a Starter/Geodude/Abra as a primary core, and then a 4th/5th depending on your Starter (i.e. Totodile takes Growlithe or Magmar, Cyndaquil takes one of many Water options) and some flex options like the Eevee evolution. And this is all focusing on type coverage, much less running over the game with strong neutrals such as Normals (Spearow, Teddiursa, the Bovines).

Not sure at the end what you mean by "an OP mon" but in many cases, a mon in game will feel OP because it makes clearing the game significantly easier than the majority of options for its match ups, so not sure what this is supposed to narrow down in particular.