First partner Pokémon… uh, yeah, no, I’m not calling them that, are some of the most iconic new Pokémon introduced with each new generation pretty much by default. They’re often some of the first new Pokémon to be revealed outright, and it’s very rare for a new set of three to not have at least one option you won’t at least consider interesting. (Hey, I never said you have to like all of them.) Unfortunately, or at least I find it unfortunate, it’s fairly common for individual Pokémon or even entire trios to receive more or less preferential treatment over time. The design philosophy around starter Pokémon has changed significantly over time, and with a notable portion of the fanbase regularly getting sick of all of the Charizards and Greninjas of the world, I thought it would be fun to look at the opposite side of the coin for a change. Rather than ask who the starters with the most preferential treatment, I wanted to try and find out which of these are the most ignored and passed over by The Pokémon Company, Nintendo, and Game Freak historically, in an effort to give these Pokémon the appreciation they deserve.
Before I reveal my own picks for this topic, I wanted to briefly go over the history of starter Pokémon in terms of development philosophy. The first two generations of starter Pokémon were purposely made relatively balanced for the times, and there’s a noticeable “I specialize in two specific stats” trend to be found amongst the Kanto and Johto rosters. In Gen 1, this was only one stat, however, which indirectly benefited the Bulbasaur family the most as their selected “base 100 stat” was in Special, as opposed to Charizard’s Speed and Blastoise’s Defense. The third generation would be the first one to really innovate on what a starter Pokémon evolution family could be, both in terms of their more specialized base stats and five of the six fully evolved options from Hoenn and Sinnoh having dual typings as opposed to only Venusaur and Charizard prior. Gen 3 would also be where the starter Pokémon Abilities were naturally introduced, and overall, it seemed like from Gens 1 through 4, the developers were becoming increasingly aware of how to design and balance starter Pokémon for both single player and multiplayer environments.
So of course Gen 5 had to come along and ruin everything. Gen 5 is the generation I consider as the official cutoff line for starter Pokémon being designed in such a way that I like to call… not good. At first things seem fairly inoffensive- if anything, the Unova stayers without their Hidden Abilities are one of the weakest trios we’ve seen so far. But therein lies the problem- starter Pokémon were no longer being designed for the sake of making a quality product. Gen 5 started things off with Hidden Abilities and the unprecedented decision to give the Torchic family and Ability like Speed Boost, then Gen 6 followed this up with Mega Evolutions, then Gen 7 with Z-Moves, and finally in Gens 8 and 9 with Gigantamax forms and more regional variants (PLA) and Mega Evolutions (ZA). Furthermore, every single fully evolved starter Pokémon since Gen 6 has had access to some kind of a signature move, with the moves in Gens 7 and 8 being on the stronger end before the Paldea region said “it’s Torching time” and proceeded to Torch Song all over the place, to say nothing of Grass-Type Wicked Blow and Quaquaval’s combination of Moxie and Aqua Step.
In my opinion, starter Pokémon design philosophy peaked from Gens 2 to 4, a specific time frame after Gen 1’s jank and singular Special stat but still before Hidden Abilities and generational gimmicks made the idea of Broken Starters a reality to the public. When I started looking at which starter Pokémon the developers have passed over the most up to this point in time, these are the three I would choose, one for each Type for the sake of keeping things interesting:
Turtwig is by far the most neglected starter Pokémon in my eyes and this really stings for me, since the whole family has some of my favorite designs out of the Grass-Type selections and turtles and tortoises being my favorite animals. Not to mention, fully evolving at only Level 32 and learning Earthquake in a generation before infinite TMs is simply awesome. Unfortunately, this family has received next to nothing over time and it’s taken until Gen 9 for Torterra to not be considered the consensus worst of its trio in competitive play, and even then it’s only tied with a buffed Empoleon in Gen 9 RU at the time of writing this. While Grass/Ground is an impressively underrated STAB combination, the typing does surprisingly little for Torterra defensively and after the aforementioned Empoleon buffs, Shell Armor is almost certainly the worst Hidden Ability selection among these three. As a matter of fact, the Turtwig family is so slow that it sometimes still can’t outspeed key targets even after a Rock Polish or Shell Smash, the latter being a move it received too little too late in my opinion.
Fennekin and Sobble haven’t been as neglected as Turtwig has, and Fennekin did get a notable boost to its profile with Mega Delphox’s introduction, but outside of Gen 6 and Kalos themed media specifically I still believe it to be the most passed over out of what I consider to be the least neglected of the three Starter types. Seriously, name a time between 2016 and 2025 when you saw this family in anything outside of a spinoff game. Pretty much every Fire-Type family has something now. Even the Chimchar family, who I also considered for this spot, has a formerly signature Ability as its Hidden Ability albeit not as broken as Blaziken’s attempt at such. Sobble rounds out the trio as our newest member here, so it hasn’t had the time to develop as much of a reputation as Turtwig and Fennekin, but I still selected this over Oshawott on account of Hisuian Samurott being arguably the best of the Hisuian roster, though if you’d like to count Unovan Samurott separately than that would probably be my pick over Inteleon due to the Gigantamax form. Even so, it’s clear Sobble’s family drew the short end of the stick compared to the excellent Abilities of Grassy Surge and Libero.
That’s all I have to explain. But what do you guys think? Have any other options I might have missed? If I get around to it, I’m also going to post a Tier List ranking every Grass, Fire, and Water starter Pokémon from Gens 1 through 9, seeing as an announcement for Gen 10 is rumored to be coming any day now, based on how much preferential treatment they have received. I hope this thread is able to raise awareness and appreciation for people’s overlooked favorites.
Edit: I decided last minute that I also wanted to give a shoutout to Hisuian Decidueye specifically, because even if Rowlet’s family and regular Alolan Decidueye definitely aren’t in contention for a top- or I guess it would be bottom placement in this instance- it’s still surprising to me how Hisuian Decidueye was treated compared to the other Hisuian starters. It’s actually slower (base 60) than Alolan Decidueye who already clocks in at a sluggish base 70, shares a typing with another Hisuian regional variant in the much faster and arguably more dangerous Lilligant, who also comes packing a physical Quiver Dance clone for a signature boosting move, and doesn’t have much in the way of standing out over the first of two consecutive Fire/Ghosts and Hisuian Samurott’s Ceaseless Edge. Speaking of, it generally can’t even win against Hisuian Samurott head-to-head in a competitive setting since it can either outspeed and pivot out with Flip Turn or smack it with a Sharpness boosted Aerial Ace for what’s effectively 6x super effective damage, not unlike an Ice Beam Empoleon against a Torterra.
Before I reveal my own picks for this topic, I wanted to briefly go over the history of starter Pokémon in terms of development philosophy. The first two generations of starter Pokémon were purposely made relatively balanced for the times, and there’s a noticeable “I specialize in two specific stats” trend to be found amongst the Kanto and Johto rosters. In Gen 1, this was only one stat, however, which indirectly benefited the Bulbasaur family the most as their selected “base 100 stat” was in Special, as opposed to Charizard’s Speed and Blastoise’s Defense. The third generation would be the first one to really innovate on what a starter Pokémon evolution family could be, both in terms of their more specialized base stats and five of the six fully evolved options from Hoenn and Sinnoh having dual typings as opposed to only Venusaur and Charizard prior. Gen 3 would also be where the starter Pokémon Abilities were naturally introduced, and overall, it seemed like from Gens 1 through 4, the developers were becoming increasingly aware of how to design and balance starter Pokémon for both single player and multiplayer environments.
So of course Gen 5 had to come along and ruin everything. Gen 5 is the generation I consider as the official cutoff line for starter Pokémon being designed in such a way that I like to call… not good. At first things seem fairly inoffensive- if anything, the Unova stayers without their Hidden Abilities are one of the weakest trios we’ve seen so far. But therein lies the problem- starter Pokémon were no longer being designed for the sake of making a quality product. Gen 5 started things off with Hidden Abilities and the unprecedented decision to give the Torchic family and Ability like Speed Boost, then Gen 6 followed this up with Mega Evolutions, then Gen 7 with Z-Moves, and finally in Gens 8 and 9 with Gigantamax forms and more regional variants (PLA) and Mega Evolutions (ZA). Furthermore, every single fully evolved starter Pokémon since Gen 6 has had access to some kind of a signature move, with the moves in Gens 7 and 8 being on the stronger end before the Paldea region said “it’s Torching time” and proceeded to Torch Song all over the place, to say nothing of Grass-Type Wicked Blow and Quaquaval’s combination of Moxie and Aqua Step.
In my opinion, starter Pokémon design philosophy peaked from Gens 2 to 4, a specific time frame after Gen 1’s jank and singular Special stat but still before Hidden Abilities and generational gimmicks made the idea of Broken Starters a reality to the public. When I started looking at which starter Pokémon the developers have passed over the most up to this point in time, these are the three I would choose, one for each Type for the sake of keeping things interesting:
Turtwig is by far the most neglected starter Pokémon in my eyes and this really stings for me, since the whole family has some of my favorite designs out of the Grass-Type selections and turtles and tortoises being my favorite animals. Not to mention, fully evolving at only Level 32 and learning Earthquake in a generation before infinite TMs is simply awesome. Unfortunately, this family has received next to nothing over time and it’s taken until Gen 9 for Torterra to not be considered the consensus worst of its trio in competitive play, and even then it’s only tied with a buffed Empoleon in Gen 9 RU at the time of writing this. While Grass/Ground is an impressively underrated STAB combination, the typing does surprisingly little for Torterra defensively and after the aforementioned Empoleon buffs, Shell Armor is almost certainly the worst Hidden Ability selection among these three. As a matter of fact, the Turtwig family is so slow that it sometimes still can’t outspeed key targets even after a Rock Polish or Shell Smash, the latter being a move it received too little too late in my opinion.
Fennekin and Sobble haven’t been as neglected as Turtwig has, and Fennekin did get a notable boost to its profile with Mega Delphox’s introduction, but outside of Gen 6 and Kalos themed media specifically I still believe it to be the most passed over out of what I consider to be the least neglected of the three Starter types. Seriously, name a time between 2016 and 2025 when you saw this family in anything outside of a spinoff game. Pretty much every Fire-Type family has something now. Even the Chimchar family, who I also considered for this spot, has a formerly signature Ability as its Hidden Ability albeit not as broken as Blaziken’s attempt at such. Sobble rounds out the trio as our newest member here, so it hasn’t had the time to develop as much of a reputation as Turtwig and Fennekin, but I still selected this over Oshawott on account of Hisuian Samurott being arguably the best of the Hisuian roster, though if you’d like to count Unovan Samurott separately than that would probably be my pick over Inteleon due to the Gigantamax form. Even so, it’s clear Sobble’s family drew the short end of the stick compared to the excellent Abilities of Grassy Surge and Libero.
That’s all I have to explain. But what do you guys think? Have any other options I might have missed? If I get around to it, I’m also going to post a Tier List ranking every Grass, Fire, and Water starter Pokémon from Gens 1 through 9, seeing as an announcement for Gen 10 is rumored to be coming any day now, based on how much preferential treatment they have received. I hope this thread is able to raise awareness and appreciation for people’s overlooked favorites.
Edit: I decided last minute that I also wanted to give a shoutout to Hisuian Decidueye specifically, because even if Rowlet’s family and regular Alolan Decidueye definitely aren’t in contention for a top- or I guess it would be bottom placement in this instance- it’s still surprising to me how Hisuian Decidueye was treated compared to the other Hisuian starters. It’s actually slower (base 60) than Alolan Decidueye who already clocks in at a sluggish base 70, shares a typing with another Hisuian regional variant in the much faster and arguably more dangerous Lilligant, who also comes packing a physical Quiver Dance clone for a signature boosting move, and doesn’t have much in the way of standing out over the first of two consecutive Fire/Ghosts and Hisuian Samurott’s Ceaseless Edge. Speaking of, it generally can’t even win against Hisuian Samurott head-to-head in a competitive setting since it can either outspeed and pivot out with Flip Turn or smack it with a Sharpness boosted Aerial Ace for what’s effectively 6x super effective damage, not unlike an Ice Beam Empoleon against a Torterra.
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