Combusken is a straight-up set of cock & ballsI forgot Combusken. For good reason. Scratch off Grovyle, Combusken is the absolute worst middle stage.
I like this back sprite though.
Sassy.
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Unpopular opinions
- Thread starter antemortem
- Start date
Not sure if unpopular or not buut..
Totodile is by far and away the best starter design wise
I started on gen 1 then skipped a generation and owned every single game since ruby. Never actually had a chance to choose totodile until soul silver but I believe his design is the ultimate balance between cute/tough/ endearing/ simple. This is especially true in his representation in the anime and his voice acting alone is memorable and unique.
Just as a further note if anyone cares, as whole design wise (starter evos) I see Gen IV trio as the best, followed by Gen I, Gen II, Gen III and then V and VI were awful
Totodile is by far and away the best starter design wise
I started on gen 1 then skipped a generation and owned every single game since ruby. Never actually had a chance to choose totodile until soul silver but I believe his design is the ultimate balance between cute/tough/ endearing/ simple. This is especially true in his representation in the anime and his voice acting alone is memorable and unique.
Just as a further note if anyone cares, as whole design wise (starter evos) I see Gen IV trio as the best, followed by Gen I, Gen II, Gen III and then V and VI were awful
I find Totodile quite meh. I prefer the design of Chikorita, because it's adorable, but nothing stands out about Totodile. I don't really pay much attention to the Pokemon Anime so I can't comment on that.
I also think Gen IV starters are not the best. Turtwig is nice, Piplup is cute and Chimchar looks weird imo. Gen I has good starter design in Venusaur and Blastoise. Charizard is meh. Gen III got all the base forms right, but Combuskion is just ugh. Gen VI was quite good. The Chespin line was bad, I agree, but Froakie and Fennekin line are alright. Gen V starters are great design wise. It's a shame Serperior is bad in game tho...
I'm also on team chikorita.
Shame the only thing you do with her is spam razor leaf, body slam and poison powder. Well at least poison powder and the screens got their uses like making Whitney her bitch.
But Chikorita is the manly mode of this game, at least unit l the fork in the road screws leveling.
Shame the only thing you do with her is spam razor leaf, body slam and poison powder. Well at least poison powder and the screens got their uses like making Whitney her bitch.
But Chikorita is the manly mode of this game, at least unit l the fork in the road screws leveling.
My opinions on the starters:
Kanto:
This is probably the best set of starters. The base forms are cute and are good representations of their types. Their middle evolutions are solid. And their final forms are awesome. Blastoise may be my favorite, but all three are great.
Side note on Megas: I like Mega Venusaur, Mega Blastoise has some problems, Charizard Y is perfect, and Charizard X is...unoriginal and just trying to look cool. It is just a Shiny Charizard with new wings and constantly barfing blue flames.
Johto:
The Chikorita line is wonderful across all three stages. Cyndaquil is cute and I don't like Typlosion as much as I love Quilava, but it is still good. Totodile is adorable and Feraligatr is cool as hell, but I'm not a fan of Croconaw.
Soild batch of starters.
Hoenn:
I find the Treeko line to be boring before Mega Sceptile (which I do like). Torchic is cute, but I don't like either Combusken or Blaziken. I will admit that all my problems with Blaziken are gone when it Mega Evolves (every change improves the design). I absolutely love the Mudkip line. Mudkip is cute, Marshtomp is cute, and Swampert is awesome. And I enjoy it's Mega form.
Sinnoh:
A very solid set of starters. I love all three base forms and all three fully evolved Pokémon (especially the Chinese influence on the Sun Wukong inspired Infernape). I like Monferno a lot, but I'm not a big fan of Grotle nor Prinplup.
Unova:
Only the Snivy family is attractive throughout the line. Tepig is cute, but I don't care for Pignite and Emboar. I don't really care for Oshawott or Samurott, though I do kinda like Dewott. I do like how they represent different countries (France, China, and Japan).
But in the end, these are the worst set of starters, which is sad since I really do like Generation V.
Kalos:
To me, this is another great set of starters. Again, the base forms are cute. I absolutely love Braxien and Frogadier with a good bit of loving affection for goofy ol'Quilladin. Delphox and Greninja are similar to Typlosion to me (I love their second stage, but the final evo is still good, just not as good) and I think Chesnaught is boss. Actually Chesnaught is likely my favorite fully evolved Kalos starter!
Alola (PREVIEW, 18 May 2016):
As of this writing, we only know the base forms of the Alola starters. I'll start with my least favorite, Popplio. It just looks goofy in a way I don't enjoy (and I love goofy Pokémon, so that should tell you something). Also, the blue they went with is darker than previous Water starters with less to break it up. I may normally prefer a darker blue, it doesn't work here. With Litten, I actually like it quite a bit. It's cute, with that feline trademark "meh" expression and I like the idea of a fire breathing cat.
Finally, there's the one, the only, Rowlet. To me, Rowlet is the best starter design ever. I mean, from design and concept alone, it replaced Gengar as my favorite Pokémon. And I love Gengar. That should say a lot. I love owls and Rowlet is just adorable from its cute face to its adorable leaf bow-tie, there isn't anything I don't love about Rowlet.
Bulbasaur agrees!
Kanto:
This is probably the best set of starters. The base forms are cute and are good representations of their types. Their middle evolutions are solid. And their final forms are awesome. Blastoise may be my favorite, but all three are great.
Side note on Megas: I like Mega Venusaur, Mega Blastoise has some problems, Charizard Y is perfect, and Charizard X is...unoriginal and just trying to look cool. It is just a Shiny Charizard with new wings and constantly barfing blue flames.
Johto:
The Chikorita line is wonderful across all three stages. Cyndaquil is cute and I don't like Typlosion as much as I love Quilava, but it is still good. Totodile is adorable and Feraligatr is cool as hell, but I'm not a fan of Croconaw.
Soild batch of starters.
Hoenn:
I find the Treeko line to be boring before Mega Sceptile (which I do like). Torchic is cute, but I don't like either Combusken or Blaziken. I will admit that all my problems with Blaziken are gone when it Mega Evolves (every change improves the design). I absolutely love the Mudkip line. Mudkip is cute, Marshtomp is cute, and Swampert is awesome. And I enjoy it's Mega form.
Sinnoh:
A very solid set of starters. I love all three base forms and all three fully evolved Pokémon (especially the Chinese influence on the Sun Wukong inspired Infernape). I like Monferno a lot, but I'm not a big fan of Grotle nor Prinplup.
Unova:
Only the Snivy family is attractive throughout the line. Tepig is cute, but I don't care for Pignite and Emboar. I don't really care for Oshawott or Samurott, though I do kinda like Dewott. I do like how they represent different countries (France, China, and Japan).
But in the end, these are the worst set of starters, which is sad since I really do like Generation V.
Kalos:
To me, this is another great set of starters. Again, the base forms are cute. I absolutely love Braxien and Frogadier with a good bit of loving affection for goofy ol'Quilladin. Delphox and Greninja are similar to Typlosion to me (I love their second stage, but the final evo is still good, just not as good) and I think Chesnaught is boss. Actually Chesnaught is likely my favorite fully evolved Kalos starter!
Alola (PREVIEW, 18 May 2016):
As of this writing, we only know the base forms of the Alola starters. I'll start with my least favorite, Popplio. It just looks goofy in a way I don't enjoy (and I love goofy Pokémon, so that should tell you something). Also, the blue they went with is darker than previous Water starters with less to break it up. I may normally prefer a darker blue, it doesn't work here. With Litten, I actually like it quite a bit. It's cute, with that feline trademark "meh" expression and I like the idea of a fire breathing cat.
Finally, there's the one, the only, Rowlet. To me, Rowlet is the best starter design ever. I mean, from design and concept alone, it replaced Gengar as my favorite Pokémon. And I love Gengar. That should say a lot. I love owls and Rowlet is just adorable from its cute face to its adorable leaf bow-tie, there isn't anything I don't love about Rowlet.
Bulbasaur agrees!
This is a little far, but I can second this, for the most part. I like a good simple design (Gengar has been brought up) but... really, here. This line is just so plain that I have trouble seeing anything interesting about them at all. There's nothing that really... pops. I see no personality, especially with Meganium.
My siblings and I came to an agreement. I would always choose the water starter, my older brother the grass, and my little brother the fire. And we stick to this.
Except gen 2.
My older brother absolutely refuses to use the chikorita line. I think this is kinda unfair, since I'm forced to use popplio...
I don't really like Chikorita, but Meganium and Bayleef are pretty cool.
Chikorita and its line have a brilliant design in my opinion, but they are poorly tuned to gameplay. They have a shallow and monotonous movepool (should that be "duotonous", as it only learns Grass and Normal moves?), stats that don't compensate for their lack of moves, and no noteworthy niche to fill to make up for its poor moves and stats. Starters should perform reliably on the offensive, while not being too bad defensively, but Meganium is a decently defensive 'mon which is severly lacking on the offensive side. The end result is a starter which does one job sort of good, while not being able to take the duties of a good starter - which, as I see it, is "something to fall back on". Your starter should be a solid choice for most battles, although not overshadowing the rest of the team completely. Chikorita and co. are too weak to go offensive, and while they can take hits reasonably well, they're not that good at it, and in most cases a defensive strategy is neither fun nor efficient. Also, its typing does it no favours, it's weak against many Gyms and the evil team in Johto. Meganium screams for "something more", but unfortunately it hasn't been given the tools to distinguish itself in any category. At the very least, it should have gotten the Drain moves, which would have given it some defensive purpose.
At least it isn't as bad as Serperior, though. The tuning of that one is completely misaligned. "Let's take Meganium and give it almost 50 % more Speed - we'll lower all the other stats to compensate". As if Speed was the crucial stat for a Grass starter. And then they, for some reason, decided that an ankle-deep movepool filled exclusively with Grass and Normal moves was good enough, despite Meganium having proven a decade earlier that it absolutely wasn't.
At least it isn't as bad as Serperior, though. The tuning of that one is completely misaligned. "Let's take Meganium and give it almost 50 % more Speed - we'll lower all the other stats to compensate". As if Speed was the crucial stat for a Grass starter. And then they, for some reason, decided that an ankle-deep movepool filled exclusively with Grass and Normal moves was good enough, despite Meganium having proven a decade earlier that it absolutely wasn't.
This sums up a lot, though at least Serperior has Dragon Pulse and Contrary in the end, something that Meganium wishes it had.
But yeah, while I love Meganium, it's not very good playthrough wise (and I used all three Johto starters at once when I first played Johto so I could actually compare them).
I think my issue with gen VI (as a gen wunner) is that all three starters are humanoid- humanoid pokemon aren't bad per se (although on reflection outside of machamp I'm not really a fan of humanoid pokemon in general) but for me I prefer the "monster"/ animal side of pokemon. For this reason Greninja I feel is the best of the three but Chesnaught... and oh god Delphox's wand..I just don't like the way you're forced into a humanoid starterMy opinions on the starters:
Kanto:
This is probably the best set of starters. The base forms are cute and are good representations of their types. Their middle evolutions are solid. And their final forms are awesome. Blastoise may be my favorite, but all three are great.
Side note on Megas: I like Mega Venusaur, Mega Blastoise has some problems, Charizard Y is perfect, and Charizard X is...unoriginal and just trying to look cool. It is just a Shiny Charizard with new wings and constantly barfing blue flames.
Johto:
The Chikorita line is wonderful across all three stages. Cyndaquil is cute and I don't like Typlosion as much as I love Quilava, but it is still good. Totodile is adorable and Feraligatr is cool as hell, but I'm not a fan of Croconaw.
Soild batch of starters.
Hoenn:
I find the Treeko line to be boring before Mega Sceptile (which I do like). Torchic is cute, but I don't like either Combusken or Blaziken. I will admit that all my problems with Blaziken are gone when it Mega Evolves (every change improves the design). I absolutely love the Mudkip line. Mudkip is cute, Marshtomp is cute, and Swampert is awesome. And I enjoy it's Mega form.
Sinnoh:
A very solid set of starters. I love all three base forms and all three fully evolved Pokémon (especially the Chinese influence on the Sun Wukong inspired Infernape). I like Monferno a lot, but I'm not a big fan of Grotle nor Prinplup.
Unova:
Only the Snivy family is attractive throughout the line. Tepig is cute, but I don't care for Pignite and Emboar. I don't really care for Oshawott or Samurott, though I do kinda like Dewott. I do like how they represent different countries (France, China, and Japan).
But in the end, these are the worst set of starters, which is sad since I really do like Generation V.
Kalos:
To me, this is another great set of starters. Again, the base forms are cute. I absolutely love Braxien and Frogadier with a good bit of loving affection for goofy ol'Quilladin. Delphox and Greninja are similar to Typlosion to me (I love their second stage, but the final evo is still good, just not as good) and I think Chesnaught is boss. Actually Chesnaught is likely my favorite fully evolved Kalos starter!
Alola (PREVIEW, 18 May 2016):
As of this writing, we only know the base forms of the Alola starters. I'll start with my least favorite, Popplio. It just looks goofy in a way I don't enjoy (and I love goofy Pokémon, so that should tell you something). Also, the blue they went with is darker than previous Water starters with less to break it up. I may normally prefer a darker blue, it doesn't work here. With Litten, I actually like it quite a bit. It's cute, with that feline trademark "meh" expression and I like the idea of a fire breathing cat.
Finally, there's the one, the only, Rowlet. To me, Rowlet is the best starter design ever. I mean, from design and concept alone, it replaced Gengar as my favorite Pokémon. And I love Gengar. That should say a lot. I love owls and Rowlet is just adorable from its cute face to its adorable leaf bow-tie, there isn't anything I don't love about Rowlet.
Bulbasaur agrees!
On reflection I was way too harsh on gen V tepig/ Emboar gets a pass, Samurott was an interesting turn in the line and Serperior is actually a pretty awesome pokemon (although I think I was slightly bias against it as I abandoned servine half way through white as it was so bad in game)
Edit: on the Chikorita line (design wise not in game performance) I think Chikorita and bayleef work really well- the problem with the line is Meganium, it's too "sausagey" for a final evo. The cute dinosaur concept works well for its pre-evos but for the final evolution it just needs a tiny more detail in its body- maybe harder lines or slightly different neck to body orientation? It just looks like it's been moulded out of play doh.
Although the chikorita line is really not all that good ingame, I still kind of like their design. If there is one major problem with them, I would say it would have to be meganium's design. Chikorita works well as the cute first stage Pokemon. Bayleef is actually one of my favorite middle stage starters- it's pretty darn cool, but at the same time remains kinda cute, which is what I want in a second stage. Meganium's problem is that it just dosent fit the bill for the final evolution of a starter Pokemon. I would say that, without exception, the final form of the starter Pokemon should look intense. Not necessarily intimidating or scary, but just intense. Meganium is not intense. Meganium is a happy herbivorous dinosaur that enjoys frolicking through flowers with it's cute luau. Gamefreak had something going with bayleef, they just went in the wrong direction with meganium and didn't capitalize on it. I still like meganium, I just don't see it fitting in with the other starters.
If we don't get Chikorita some how (without trading) in Alola I'll be disappointed.
I wouldn't be surprised if we don't:
A history of starters after their regions...
The first time that a new game had old starters was in Generation III. With the inability to trade with Generation I and Generation II, a way to get older Pokémon was needed. So, we got the Gamecube games and FireRed and LeafGreen, along with some overlap with Emerald.
Diamond and Pearl came out and the problems of Generation III wasn't anywhere to be seen thanks to the GBA slot of the DS and DS Lite. It wasn't until HeartGold and SoulSilver that a problem occurred: the DSi didn't have a GBA slot. To help ensure future Pokédex completion, HGSS had the remaining non-event Pokémon that wasn't in DPPt between both games, including the Kanto and Hoenn starters.
Generation V had none of these problems since if a system could play Generation V, it could also play IV. Thus, the only starters you could obtain were Unova's. In fact, it is also the only generation since Generation II to not have all non-event Pokémon between all of their main series games (and the only games not to be able to capture Pikachu).
Generation VI, due to not having a native way to transfer Pokémon forward, also potentially has the same problem as Generation IV, so being able to complete the National Dex without Poké Bank became important, which is why you can catch everything between XYORAS, including being able to obtain all six sets of starters.
Generation VII might not have a similar problem...wait, it does use Bank...hmm...
Still, I think that the idea that we are getting Mega Johto starters is just predicting a pattern after only looking one one point of data. The Mega Kanto starters were just a way to easy showoff the concept of Mega Evolution as they are well known to fans and we know how they play. They're the perfect showcase for what Mega Evolution can do. With Johto and Generation VII, we know what Megas are like and the Johto starters aren't as popular as some of the other sets of starters.
On the idea of Humanoid Pokemon, I don't outright hate them, but they can defiantly be hit or miss. I like Pokemon such as Alakazam, Hitmonlee, Shiftry (technically), and a few others because I feel like those designs make them work. On the other hand, I don't like Gardevoir (half the internet's fault), Mr Mime (somewhat), Toxicroak and others because they just look weird. Why are these Pokemon humanoid? Why do they look so ugly/weird?
Would it be an unpopular opinion to say that XY had far and away the best breeding route, training methods and money-getting methods?
Because it's reaaaaaaaally disappointing coming off of that to ORAS' methods. Their breeding routes are irritating with obstacles, I think everyone knows how frustrating it is to get any money in ORAS, and blissey bases are so inconvenient and irritating to use.
Because it's reaaaaaaaally disappointing coming off of that to ORAS' methods. Their breeding routes are irritating with obstacles, I think everyone knows how frustrating it is to get any money in ORAS, and blissey bases are so inconvenient and irritating to use.
I disagree on training and breeding. While the sand is annoying, breeding is so easy. I don't even have to think about going back and forward and I don't need to fly from Route 7 to Lumoise to Kiloude and back. It's wonderful. And with the Blissey Bases, I can train three Pokémon to level 100 in a day. I mean, I got a Rotom-Wash from a glimmer in a Ditto's eye to level 100, EV trained in less than six hours thanks to ORAS.
I do agree that money is much harder. It's the only main game since Platinum that I didn't get to P999,999+ (I would have several times in SoulSilver if it was possible), which is even more of a letdown since I actually maxed out my wallet in Y several times and I don't have anything to buy anymore (I have about 999x of every purchasable ball, medicine, etc.)
Well yeah, but you can only challenge Blissey Bases once per day and actually getting them and getting there is a hassle. It's just very inconvenient. The restaurant is easy access and I can challenge it as many times as I like.
To be fair, Gamefreak probably wasn't expecting us to cheese the system like this with the Blissey bases
That's true, but it's the argument for ORAS as a hub being good, so I just felt the need to explain why I don't particularly enjoy it.
DPP's soundtrack did have a few exceptional pieces in it...but the rest of the soundtrack was very meh. Pool of Pokemon is "meh" for me, a few good ones but that's about it. Dialga is a cool legend (and PMD2 makes it so much better) and Giratina is decent. Palkia is weird, Arceus I don't understand why we have as a Pokemon that can be mastered by some random trainer kid, Shaymin is fine, Darkrai is fine, Cresselia is meh (nothing stands out about it), Uxie, Mespirit and Azelf are fine. Not the greatest legendary trio imo, but they're not bad. Regigigas is a complete joke. I think that's all of them but I might of missed a few...on that note, we does DPP have so many legends? They're meant to be one of a kind Pokemon, rare and exclusive yet we have like 20 in DPP, why?
A Secret base with a 3 Blissey trainer inside that only know Healing Wish. It's meant to help people train up low level pokemon that are already EV'd far faster than by simple grinding.