Every time choco shows up on my dash I'm so happy, sending u lots of goodness 💜

You know, talking even briefly about how I don’t care much for the Gen 5 starters has resulted in me wanting to share my opinions about starter Pokemon as a whole.  Like, what I think of each of their evolutionary lines.  So let’s do that.  Not really a ranking or anything, just my opinions on each.

BULBASAUR LINE Bulbasaur’s evolution line is great, fight me.  They’re little dinosaur creatures with a giant flower that blooms on its back as it evolves, how is that not cool?  Grass/Poison was super redundant in Gen 1, putting it into conflict with every other grass type bar Tangela, but nowadays it’s...slightly less common of a typing?  Okay, it’s pretty standard.  But I really like the concept behind them.  Also, I can’t remember where I saw this, but someone insulted Venusaur’s design and I want you to know I’m judging.

CHARMANDER LINE Okay, Charmander?  Super cute, love the little lizard creature.  Charmeleon?  Okay, bigger and angrier, kind of a thing with Pokemon as they evolve.  Charizard?  The most stock-standard “dragon” you can imagine.  It’s literally just a Dragon.  Had they not been cowards about the typing back then, it probably would be Fire/Dragon.  But no, Fire/Flying.  I really don’t like Charizard.  It’s so standard and yet it’s held up as one of the best Pokemon designs, and for what?  For being a standard, boring-ass dragon.  Listen kids, dragons are boring, and we need to get over them.

SQUIRTLE LINE Squirtle itself is just adorable.  I love this thing so much, it’s honestly becoming my favorite of the gen 1 starters, even over Bulbasaur who I adore.  I’ve heard others mention that Wartortle is kinda underwhelming, but really, it’s not worse than Charmeleon or Ivysaur, and they’re just fine, so I think those people are just mean.  As for Blastoise itself, it’s a cool concept, though you do have to wonder how it got metallic cannons coming out of its shell.  Really doesn’t make much biological sense at all, which proves once again that anything that genwunners complain about Gen 5 being stupid for, Gen 1 did it too.  Overall great, probably turning into my favorite of the evolution lines.

CHIKORITA LINE Okay, I really like this evolution line, but for contrarian reasons.  Chikorita is not the cutest of the starters in Gen 2.  Cyndaquil is.  Its concept of having a giant flower around its neck isn’t bad, but Venusaur’s just a little more interesting in concept.  But ultimately, I still really like this line.  Because it’s the worst starter line from a competitive standpoint.  It’s so bad it’s hard to use even in the main game.  This poor thing deserves love, and if you hate on them, you are a bad person.

CYNDAQUIL LINE Okay, real talk: Cyndaquil was my go-to as a kid.  It’s so cute!  It’s such a cool concept, too.  The evolution line is a little stale, though?  I know the other starters aren’t exactly much better, but it really feels like it’s just slowly elongating with no substantial differences between the forms.  Also, mono-Fire feels like a huge waste on such a cool concept.  Like, imagine if this thing got a secondary Electric or Ground type or something.  Yes, horrific 4x weaknesses, I understand that, but counterpoint: it’d be cool.  And that’s really what matters.  Not like Typhlosion’s exact copy of Charizard’s stats did it any favors to begin with.  Still, this line is probably my favorite of the generation for one, singular reason.  It’s not a reptile.  Every other starter up to this point was some kind of reptile!  Gen 1 had this whole dinosaur motif going on, and Chikorita’s basically a dinosaur thing while Totodile is an alligator...crocodile...thing.  Thank you, Cyndaquil, for being the most unique animal type of the starters.  Even if your evolution path is kinda boring.

TOTODILE LINE Totodile’s line is...interesting.  It starts out as a cute little critter, and as many evolutions do, becomes a huge hulking monstrosity in its final form.  Feraligatr is pretty cool, and I do think it’s interesting how it’s the lowest level for final evolution of all starters.  That was a neat trade-off.  But man, Croconaw’s design just looks...odd.  It’s probably supposed to be like an egg pattern, but it really looks like a weird caveman cloth print, and it doesn’t look great.  It’s like an awkward teen years before getting to be a fairly cool adult.

TREECKO LINE Treecko was always my least favorite of the Gen 3 starter lines, and I never really knew quite why I was so lukewarm about it.  Spoilers, I adore the other two, but Treecko never really stood out.  I think my comments on Cyndaquil gave me a realization as to why: it’s another reptile creature.  It’s a cool-looking evolution line, but it’s still a reptile.  And I’m about reptiled out.  Still, we have to admit that Grovyle is super cool, both because of its sleek design, and its role in Explorers of Sky.

TORCHIC LINE Prior to Gen 6 producing the greatest starter of all time, Torchic was my stated favorite.  Listen, Fire/Fighting was a cool typing back when it happened the first time.  It wasn’t until it kept happening that everyone got sick of it forever.  A kickboxing chicken is also just about the funniest way to go with the typing, too.  You can’t deny how imaginative this line is.  Plus, the first form is super adorable.  Tiny little chicken, doing its best.  I love it so...  And its final form looks nice, too.  Really, the designs of Gen 3 were all spectacular.

MUDKIP LINE Mudkip was the one that gave Torchic a run for its money.  Mudkip itself is super adorable and precious, and while it and all its evolutions can look a little dopey, they have a lot of charm in their design.  Plus, Water/Ground is an awesome typing.  Quagsire did it first, yes, but that didn’t make it any less cool.

TURTWIG LINE Believe it or not, I don’t have very strong opinions about most of the Gen 4 starters.  Like Gen 5, I feel like none of them stuck with me that strongly, and any playthrough of the game, I’m perfectly fine dumping the starter.  That said, if I had to pick a favorite of them, it’s Turtwig.  I guess I just like turtles.  It’s mostly the concept behind its final form that I love.  It carries a giant tree on its back, and packs a fairly unique Grass/Ground typing.

CHIMCHAR LINE And now the exact opposite.  From day 1, I never liked Chimchar.  First off, I do not like monkeys.  I just don’t.  Secondly, Infernape stole the exact same typing as Blaziken, which is not only shitty, but also really boring.  Every other starter so far has been fairly unique in typing choices, and this asshole is gonna just do the exact same thing as last gen?  Oh, I’m sorry, it gets to be way faster but a bit less strong but still really strong.  Fuck Infernape.

PIPLUP LINE Piplup is cute, though.  And having its final form be some emperor penguin that’s apparently made of steel is awesome.  Torterra is the favorite from this gen, but man, Empoleon had such a cool typing it was hard to not consider it the most interesting.

SNIVY LINE Snivy’s alright.  It had a solid design, and I can understand why Smugleaf caught on as the fan favorite.  That said, that’s kinda all it’s got.  Serperior is plain boring, and it’s the only Grass starter not to get Earthquake for coverage at any point.  The only thing to its name is Contrary, and somehow it’s on its way to being the highest competitively ranked Grass starter, even above Mega Venusaur.  Which just goes to show that competitive Pokemon is broken beyond all repair and we should probably torch it all and start over.

TEPIG LINE I can’t believe they gave us three Fire/Fighting types in a row.  I’m gonna say it: if Emboar had gotten literally any other typing, it’d be my favorite of this gen.  Not even a contest, really.  Emboar looks cool, and Tepig is adorable.  Sure, Pignite is...a little awkward of a design, but that’s fine, it stood up.  It’s not lying to me unlike some middle stage fire starters I could mention.  But the fact that it’s part Fighting means it’s a huge disappointment.

OSHAWOTT LINE Oh wait, except Oshawott is also a huge disappointment.  An adorable little otter to a cool samurai otter, to whatever the hell is going on with Samurott.  “Steve, it can stand on its back legs and has the sword thing so-” no.  No it does not.  You know why?  Because it’s not drawn like that.  If you wanted to keep the samurai thing going, it’d be drawn and displayed as bipedal.  Instead, you gave us water horse, whose special attack is higher than its physical attack.  This should’ve been the favorite of the generation, but that final form does not look good, does not make sense for the line, and is mono-Water.  Not even a dual typing to keep things interesting?  Sad.  So I guess I don’t have a favorite of Gen 5 starters.  Because none of them are consistently good.

CHESPIN LINE Gen 6 did many things wrong.  Starters were not one of them.  Chespin is adorable and wonderful.  People made fun of Quilladin, but really, it’s the same deal as Pignite: it looks a little awkward but ends on a high note.  Chesnaught looks great, and the paladin concept is great, giving it a lot of good support moves and a Grass/Fighting type that is never really good but is interesting.  I like it a lot, but it’s massively overshadowed by...

FENNEKIN LINE Behold, the greatest starter line ever made.  They gave me a fox!  A Fire/Psychic fox!  Do you know how long I had waited?  Literally since Ninetales.  Fennekin is adorable, Braixen is the sassiest thing ever I love it, and Delphox is still an excellent witch design.  If there is any flaw this line could possibly have, it’s that Braixen should have the Psychic typing and access to some of the tech Delphox does.  Oh, and that the evolution line is competitive trash and has gotten literally nothing of value while a certain bastard-ass frog gets like 12 different favors over nothing.

FROAKIE LINE This is the worst starter line of all time.  Froakie itself was fine.  The idea of going ninja-theme on the frogs?  Fine.  I don’t care about ninjas at all, but fine.  That should’ve been the end of it.  But no.  It could’ve been just as simple as “not my preference” and move on.  And it should be.  But instead, they give it Protean, one of the most broken abilities in the series, on top of its blistering speed.  Hell, in ORAS, they gave it Gunk Shot, which rounded its coverage so perfectly it got banned to fucking Ubers.  So obviously, we went too far, right?  Time to dial it back.  Haha, idiot.  In the change to Gen 7, they give its multi-hit priority move a special designation instead of physical, because god forbid this bougie-ass frog have to work for anything in its goddamned life.  Oh, and we gave it a special snowflake form based on the anime, that gets like 50 more base stat points than a goddamned mega evolution.  Because, again, god forbid this bougie frog have to work for a damned thing in its life.  I thought it was blatant favoritism that Charizard got two megas.  I thought it couldn’t get any more obvious who their favorite starter was.  I was a goddamned idiot.  They could’ve gone way harder, and they did.  Greninja deserves nothing but getting its ass nerfed into the ground where it belongs.

ROWLET LINE You know, I actually wish the Rowlet line was better than it is.  Rowlet itself is cute, and while the final form’s design isn’t really my thing, the concept of it being an extinct bird and thus being part Ghost is...morbidly hilarious.  It’s also an archer!  That’s really neat!  But...it’s not very good.  I blame the speed.  Why did they want to make everything so bulky offensive this gen?  It didn’t work.  Whatever their reason, it’s a nice enough evolution line that just doesn’t quite hit the mark for me.

LITTEN LINE Ooooh boy, okay.  Look.  Litten’s super cute.  Torracat?  I can work with that.  But Incineroar...  Oh my god it looks so weird.  I don’t know what it is.  I think it’s similar to Bewear, in that it really just looks like someone’s fursona, only instead of being a really bad and lazy fursona with no personality, it’s a surprisingly high-quality one with a backstory about being a wrestler that’s simultaneously endearing but also concerning how much effort was put into it.  I know it’s a fire-type thing to stand up in the final form, but maybe...you shouldn’t have.  Maybe you should’ve been like Samurott.  Actually, maybe the two of you should trade places!  Samurott should stand its ass up, and you should sits yours down.  Then everything would be fixed.  Forever.

POPPLIO LINE Were it not for Fennekin being an adorable fox with the best typing, this would be my favorite evolution line.  Popplio was cute.  Maybe a little odd looking, but still cute.  Brionne was one of the prettiest middle evolutions in starter history, and it ends on the most elegant thing in the world.  Primarina is gorgeous, and I adore it.  Much like Fennekin, if there’s any real detriment, it’s that the middle stage doesn’t get the secondary Fairy typing.  Then it would truly be perfect.