Why give us a third option?

So, as most of you, I’ve traveled thru Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, Unova and Kalos.I’ve been there and done that.Became the ultimate champion as everyone else.I experienced all of it and loved it till the last stretch.Although, I have noticed something.Before I go onward,I need you to see this in ananalyticalpoint of view,so don’t jump on me with your preferences.

For the Kanto region we had the 90’s kids favorites:Charmander, Squirtle and Bulbasaur.Depending on the cartridge you picked, the best choice could variate between the fire breathing lizard and the blue tinted turtle.This is due to the fact that in Red the logical choice for the smoother playthrough would be Squirtle, since you could pick up theawesomenessthat is Arcanine later on.On Blu I’d personally pick Charmander, due to a lack of decent fire pokémons. (…I’m looking at youNinetails…)

Moving on to Johto we could pick Chikorita, Totodile or Cyndaquil.Now, as before, I’ve found myself playing thru the game multiple times always choosing between the fire and the water starters, but ultimately I would mostly gravitate towards Totodile, due to his final form ability to carry me thru the game with a solid set of ice, water and HM moves.

Hoenn was a tricky one.As a person that likes art and has always studied it, I’ve always loved the design of these starters the best. Although I have to admit that between the three Torchic was by far the most useful: early on with the double kick it would learn at lv 16 and at the end against the champion Rocco (I think he is called Steven for you guys?).BUT!In Emerald the champion greatly caught me by surprise, to the point which I decided to restart the whole game and pick the grass starter Treecko, which I’ve since then respected and appreciated.

I’ve never played Gen 4, but to be honest the penguin starter is pretty cool (pundeeplyintended) and his final evolution is just a beast of a design.

Unova was where I, strong of my experience with Sceptile, decided to pick the sassy grass starter from the get go.I quickly got stuck and restarted with the emergency-bacon fire pokémon Tepig and, frankly, I don’t regret it because he too, as most of his predecessors, carried me thru the game with ease.

In Kalos we all picked Froakie because Greninja is bae,let’s be honest.

Thus, finally,here is my question!With the exception of Emerald, I’ve never needed the grass starter in all my years of playing this franchise.

So, what I’d like to ask is:WHY?• Why even give us this choice if, inevitably, we have two other better options right next to it that can and will carry us thru the adventure more smoothly?• How many times have you picked the grass starter, and in what game, and didn’t decide to restart with a different choice?

Let me know DataBase, because I can’t be the only one who thinks that streaming down the choice to two Pokémons won’t cause that much of a difference.

Pleaselog inorregisterto add a comment.

Despite what you may think, your preferences are your preferences and the Fire/Water type starters are notobjectivelybetter in all respects.

For starters (excuse the pun) Bulbasaur was a common Pokemon to choose in the original Red/Blue because it made the game easier for beginners (the first two gyms are Rock and Water). The manual even stated this.

Secondly, some of the grass startersaregood, like Serperior with Contrary. Others have their own niches. But Grass as a type is on average weaker than the others due to more type weaknesses and fewer good moves.

But the main reason there are three starter types is to explain the type system to newcomers. Grass/Fire/Water is the perfect example to show how there is no one type that’s better than everything.

I originally posted this as a comment, but the more I thought about it, the more confident I became that this guess was right.

So basically the game designers thought giving the starters a rock-paper-scissors relationship was a cool idea and then didn’t put much more thought into it. I think it’s pretty obvious that, in the first Pokemon games, the three starter types weren’t intended to be balanced. (or they were intended to be balanced, and the game designers were just dumb) Fire started with 3 weaknesses and was resisted by 4 types, water started with 2 weaknesses and was resisted by 3 types, and grass started with 5 weaknesses and was resisted by 6 types, which means the game designers cared about making the game realistic and logical more than they cared about balancing the game. Also, fire has always had flamethrower and fire blast. Water has always had surf and hydro pump. They could have also given grass some good moves from the beginning, but it took them 3 more generations to introduce energy ball. The only reason Bulbasaur was slightly better than Charmander (and still worse than Squirtle) was because it was saved by sleep powder. When a grass starter doesn’t get sleep powder, it becomes GSC Chikorita. I do see that the game designers have tried to balance the 3 types recently (by introducing Kartana), but grass is still resisted by 7 types.

Pokemon’s target audience probably doesn’t put much thought into their games, so why should Pokemon’s game designers put in any more thought?