Which Gen had the worst starters?

[Deceit]

I really hate the Gen V starters. To me, they were all really weak in some way, and I found them hard to use. Not only that, but their designs were also pretty poor. Overall, Gen V was the worst and hardest to use for me, but I liked the Gen IV starters the best. :/

[Dillon_68]

As much as I love my Samurott, 5th gen starters were underwhelming. Best starters come from Hoenn, imo. My favorite starter, however, is Piplup.

[Cerberus87]

I'm really surprised by the statements of some people here, guess we all have our strengths and weaknesses when playing...

Charizard for example. I would never rank him among the worst starters. I just finished a FRLG playthrough and he was probably my most dependable Pokémon. High Special Attack and Flamethrower mowed through opponents easily. I'd say that, once you get past Misty (which is easy with a Pikachu/Gloom/Weepinbell), it's smooth sailing with Charizard, even more so than Venusaur, which may have a type advantage against most gyms, but suffers a lot in certain points of the game (like Pokémon Tower and Silph Co.) and doesn't have many good offensive moves. For general trainer beating, Charizard is superior to both Venusaur and Blastoise.

Charizard was also really helpful against the E4. When I needed generally strong firepower (no pun intended), he did the job well, and with Dragon Claw learned through TM, he was really good against Lance.

He used to be crap in RGBY, because of low Special, but the 2nd gen Special split did wonders to Charizard, until Stealth Rock came along to ruin his usability. Still a strong force for in-game use, though. Learns lots of interesting moves, and is generally a powerful attacker.

[MichaelSK16]

I think that it's clearly 5. None of them have any standout stats (except Serperior's speed I suppose) and their movepools aren't anything special either. They do look pretty cool though, if that counts for anything.

[Cerberus87]

Emboar has huge attack and HP and... not much else really.

The problem with 5th gen starters is their moves. They don't learn anything destructive enough. The starter is supposed to be the Pokémon you use to handle difficult situations, because all starters have strong stats, and I can't imagine myself doing that with Serperior for example. It's worse than Meganium FFS.

[vapes]

Gen IV. The deisgns are kind of meh, and I don't really like chimchar or turtwig.

[SamuJake]

Originally Posted by Mama-Mamo

GEN V. Snivy was basically useless. Oshawott's last evolution doesn't even look like it belongs... And Tepig and his evolutions barely learn any fighting moves despite them being half fighting. I didn't really like the designs for any of them and their usefulness wasn't that great either.

Samurott looks pretty sweet if you ask me. But I think Pokemon Gen 5 has the least decent starters.

[mozartm99]

For me it was a tie between 1 and 2, and I agree with someone else earlier that they were way to over hyped. The 5th gen have really grown on me. My all time gave are gen 3 though.

[Ultimate PKMN Trainer Red]

That's hard for me...I like every PKMNs, but with my least favorite starters, that would be Gen 5, Unova. I mean, I've had an Tepig in Black and White, but in the E4 he was...not so good...never used snivy but my friend says that he tested Snivy, and he said her strenght sucks. I don't really know how Snivy is, but I will believe in my friend right now. Now Oshawott was the only one I liked, but I'm not a fan of water types? So in my opinion, my least favorite are...from Sinnoh! No, I'm kidding, Unova.

[Tim09]

No contest. I've played them all and gen 5 starts are the worst.

Emboar - slow, frail *even with that 110 base hitpoints*, and naturally only learns 1 fighting move (which is terrible) even though he is half fighting. Smog is terrible and I can't imagine anyone actually learning it @lvl 20. I'm just so annoyed that they made ANOTHER fire/fighting type starter. It's a slower version of blaziken with a terrible move pool and more hitpoints. The 60 base speed is annoying even with flame charge boosts since you have to use a turn charging if you want to have a chance to outspeed most opponents and his frail 65 base defensives don't allow him to take hits well at all. I'd drop him for darmaniton for a physical fire type and chandelure for special.

Serperior - The best unova starter in my opinion but has his own short comings. As a pure grass he is open to a lot of weaknesses but was gifted with decent defenses and not subjected to 4x weakness like many grass double typings are. His attacks are both equally low leaving the direction of moves up to the user but most would go with a physically defensive set because he does learn coil as his only natural dmg boosting ability. He can learn both swordstance and calm mind from TM but calm mind isn't obtainable until late into the game. He is my favorite of gen V but he could have used either another form of defensive or statis/support indusing ability that many grass types have. I feel they should make a push toward either physical or special attack but apparently they want to leave both options open. I used him physically in my play through with coil and leaf blade. Overall his speed and decent defenses make him a good option even if using him feels stallish/boring with his low 75 base attack stats.

Samurott - Rather bland with his stat distribution and pure water typing. Not a bad pokemon but nothing stands out from him either. It's a bit confusing how to go with him attack wise. His special is slightly higher but he learns a lot of physical attacks AND sword stance at lvl 57. With a poor special defense and speed he is open to threats from grass/electic types even though from appearances he should be defensive. Should have probably been a physical attacker with slightly better defenses. I can think of plenty of water types I would replace him with once they became available.

Generation 3 had the best starters in my opinion and gen. 4 wasn't much worse (I loved empolean...only water/steal pokemon yet and although he was slow the typing was just so good!). NOTHING from generation 5 starters makes me want to hold onto them. It's a strange feeling after so many years of playing to just straight up replace your starter with something more preferrable while playing through.

3 > 4 > 1 > 2 >> 5 if I had to rank them all together.

[batumshakalaka]

For me Gen 1 will always be the best. Gen IV really let me down as a whole in terms of new pokemon introduced. I may be laying the blame on the starters what what I felt was an extremelly rushed and lackluster gen of pokes.
I do have to give a shout out to Piplup, he isn't too bad

[Yoshikkko]

I'm honestly surprised that gen II got so many votes. Those were one of my favourites and most people I know agree with me haha. Anyways, I hated gen V, usually I can't choose because I like all three starters, with gen V I couldn't choose because I didn't like any of them lmao.

[Sydian]

Can I retract my vote and pick gen VI now?

[King_21]

Gen 6 ofcourse did you look at those
they look like digimons for gods sake

[Miss Anne Thrope]

HOENN HOENN HOENN.
I didn't like any of their starters. I remember when I got Sapphire as a child, it was when I first discovered I could just trash my starter Pokemon. I hated all of them. It was the first time I saw ugly starters, and I never again had high hopes for them- and I was never pleasantly surprised. The designs never got worse than Gen III, but they didn't get much better. Chimchar and Oshawott were fairly cute, but their final stages were nearly as ugly as the Hoenn starters'.

Johto were my favorite. The only generation where I couldn't decide which one I liked best because I loved them all. I initially decided Cyndaquil to be my starter on my Crystal, but when I got Soulsilver where Ninetales was available I chose Totodile. Chikorita was a bad choice because of the first gym and the Sprout Tower.
Anyhow, Cyndaquil is my favorite starter because Typhlosion is the only final starter stage I truly love.

(My opinions are solely on the design. If we are talking stats, I think Unova was worst.)

[UnlethalMango]

I think Johto... Chikorita is pretty bad compared to the others, and it was also bad against the gym leaders and team rocket.

[Paparazzo]

Gen V by far. It's the only one where I've thought "these are all awful..."

[Cinnabar]

Gen II, the designs really aren't that great, there're much better Fire, Water, and Grass types to choose from. I was never too fond of Johto anyway.

Somehow, I knew Gen V would have the most votes.

[XtinaIsMeLuvinWWE]

Maybe Gen 4 even though Chimchar's really the only one I'm not as keen on in that generation.

[Blue_Mystic_Ranger]

For me, based solely on design, I'd say Gen V is the worst. I like Tepig and Dewott...and that's it. Serperior is ok, but nothing great. Every other generation had at least two awesome final stages and at least one evolution line that I liked all the way through. Gen V just doesn't compare.

[Elgyem]

Easily Generation V. Bad pure-Water and pure-Grass starters and yet another Fire/Fighting? Yeah, I think I'll pass.

[Sweets Witch]

Gen 2. Meganium is so bad that it outclasses entire generations on its own. Its level of uselessness has always been a gathering point for my disappointment over the years. Chikorita looks good because it gets Razor Leaf early, but then SURPRISE! Nothing. You could waste some TMs on it, I guess, but why do that? Why give it a good attack like Earthquake when you could get more use from a Quagsire? There is absolutely no merit in choosing Chikorita.

[jfuze174]

Gen V is the worst yet doesn't mean they were bad serperior and samurott were pretty cool em boar sucked we do not need any more fire / fighting starters and dewott and samurott should of been water/fighting but idk torterra might of been the worst starter ever and he's still one of my favs p.s chespen might win worst starter if his evols aren't cool

[annikaprue]

The Kanto starters... I suppose Wartortle lacked in enthusiasm, and Bulbasaur doesn't look like it has a nose, yet in the 3rd gen, May's Bulbasaur actually jumps into a passing truck full of flowers just to smell them. Charmander is one of my favorites, although I kinda wish Charizard's face would be much more decent, especially those horns on its head.

Kanto. Wartortle just looks like a larger Squirtle with sharp teeth, new tail, and a decorated head. Bulbasaur doesn't seem to have a nose, yet it jumps into a passing truck in the 3rd gen just to smell the flowers. Charmander's one of my favorites, but I wish Charizard's face was a little less scary and had neater horns(or whatever those things are on his head).

[Chaos Fork]

I voted gen 4. I was gonna pick 5 but I realized that I like a full evolution line of starter pokes (oshawott).
The only starter of gen 4 was torterra. Not turtwig or grovyle. Although infernape looks pretty decent, I've never used it.