Which game has the best early Pokémon selection?

Some of the main series games aren't known for having a very good selection of Pokémon early on. Meanwhile, some others are pretty great (BW2 imo)!! Which is your favorite??

How early are we talking? Because Kalos has a ton of Pokemon to choose from before you even get close to the city with the second gym badge in it.

Kalos was good since i had half a team even before the third gym. hoenn, too. since i used slaking and ralts. was a pain to level up though >.<

Black/White 2 and X/Y for sure. I remember having a hard time deciding what Pokemon I wanted to use in those games because there was so much of a selection

Seconding BW2, it was really hard to resist just using all Pokemon from before the first gym in my team.

Yellow isn't bad. Both Nidoran lines, Mankey line, Regional flying types(Spearow and Pidgey) and Rattata are available from the get-go. Then, depending on what version of game you have(Red, Blue or Yellow) determines what Bug Type you have in Viridian Forest(which for Yellow is Caterpie for Butterfree). After Brock, you got Magikarp(via Salesman), Sandshrew, Geodude, Zubat, Paras and Clefairy. At Cerulean, you can get Bulbasaur(regional starter) and head north to get Charmander(regional starter) along with Oddish, Bellsprout and Venonat. All of this before even facing Misty. Abra and Jigglypuff appear south of Cerulean and if you really are determined, you can have Mew via Ditto Glitch as well(granted you'll need an Abra to Teleport along with saving a couple trainers to do it). Any run I do through Yellow, I typically have at least one or more of the above on my team at the end(not including my starter unless the challenge forbids it).

Never played B2W2 or XY, so I can't testify to those.

USUM have freaking Dragon- and Ice-types early in the game. I'd reckon they have a good assortment.

B2W2 for sure. I've already got a solid team of Servine, Flaafy, and Psyduck before the first gym.

XY is fine for me, it has some of the best selection of the Pokemon creatures out there, and have some french-like stereotypes.

Going by "by gym 1", HGSS has a lot - because there's not just what's in GSC (early route pokes, the sidepath offering Geodude/Jigglypuff, the grass in Crystal west of Violet City (Growlithe, etc) and the patch south of it (Mareep, Hoppip, Ekans, etc), Unown, etc - but there's also the Pokewalker. Whole bunch of Pokemon there.

B2W2 also did a good job, certainly. Much better than BW which imo was the worst of the bunch.

Going by the regular cartriges without the use of extra stuff, is thre really any option other than BW2 and XY? But I'd say BW2 has the slight edge.

BW2 from what I remember, since you get access to a whole bunch of areas early with a ton of diverse Pokemon - compared to say Kanto which funnels you down one path with the same few Pokemon for like five routes.

I don't know about best, but in Platinum, I had a fairly diverse Hall of Fame team made solely of Pokemon I caught in the first handful of Routes (Staraptor, Luxray, Roserade, Beautifly and Golduck + my starter Infernape).

Probably Unova, imo.

Depending on your definition of "early" XY throws about ~70 potential mons at you for you to use and most of them are stellar. BW2 takes 2nd with a great diverse selection too with most of them worthy of a look

I don't remember the early route Pokemon as far as earlier generations go but the fact that you can catch an Abra in SM, quickly grind it to a Kadabra and trade it to an Alakazam in a span of probably 20-30 minutes (provided you had a friend ready) certainly sticks out to me quite a bit. I also liked that Growlithe is available pretty early on and honestly is a pretty powerful choice for early in the game, especially for Totem Lurantis.

Also, I may be biased here, but Zorua is also available early too which is extra points in my book. n.n

bobandbill said:

Going by "by gym 1", HGSS has a lot - because there's not just what's in GSC (early route pokes, the sidepath offering Geodude/Jigglypuff, the grass in Crystal west of Violet City (Growlithe, etc) and the patch south of it (Mareep, Hoppip, Ekans, etc), Unown, etc - but there's also the Pokewalker. Whole bunch of Pokemon there.

B2W2 also did a good job, certainly. Much better than BW which imo was the worst of the bunch.

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Totally agree about HGSS, so easy to fill your party early on and have to make a tough decision who to keep and replace.

X/Y felt the best to me.

It feels like the newer games in the series have better selections, for the most part.

BW2, XY, and USUM had some of the best choices. you can get some OP stuff real fast. and for an older game with less variety, GSC gives you a good mix pretty early too with mareep, hoppip, bellsprout, some cool bug boys, and an early onix if you go through w the trade.

I'm really trying to think back over here. I know for sure bw2 and I want to say rse as well