Fair warning: This introduction and analysis section will be much longer than the others. Unless you want to see me rambling about lots and lots of Pokemon for about 2000 words, I’d suggest skipping this section. I also may insult your favourite Pokemon, but these are just my opinions as to explain my reasoning.
I have only played Pokemon Y through once before this, and therefore it’s the game I’m the least experienced with. It’s not that I dislike the game, it’s that I never felt the need to revisit it until now. This means that I don’t know much about it, and this will be a learning experience more than anything else. I didn’t know where you find any of the bug types before writing this, nor do I remember what the gym leaders are past the first 3, so this is something I’ll be learning along the way. For this reason, my judgement may be a little clouded on what are the best Pokemon to use, but I’ll try to make the most educated choices I can.

Pokemon Y is disappointing to me in that so few new Pokemon were introduced, and this is especially the case for bug types, with
Vivillon being the only new one. This means less new bug types to try out. Or, so you’d think. There’s a couple of bug types I haven’t gotten or planned to use on my challenge yet from other generations due to them not being applicable in their respective generations that I’ll get to use here. Those two Pokemon are Durant and Illumise. But let's talk about Vivillon a bit first. I don't think it's a great Pokemon, as it's pretty much a Butterfree clone through and through, but its gimmick is primarily its regional patterns which I won't get to make use of. I live in the UK, so I'll have the garden pattern.

Firstly, let’s talk about
Durant. My main complaint about Durant was how late it comes in Black and White and… that’s still the case here. But I still want to give this little guy a chance, and there’s no new Pokemon to use, so I figured why not.
Illumise is a Pokemon that I still don’t think is strong by any means, and it still has all of the issues that I mentioned in my Ruby analysis. But once again, I’d like to give this Pokemon a chance to maybe show its worth. A time to
shine, if you will. I do think it’s slightly more viable in later games due to infinite usage TMs, too, as it's a very TM reliant Pokemon.
Those will take up the first 3 slots of my party. The final 3 slots are now what I’m going to think about. There is a LOT of bugs available to us in Kalos. We’re going to have to reuse ones used in previous games, as I can’t fill up a party of 6 without doing so, and I think that in itself is part on the challenge. Whilst I didn’t use a party of 6 in Kanto, that’s because Pinsir/Scyther are version exclusives which I had no way of trading for and there were not enough bug types in one version for a team of 6. In this game, there is more than enough.




First of all, I’m going to get the 3 out of the way that I flat out do not have access to.
Escavalier,
Accelgor,
Pinsir and
Scizor cannot be used, as I have no way to trade. I don’t have a second 3DS or a second copy of the game, and I don’t want to annoy my friends asking if they’ll trade bugs with me. I have a DSi, which is why I could trade perfectly fine with myself in Gen 4, to clarify. I’m not carrying around Karrablast or Shelmet until the end of the game either. Pinsir is version exclusive to X. Scyther, we’ll get onto later.
Skorupi doesn’t evolve into a bug type and I’m not carrying around a basic Pokemon until the end of the game.

Let’s get onto the Pokemon that we actually can potentially use. I used
Butterfree in LeafGreen. This Pokemon can be picked up VERY early in Santalune Forest, evolves extremely early and it has Compoundeyes as its ability making its powder moves much more accurate. It learns Silver Wind, Quiver Dance and Psybeam pretty early in this game and has decent TM coverage. Now, the negatives. Its stats are pitiful for a fully evolved Pokemon with its only workable stat being its special attack and Bug/Flying is so unbelievably common. I know for a fact I’m using Vivillon, which already uses those types, is very similar to Butterfree already, has the same type, learns a lot of its moves earlier with the exception of Quiver Dance, is caught in the same area and also has access to Compoundeyes. It’s pretty redundant in this case. Vivillon is basically a Butterfree clone. I do personally think Butterfree is a little better overall, but there's no point in carrying both around when they essentially perform the same job.
Beedrill is a Pokemon I also used in LeafGreen. Found in Santalune Forest too and also evolves extremely early. That’s about where the positives end. Yes, very few. It has little to offer that other better Bug/Poison types don’t, its ability kind of sucks especially for how frail it is and its level up movepool is downright awful. Might’ve been worth using if Mega Beedrill was available before post-game and allowed in the challenge, but nah.

Wormadam is a weird one to talk about, since it’s essentially 3 different Pokemon, so I’ll talk about it as such. But first of all, we’ll point out what applies to all 3: Burmy is found very early on route 3. Its ability Anticipation is honestly pretty terrible. I’m using all 3 in Platinum, as well as Mothim.

First of all,
Wormadam Plant is the more special defense based Wormadam but all of its other stats aren’t particularly good. It has workable special attack though, but it doesn’t get access to anything early on that can make use of that. Whilst its type is unique in this game as there’s no Leavanny or Paras, it makes it pretty vulnerable and it isn’t a particularly great grass type to boot. It was passable with Leavanny because of its sheer power and movepool to back it up, but a defensive based Bug/Grass type is a fairly backwards concept.
Wormadam Sand is the more physical defense oriented one. Again, all of its other stats are pretty bad, but has workable attack in this case. Whilst its type is completely unique, only sharing it with Nincada, it learns no STAB moves through level up. It learns STAB Earthquake through TM, and it being the only Bug that can do that at least gives it a niche. I’d say it's the best of a bad bunch.
Wormadam Trash is very befitting of its name, as it is flat out the worst of the 3. It tries to be the balanced one, but ends up as a terrible jack of all trades. At least unlike Sand and Plant, it learns a somewhat useful STAB move early on in Mirror Shot, but with its mediocre special attack, it’s not going to be hitting hard. Its only real positive other than its access to a STAB Flash Cannon which its mediocre Special Attack won’t make great use of anyway. Just pick up Scizor, Accelgor or Durant instead if you're insistent on having this type combination. In my case, I'll be picking up Durant. It's the cutest of the Wormadams, at least, so I'll give it that.
Mothim is a slow mixed attacker, and I think it’s the better evolution of Burmy, but I still don’t really rate this Pokemon. Its ability again, kind of sucks. Swarm isn’t terrible, it just isn’t great either. Its type is incredibly common, its level up pool is pretty terrible, but it does have quite a wide array of good TMs it can use due to being a mixed attacker. It’s just a worse Vespiquen, honestly.
Masquerain still faces a lot of the issues it has in Ruby, in that it still doesn’t learn a lot through level up and has pretty lackluster stats. Again though, it has the niche of being a bug with access to Ice Beam and Blizzard, and Intimidate is great ability, but its type is a real shame and in my opinion, you get it a bit too late for it to be really useful, requiring Surf to find. That being said, it is actually really good in Sun for reasons we'll get onto when that game comes along. Nudge nudge, wink wink, etc.
Ledian is absolutely disgustingly bad. I only used it in HeartGold as it was one of the new Pokemon to the Johto region. Neither of its abilities are good, its stats are a total joke, it is ANOTHER Bug/Flying type, it again has the problem of learning nothing through level up that is useful, and its TM capabilities are atrocious. It is the worst fully evolved bug type in existence, bar none. Yes, it's worse than niche mons like Shedinja and Shuckle, because they actually have a use, and yes, it's worse than Dustox because that at least has a movepool.
Vespiquen is one of our Platinum mons, and is without a doubt the best of the lot out of what I used in that game. It has a decent ability, but I personally think it’s nothing to write home about. Its stats are great especially for how early it evolves, but they have a weird distribution, being slow with decent mixed attacking stats and good bulk. You get it early, but female Combee is rare, and its level up movepool is really awful until it evolves. It has okay TM compatibility, but once again, just unremarkable. It’s another Bug/Flying type too, which as we’ve said, are a dime a dozen. That’s my best description of this Pokemon – for how difficult it is to get, it’s pretty unremarkable. It’s good, but there’s more interesting options. If Game Freak would’ve done something unique with this Pokemon in terms of typing or moves in exchange for having slightly worse stats, it would be a definite pick up, but they didn’t, so it’s just boring to me. I was honestly bored to death using this mon in Platinum, even though it helped carry me through the game.
Ninjask is one of my favourite Pokemon of all time, and honestly, I think it has potential to be really good. Whether or not it’s capable of meeting its potential in this playthrough is another question. In Ruby, bug isn’t a great type, but in this game, bug has good moves, making it much more viable. You get it fairly early too. Its Bug/Flying type notwithstanding, it’s an incredibly fast sweeper, and Speed Boost makes it even faster, even having the option to Baton Pass its speed buffs and Swords Dance boosts. However, it’s not without negatives, unfortunately. It learns all of its good moves pretty late with the exception of Swords Dance, and honestly, has an overall atrocious level up pool. Whilst its TM compatibility was one of my praising points in Ruby, it leaves much to be desired in this game as there’s so many Pokemon that have similar and even better TM learnsets. I used Ninjask in my first playthrough of this game, and it’s workable, but I do think there’s better options.

I’m just going to flat out say it. No. I’m absolutely not messing around with
Shedinja again. It was fun to try out and it really did save the day in Ruby, but I was stuck with an all-around terrible team in a generation completely unkind to bug types and that was the only reason it managed to outshine some of them. Its uses are too niche and the AI is generally smarter in later games with more options to counter it.
Scolipede is really fast and a good attacker, with a pretty good ability in Poison Point. You get it pretty early, it learns much better moves through TM than Beedrill too. It’s not the absolute best Pokemon in the world, but definitely amongst the better bug types in this game. Anyone who read my Gen 5 playthrough might say, "Really? You said Scolipede was underwhelming by late game in that playthrough though", to which I'd say Poison was not a good STAB to have in any generation before 6 on an attack based Pokemon, which really hurt its potential. Poison is strong against Fairy now though, which unintentionally is a huge buff to Scolipede and other Poison types, but Scolipede definitely benefits the most out of the bugs because of its speed.
Crustle, oh boy. This is a Pokemon you get fairly early on, but not as early has most other bugs we’ve mentioned here. By the standards of bugs in this game, it evolves fairly late, however. It’s slow, but has gigantic defense and great attack. Its typing is unique for this game and makes it super bulky, and access to STAB Rock Slide at level 29 is amazing. Both of its abilities are decent. In my opinion this is the single best early bug type in this game. It carried me through Black, and was the best on my team in that game too. Crustle is such a good and underappreciated Pokemon.
Yanmega is a Pokemon only found as a horde encounter. It’s found early-mid game. Both of its abilities are really good, but Speed Boost is definitely the superior of the two. It has insanely strong special attack for a bug type. However, it learns all of its useful moves really late (most likely after the end of the game even) and not much to offer via TM that other special sweepers don’t. Yet another Bug/Flying type.
Heracross is really great. Fighting is a good STAB to have that’s unique to it, its attack is absurd and its defenses are solid to boot. In fact, yeah, it has all-around great stats. Guts is really strong if it can get it off. It’s found mid-game unfortunately passed the rock type gym, but is definitely useful regardless. It learns amazing moves through level up, as well as Earthquake, Rock Slide and Shadow Claw through TM just to name a few highlights. It may be the single best bug type in this game, especially given the only real other contenders either aren’t available in the version I chose for various reasons, or are only available super late. It did a good job my HeartGold playthrough too, albeit got outshined by Scizor purely as Scizor was the better Pokemon to use in most situations. It still destroyed gyms that suited its type, such as Pryce's.

I’m not using
Shuckle. Again, I used it in HeartGold as it was one of the Johto bug types, but it’s super niche and whilst it has more options to explore in this game, I just don’t think it’s worth carrying around when there’s so many other bug types in this game.

You get
Ariados too late for it to be useful. Scolipede is better to boot. I have nothing more to say.

I’d really love to use
Scyther, as it didn’t get much of a show in HeartGold before it evolved into Scizor and I didn’t get to use it in LeafGreen as it’s a version exclusive to FireRed and I had no way to trade. But you get it too late for it to be particularly useful, especially given its type not being useful against any of the Elite Four. It’s an amazing Pokemon, but I absolutely wished you got it earlier.
In the end, I decided to go with:
-Crustle
-Scolipede
-Heracross
Pokemon I considered but ultimately didn’t make the cut because of what I said in their description:
-Scyther
-Vespiquen
With that aside, there’s not much really to say about Y. It adds nothing new to the table for bug types that gen 5 hadn’t already, and adds no new mechanics, or at least ones we’ll be using in this playthrough. Which sadly includes the Fairy type. No Fairy bug until Gen 7, unfortunately.