have you ever regretted a starter choice?

[Sheep]

if so, what did you do about it? did you push through and use it anyway, replace it with your starter of choice, or just box it altogether? or has this never happened to you?

 

[Fairy]

Nah, not really. Nowadays it's only a matter of time before you can eventually get all the starters, and even back in the day the games were short enough that just restarting them and playing with a new starter was easy! There was a time I misclicked on a starter though. I wanted Totodile but clicked Chikorita and just went with it. Only partially unintentional lol.

 

[Lunar]

Not that I can remember! I usually love every starter I go with, and actually like most of the starter Pokemon in each generation. I think the most I've came to regretting it was choosing Torchic in Hoenn once, not really a big fan of playthroughs with it tbh :)

 

[Zeostar]

Actually yes.

I'm indecisive so there's always those thoughts of "What if I picked the others"?

 

[Iceshadow3317]

There has never really be a time were I have regretted a choice. I always usually have a straight forward idea of what I want. It is one reason I like evolution to be revealed completely before the games come out.

 

[pkmin3033]

Yes. I picked Charmander in my very first Red game and I regretted it immensely. I had no idea what I was doing back then and I really struggled with Brock and Misty...I still don't like Misty beause of the Starmie incident. I stuck with it, but I did not have a positive experience.

 

[BadgerDaddy]

Yeah, Treecko when I first played RS.
It was my first Pokemon game ever, and I thought Treecko was so cool (because of the show), only to find out it wasn't THAT good and restarted the game to choose Torchic.
It literally took me years to choose Mudkip just because I didn't like Swampert's design.
But I must admit that on my first playthrough of ORAS, I did choose Treecko again and was glad it was redeemed and got a cool Mega.

 

[Percy]

there was one time I replayed one of the johto games back when I was a lil' dumb kid. I can't remember whether it was crystal or gold but I remember selecting chikorita. the first gym was insane, I raged-quit for so many times until I just faced it and leveled it up.

 

[Uecil]

Nah.
Actually.
Probably only once. I think it was Tepig.
I chose it once and tbh, I probably was expecting so much of the Pokemon, but welp.

 

[VisionofMilotic]

I deeply regretted selecting Chikorita in a Soul Silver playthrough. I knew that I did not have an advantage choosing Chikorita, but I already played through the original Gold and Silver games with Cyndaquil and then Totodile, and was open to the idea of a change this time. I started off excited to get Chikorita because I actually think this line is the nicest-looking of the three Johto starters, so I was looking forward to having such an attractive traveling companion since it's sprite would be following me in the overworld.

My dream quickly turned into a nightmare. I understand that Johto wanted to introduce gyms with types that weren't previously in Kanto like ice, flying, ghost, steel, bug, dragon etc, but by doing this they unfortunately also created a situation where the region's grass starter Pokemon didn't have a single good gym matchup. Even back in the old RBY games Charmander or Pikachu weren't as bad in their region type-wise as Chikorita is in its region. Though they weren't as good as Bulbasaur or Squirtle overall, they still had 1 or 2 important battles where they could shine. Charmander has an advantage against Erika at least. Pikachu could be good against Misty and Lorelei. In the case of the Chikorita line every major battle either has no direct type advantage or it has a distinct type disadvantage. There is no scenario in the Johto region where having a Meganium is better than having a Feraligatr or a Typhlosion, not even briefly. I can't think of another game that did something like this to a starter.

Even if Meganium had not been so unlucky and was introduced in another region where there are more advantages to using a grass type, it's still a really forgettable Pokémon. It's not fast and doesn't have attacking power. It's supposed to be a wall, but again, the mono grass typing gives it way too many weaknesses for that purpose.

Since it was a remake i thought Chikorita would have seen more improvements than it did. In Frlg Charmander learned the steel move metal claw to help it out against Brock's rock type Pokemon. Also the gen 1 mechanics of special attack and special defense being one stat were gone, so Charizard had a good special attack that was over 20 points higher than before. In Oras Sceptile got a mega evolution that had a dragon dual typing. Blaziken even before the Mega Evolution, got a great hidden ability, speed boost.

The other Johto starters kept improving with time too, but by contrast Meganium seems largely unchanged. The only attacking moves that it learns by level up are grass and normal type even now I think.

I grimly marched on to beat the game with Meganium in the party purely out of sentimentality. Had it not been my starter it would have been boxed almost immediately. However, it was not helpful in these battles, beyond easing my conscience, and another Pokemon would have to usually be sent in to salvage the match whenever I tried to use Meganium. Ampharos was essentially operating as my starter Pokemon in Soul Silver.

As soon as I struggled and flailed my way through the elite four I retired Meganium to the PC. I had technically completed the game without abandoning my starter. It was time to pass the torch and let another Pokemon have this spot. As far as I was concerned our contract was fulfilled now. No need to punish myself further by using Meganium to fight Red in the post game, conquer the battle frontier with it, or rematch all the same Johto gym leaders and Elite four members this Pokemon previously struggled against with their full, new and improved high level teams.

When Pokémon Crystal rolled around on the virtual console, I chose Totodile, and it performed very well, and I was happy. When I first played Pokemon Gold I chose Cyndaquil, we breezed through it, no problems. I would use either one of them again replaying Johto, but not Chikorita. Sorry.

 

[colours]

chespin came super close, if only because chesnaught became the only grass type final stage that i genuinely wasn't much of a fan of.

 

[Ninetales]

I recall being mortified the instant my Tepig evolved. It's safe to say I erased that save file.

 

[Gavoca]

Yess i id regret and it was tepig