What is the best and worst starter in each region for playthroughs?

Question

Gamewise, I know this question could appear subjective, so here are some rules:

-Cold-Hard Stats, facts, and viability ONLY. No personal experiences where your starter happened to outspeed the Gym Leader at one HP and clutch. (In the answers, those stories and thoughts are fine for a comment)

-When I say viability, I mean stuff like how effective they are against major battled, such as evil teams, rivals, gyms, the E4, Champion, and the like.

Thanks!

Comments

In Johto, Meganium is the worst because it's a Grass type with a poor movepool.
In Hoenn, Swampert is the best because it solos at least half of the game.
In Sinnoh, it's a toss-up, but Infernape is probably best due to it having a rare Fire type and a complementary typing.
In Unova, Serperior is the worst because it doesn't get Contrary.
In Kalos, all are good because of the EXP Share.
In Alola, Decidueye is the worst because of its typing against opponents like Marowak, Mimikyu, Ribombee, etc.
In Galar, Inteleon is the worst because Barraskewda and Pelipper exist.

I don't know enough about Kanto or Hisui to comment on those.

---

Blastoise is probably the best in Kanto. It learns strong moves early, and its moves are not resisted by very many opponents.
I think Feraligatr is best in GSC and Typhlosion is best in HGSS. This is mostly because HGSS added focus blast, made the fire blast TM much easier to get, and removed the ice punch TM.
Sceptile is the worst in Hoenn because its STAB attacks have lower base power and are resisted by a lot of things.
All 3 Sinnoh starters are pretty good, but I agree that Infernape is probably the best one. Empoleon has great special attack and defensive typing and worse offensive typing, which makes it a consistent damage dealer. Torterra's ground type makes it good in some situations and bad in others.
Just because the exp. share exists doesn't mean every Pokemon is good. Each Pokemon is still useless in a few gym battles or Elite 4 battles.
I've never played SwSh, but I know that the current world record Sword speedrun used Inteleon for almost the entire game.

---

Thanks!

---

Would this count as a dupe of this question, or no as this question is asking for the worst starter for every gen too?
https://pokemondb.net/pokebase/395072/what-is-the-objectively-better-starter-in-every-gen

---

I am asking for the worst starter in every Gen also

Answer 1

This would be a little subjective and aside from the criteria that you mentioned, I will also add one more and that is competition. For example, even if a water type starter is good, I might not put it as the best starter simply because Gyarados exists in the same game and Gyarados is the best in game Pokemon ever and I will fight anyone who says otherwise

Kanto

Kanto is the one with the most interesting choices. I'm not too familiar with the Kanto games but according to the first reply on this post on reddit, Bulbasaur is the best one in rgb due to having broken moves and Charmander being the worst due to being pretty meh. In frlg, Bulbasaur is still the best and now, Squirtle is the worst because it's outclassed

Also, refer to that link if you want further opinion since I compared mine to the ones posted there and I will also make this answer based on that post

Johto

This one should be obvious. Chikorita is easily the worst because grass types are usually mediocre and its movepool doesn't help it at all. Because of the Red Gyarados, I would have to say that Cyndaquil is the best simply because Red Gyarados is mostly better than Feraligatr especially in gen four when it gets dragon dance by level up

Hoenn

In Hoenn, Mudkip is easily the best starter and even though Gyarados is available, Swampert can give it a good run for its money. The biggest advantage here is that there are no notable grass type traininer in the game. This means that Swampert would either have a positive or meh matchup and not a single negative one. For the worst, it is easily Treecko. This is simply because grass types aren't the best offensively and Sceptile not really having that many moves to choose from

Sinnoh

This one is a no brainer. The best starter is easily Chimchar. Anyone who has ever played dp would know that the only other choice for a fire type is *** Ponyta, a Pokemon that is mediocre at best. This was remedied in platinum and the remakes since you can get a Houndour or Magmar in the game. However, Infernape is still far better than the newly available fire types and it even gets fighting type which is among the best offensively. For the worst, it is definitely Piplup. That's because it doesn't really get that many good matchups and once again, Gyarados exists and is ten times better. Empoleon does have some nice qualities being a steel type but that only truly comes into play against Candice, which other Pokemon can fill

Unova

For both bw and bw2, the best and worst are Tepig and Snivy based on the posts from the link I put above. In bw, Tepig is easily the best as it can pretty much solo the second and third gym on its own after it evolves. Oshawott is pretty meh in both games and being a grass type, this makes Snivy the worst because aside from its type, it also doesn't really have the best offensive stats. In bw2, things are pretty meh between the starters. Oshawott is still meh and Tepig still makes the early game a bit easier. However, Snivy does have an advantage against the eight gym due to being strong against water types but at that point, you probably should already have something to deal with water types

Kalos

Here, it doesn't really matter since you pretty much get two starters for free anyway. Just for the sake of answer, the best starter is a toss up between Froakie and Fennekin. Except for a couple disadvantageous fights aagainst a couple of the gym leaders, both are actually really strong and hit hard. While Greninja should be infinitely better, it doesn't have access to protean which evens up the playing field. The worst is most definitely Chespin just because the other two are really strong

Alola

Popplio is easily the best one here. Primarina being a water and fairy type really helps out because fairy type is incredibly balanced, not sarcastic at all -_-. The worst would probably be Litten simply because it doesn't really have too many advantageous fights. It either has a meh or bad matchups especially with the fire, rock and dragon trials

Galar

Forgot about this one. According to this video, Scorbunny has the most positive matchups while Rillaboom has the least, which makes the former being the best and the latter being the worst

Hisui

According to this this video, Hisuian Oshawott is the best starter and the worst is Cyndaquil

Comments

Thanks for the answer, it was really good!

---

I think Squirtle is better than Charmander in FRLG. If Squirtle is outclassed by Vaporeon, Charmander is even more outclassed by Jynx and Mr. Mime. Despite not sharing any types, Jynx and Mr. Mime are more useful than Charmander in just about every difficult battle.
Also Gyarados sucks in gen 3 because all water attacks are special.
source: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/pokemon-firered-and-leafgreen-in-game-tier-list.3690097/

---

"Gyarados is the best in game Pokemon ever" mmmm... no. He's not. I love him, but he isn't.

---

Intimidate, evolves at level 20, high spdef, ground immunity and dragon dance. How can you even say it's not the best pokemon with all those qualities?

---

In that case, how does it not outclass Primarina in SM?

---

Because fairy type is incredibly balanced -_-. Although to be serious, both of them are probably equals or close to be on the same level. Gyarados is still very good and it always will be since you can always just dd up on a non threatening pokemon and sweep entire types. As that reddit post said and from my own personal experience, the Primarina and Gyarados situation is almost the same as Gyarados and Swampert. They're both just that good

---

I would add something to your Gyarados list: he gets Moxie as a HA, and that is easy to get in Gen 8. Also isn't Feraligatr relatively the same?

---

Dragon dance is an egg move on Feraligatr while it is a level up move on Gyarados. That alone already settles the difference between them

---

Looking at their stat totals.... Gyarados is better.

---

I don't think Gyarados existing in Gen 2 immediately invalidates the usage of Feraligatr. Sure, its a good Pokemon, but it can hardly serve the role of a Water type Pokemon due to it having 60 Special Attack, and only learning Normal type moves to use its monstrous Attack stat.
Gyarados also takes forever until it can learn Dragon Dance in every game (except for BDSP), and the move can't even be used properly in Gen 3 aside from moves like Earthquake and Facade.