We are looking at the Starter Pokemon today specifically which one is the worst per generation. Now this is not a list on which is good competitively Blaziken, Greninja, and Meowscarada would dominate this list, but which Starter is worst for the base single player game.

Gen 1 Charmander

Charmander is a fire type and while an okay Starter it really suffers in the first generation. Unlike Squitle and Bulbasuar Charmander lacks any real advantage against the Gym Leaders and bosses. Further, Squirtle has coverage through tm and learnset and Bulbasuar has good status moves.

Gen 2 Chikorita

Chikorita has difficulty with multiple gyms the first one is flying type and it doesn’t get much better after bug, steel, Ice, and dragon are all there added to the Kanto gyms poison and fire. That isn’t everything. It struggles a lot throughout the game Sprout Tower and Ice Path are filled with Pokemon that give it a hard time while Totodile’s coverage through movepool and a high physical help it handle anything. Cyndaquil doesn’t have coverage, but type advantage through a majority of gyms and challenges makes it better.

Gen 3 Treeko

Treeko isn’t a bad starter for Gen 3, but what makes it the worst is the lack of a useful dual type. There are only the flying and fire gyms to give him some trouble, but Mudkip either resists or is strong against everything as grass is its only weakness so you only need to worry about the rival battles and Torchic’s stats and moveset overpowers most of the challenges.

Gen 4 Piplup

Fans of the Anime don’t worry I’m not talking about Dawn’s Piplup, but the one you get in the games. Piplup is an okay starter for early to mid game, but suffers late game while the other two get more useful dual typing. Turtwig adds ground and a heavy amount of defensive stats and Chimchar adds fighting as well as being one of two fire types before post game. Unlike the other two Piplup can’t really learn any useful steel type moves out side of tms and learns basically nothing outside of water type moves. It also lacks the defensive stats that make the steel typing so useful.

Gen 5 Snivy

Snivy is one of the more overlooked starters and it suffers from the same thing Piplup did mixed in with the same thing Treecko did. Tepig was the starter of choice because it was the only one with a dual typing, but aside from the more physical attacking and making good use of weight based moves wasn’t as good as Blaziken or Infernape. Oshawott has a decent physical and special attack and can make full use of a more varied movepool. Snivy is monotyped and unlike Oshawott doesn’t really have a lot of coverage even tms don’t help it.

Gen 6 Chespin

Now both Chespin and Fennikin are flawed and not great for anything in this generation, but I found Chespin worse. It gets fighting later on, but unlike previous starters with Fighting this Pokemon is relatively slow meaning unless it can take the first hit of any Pokemon it won’t really help. Next, this was the game that introduced Fairy Types and those are strong against fighting. The whole game is an uphill battle with Chespin. Though, with proper support it actually isn’t a bad Pokemon. It does have the worst design wise though.

Gen 7 I guess Rowlet

The problem with Gen 7 is that there is no bad Starter Popplio and Litten have both seen multiple VGC tournaments and Rowlet is no slouch either. This leads to a problem all three are actually really good and have advantages and disadvantages during the game. Rowlet makes this list, but in reality it isn’t a bad choice the ghost typing it has just isn’t as useful as Litten’s Dark and Popplio’s Fairy. Rowlet is a good starter though.

Gen 8 Grookey

All three starters are monotyped, but Grookey got the worst starter because it really doesn’t have any kind of advantage. Galar’s gyms are set up in a way that depends on your version and while it is decent in Sword, Shield has Ice type gyms and the other two starters not to mention Sword and Shield have a large amount of bug, ice, poison, and flying types so even smaller challenges pose some difficulty.

Gen 9 All three

This is my least favorite group of Starters and unless you get one with their hidden ability they aren’t exactly helpful Moxie on Quaxly, Protean on Spirgato, and Unaware on Feucoco the three best abilities in the game seems wasted. Moxie is an attack boost for every Pokemon you knock out this requires Quaxly to be more of a glass cannon, Protean is a type change but seems wasted here since Terastalization already does that, and unaware would be helpful if any of the games bosses ever actually posed a threat. The strange part is since the three storylines seem catered to the different starters. Feucoco is great during gym battles, Sprigato is at an advantage due to move set against a majority of the Titans, and Quaxley has type advantage and move set against most of Team Star. Alternatively, during both DLC packs they really don’t have anything that makes them standout and since the Starters from previous generations reappear nothing stops you from replacing them.