What's your favorite Fire/Fighting starter?

[DoctorWhy]

Hey, y'all! So, we all know about the 3 generation long plague pattern of 3 Fire/Fighting starters in a row. Some love them, some hate them. Personally I thought 2 was quite plenty, though I don't hate Emboar individually, just circumstantially.

We had Blaziken in RSE, Infernape in DPPt, and Emboar in BW/B2W2. And I'm curious about which one is the BMGf community's favorite.

Which Fire/Fighting starter is your favorite? How about your least favorite? Why is that so? You can apply any number of reasons you like, whether it be artistic style, design inspiration, stats, moves, anime-usage, videogame-usage, TCG, and so on! Vote in the poll and discuss away!

Personally, my favorite of the three is Infernape. Chimchar was my starter Pokemon in my first Sinnoh journey, and I've loved Chimchar/Infernape ever since! As soon as I first saw the three Sinnoh starters--Chimchar, Turtwig, and Piplup--in Nintendo Power magazine, 10 year old me immediately picked Chimchar. I think it has a great design--in my opinion, the best of all the Fire/Fighting starters. Its bipedal nature feels natural, and I like its strong (and slightly crazy) demeanor in the anime. I already liked Infernape a lot after using it in-game, but Ash's Infernape only made me like it more. His character progression and insane strength were super cool to me in my tween years and still are today.

My second favorite is Emboar, and my least favorite is Blaziken.

How about you all?

 

[Vulpix037]

Emboar, followed by Infernape, then Blaziken.

 

[Zeb]

I should preface this by saying I'm not a fan of the Fire starters as a whole. They are usually very boring and incredibly overrated imo. So my opinion on these three isn't as high as the Grass or Water starters.

Blaziken is bizarre in a bad way and Infernape, while I do understand why people like it, I just don't care for it. I personally like Emboar the most. It's a bit of an underdog due to all the disdain for it being the third Fire/Fighting in a row and I love a good underdog. It's also a monstrous beast at the same time - both in design and power. Also pigs and boars are cute.

 

[noworry]

Infernape. I don't like the Fire/Fighting trend, because I find it unoriginal, but I still quite like Infernape's design.

 

[Maniacal Engineer]

Probably Infernape for me.
Blaziken is pretty good, too, though.

I loved all three of the Sinnoh starters both from a design perspective and a usability perspective. Used Infernape as my starter in Diamond, given my love of Fire types and the over all lack of Fire types in Sinnoh, and it was great.

I really feel "meh" about all three Gen V starters. Not really a fan of any of them, and, IMO, it has the weakest trio of starters of any Gen, which, after Sinnoh succeeded so well, was actually a bit of a let down and contributed heavily to my lethargy while playing through Black for the first time. A shame, because I do over all like Gen V, and it introduced a lot of Pokémon that I like as well as a few more aspects of gameplay that made life easier.

 

[laki]

Blaziken, I just like using it in the games, and Ruby is the game I have played the most. I'm also fond of it's design. I also quite like Infernape, and it was the first starter I used in Diamond.

Never been a big fan of Emboar. I don't like it's design, and I have never made it work properly on my teams.

 

[FroyoDragon]

Infernape, though admittedly I'm also not a fan of fire starters in any case :B I just find the warrior fire punching monkey thing cool for some reason.

Don't care for Blaziken, but don't dislike, either. Emboar is sorta in the middle.

 

[Gengarzilla]

Infernape out of these three, but it was a close one between them. I don't really dislike any of them even though neither are my picks for their generations (Swampert, Torterra, Samurott).
On that subject, I honestly didn't fawn over most of the Fire starters in general actually. Typhlosion's the only one of the seven that I liked.

 

[Sablaireau]

Blaziken. Infernape and Emboar are just posers, while Blaziken gets to hang with all the cool kids in Ubers. And who doesn't love a fighting chicken?

 

[Esserise]

Infernape is my favorite. The design is just really cool; it looks fierce and totally battle-ready. I like the color scheme, it's a good example of orange and white in the right balance, and the navy and gold bits work surprisingly well with it. Plus, the way I imagine it fighting looks awesome, with lots of really agile jumps and kicks (although I haven't actually checked its in-game animations in order to see if they live up to that). However, I will criticize the overall evolutionary line by saying that I don't like how the flame suddenly jumps from the rear/tail to the head. I like Chimchar's and Monferno's designs, and I like Infernape's, but the flame inconsistency means they don't transition very smoothly.

Emboar would be my second-favorite. This time, there's no inconsistent flame to hurt the transition; Tepig to Pignite to Emboar is actually pretty seamless. Emboar falls into second mostly because it's the third instance of a Fire/Fighting Starter in a row, which I do find tiring, but also, there may be just a bit too much going on with the design for my tastes. However, it Emboar does have a fun signature move, and its design does ooze personality. And the Shiny version of Emboar is a thing of beauty, with those cool, djinn-like blue tones.

Blaziken is alright, but it doesn't really do it for me in comparison to the other two. Mega Blaziken is a slight improvement, but I think my main issue is that, in contrast to Emboar, there's just not quite enough happening with the design. The ear... feather... things looks kind of weird to me as well. I don't hate them (thinking that they provide some degree of aerodynamism is a nice thought that justifies them), but they are somewhat odd. And in evolutionary terms, it's another uneven transition. Combusken looks like a completely unrelated take on the concept of a humanoid fighter chicken, and its body proportions are starkly different from Blaziken's.

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

Infernape.
1. Nostalgia for me.
2. The first starter Pokemon I ever saw (anime...)
3. The only fire starter to keep a white colour scheme. I don't like all that black.
4. Unique. The head flames and the gold motif is neat.

Infernape > Blaziken >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Emboar.

 

[Team Gaara]

Infernape! Love its design, got a great movepool, and it's just an all around cool Pokemon~ Followed by Blaziken and Emboar~

 

[Zexy]

Blaziken. Torchic was the first Pokemon I ever got (my first game was Sapphire and I picked it as my starter) and when it got its final evolution I thought it was great. I also like the Hidden Ability it got in Gen V and later the Mega Evolution, which was showcased well in the anime too.

 

[ocelotlrama jaguar]

Emboar. No contest. Don't care for the other two.

 

[Deleted member 85628]

Infernape
Strong
Fast
Coolest design of all the starters to me
Can cover most weaknesses

 

[Sakuraa]

Infernape. It's mainly due to nostalgia as DP were my first games and Chimchar my starter of choice. But I do love it's design as well.

Blaziken is a close second though, because he's a major badass.

 

[PinkIceFox]

My favoritism tends to be based on the appearance of a pokemon, and Infernape is my personal favorite design of the three fight fighters. I dunno what it is but I just think it looks really cool.

 

[Drakon]

Blaziken and Infernape are my two favorites for their awesome design.

Infernape is essentially Sun Wukong as a pokémon and you can't get much cooler than that. But Blaziken is badass fighting cock/bird of prey that's on fire. It's a tough choice, but I slightly prefer Blaziken because of my like of birds of prey.

Emboar...meh. A bearded boar brawler doesn't interest me as much.

 

[RTLfan]

Blaziken.

I'd like Infernape more if it wasn't so angry.

 

[Tactician Karina]

Blaziken for me! Emboar is okay but I do prefer it over Infernape, was never really a fan of the Chimchar line actually.