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Fire starters... Are Game Freak beating a dead horse?

M

MVS

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So usually when I play a Pokemon game, I'll always go for the fire starter. But recently I've noticed something pretty interesting about them.

Let's look at the last 3 generations:

Torchic. Evolves into Combusken then Blaziken. A duel Fire and Fighting type. Cool, powerful, and probably my favourite Pokemon of all of them so far. Nothing wrong with the added weaknesses from certain other Pokemon since Swampert gets a huge disadvantage to grass now. Making it balanced. Did I mention that Sceptile is grass and already weak to a bunch of attacks? And that it's defence isn't as desirable as it could be? Perfectly balanced.

Chimchar. Progressively evolves into Infernape... Another duel Fire and Fighting type... Not as cool as Blaziken in my opinion but the concept of giving each of the Sinnoh starters some sort of advantage against their previous weaknesses is genius so no complaints here.

Our most recent Fire type, Tepig. Will eventually evolve Emboar... Yet again, a duel Fire and Fighting type... What the heck happened? The other starters don't even have duel types as part of their final evolutions so there's no justification in giving it Fight capability to give it an advantage against Samurott. Sure it gives a bit of resistance against rock type but it just stacks on a whole other load of type matchup disadvantages. I don't think Emboar's stats give it that much of a reason to be nerfed.

What opinions do you guys have on this? It completely threw me off getting a Tepig. I'll stick with Water for this generation.
 
They should give Samurott an Ice typing to give Emboar's fighting typing a bigger purpose. I dunno about Serperior's secondary type to deal with Emboar; it obviously doesn't give me the Flying and Psychic vibe surrounding it.
 
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A little late to give them secondary types, but ice is also weak to fighting types. Hopefully if there's a Gen VI with new starters, none will be part fighting. I want to see a secondary type we haven't seen yet. Game freak really needs to stop with the fighting fire, it's horrid after one Generation
 
I don't think that there is too many Fire-Fighting starters, but it's getting to the last thread, or whatever. I don't want to see a Fire-Fighting starter next Generation. I would be happy though if they did a Water-Fighting or a Grass-Fighting.

I just relized. We have Breloom. But that ain't a starter.
 
Torchic itself was really awesome; definitely my favorite Fire Starter to date. Chimchar...I've learned to tolerate. I like Tepig in spite of its Fighting sub-type.

Seriously, it was cool the first time, a little annoying but acceptable the second and downright boring the third. I personally would have liked Emboar better without a sub-type to begin with. What I don't get is the point behind making Tepig the only Unova Starter to get a sub-type, and one that they've already done twice before in a row at that.

With that said, I don't think every Pokemon should get a sub-type. I personally would have been perfectly happy if Unova mimicked Johto in this regard and made all three of them monotypes (I know I'm in the minority here.)

Anyway, I really hope they don't continue this trend come Gen VI. It's just dumb at this point.

Shiny Shinx said:
I just relized. We have Breloom. But that ain't a starter.
Click to expand...

We also have Virizion, as well as Poliwrath and Keldeo on the Water front.
 
Grass Type Trainer said:
We also have Virizion, as well as Poliwrath and Keldeo on the Water front.
Click to expand...

Oh yeah. Right.

Oh yeah, continuing my post from earlier, um, yeah, continue.

Blaziken... Best starter ever. Do I need to say more? I don't care if there was 5,000,000 Fire-Fighting Type starters, this one is THE BEST.

Infernape, I like it, but it's not a Pokemon I would really chose first off.

Emboar, I think it is really cool. You know you can't resist that firiy beard.

I just think that Nintendo or Gamefreak needs to take a little break on the Fire-Fighting starters. Not permently discontinuing it.
 
Firstly, the word is dual, not duel. A duel is a one-on-one fight. Dual means two.

Second, I honestly hate Blaziken. Worst fire starter ever, imo. Almost the worst starter period. The only one I hate more is the Mudkip line. But anyway. I think Torchic is cute, but its evolutions are just butt ugly, imo, and Infernape has a way better design and is way more useful. The only way Blaziken would even so much as equal it is if it had its Dream World ability. Otherwise, Infernape is faster and stronger.

Pignite and Emboar are ugly too, imo and should've been fire/ground (they ARE based on pigs, who love mud). Infernape is the only cool fire/fighting starter, if you ask me. And this is saying something, as monkeys are some of my least favorite animals. I've never found them cute in the least bit.
 
Must I all remind you guys that Fire/Fighting is only decent type for a Fire starter so it doesn't have a stealth rock weakness (a Ground and Steel typing will only give them 4x weaknesses, which is a bad thing because all Fire starters happen to have sub-par defenses) and help deal against the first few gym leaders.
 
Ghetsis-Dennis said:
Must I all remind you guys that Fire/Fighting is only decent type for a Fire starter so it doesn't have a stealth rock weakness (a Ground and Steel typing will only give them 4x weaknesses, which is a bad thing because all Fire starters happen to have sub-par defenses) and help deal against the first few gym leaders.
Click to expand...

Must I remind you that "who cares?" I don't see Snivy or Oshawott getting a sub-type to help them deal with the first few Gym leaders, nor do I see how Fighting helps Pignite deal with Homika. Also, SR is not, has never been and will never be a major factor in Game Freak's considerations for Starter types.

As for the 4x weakness thing, I seem to recall certain Grass/Ground and Water/Ground Starters with 4x weaknesses and they manage just fine. Also Heatran seems to deal with its 4x weakness just fine.
 
Grass Type Trainer said:
As for the 4x weakness thing, I seem to recall certain Grass/Ground and Water/Ground Starters with 4x weaknesses and they manage just fine. Also Heatran seems to deal with its 4x weakness just fine.
Click to expand...

They've been backed up by bulk though. Camerupt, being the only Fire/Ground type in the series, does not, even with Solid Rock, so the same can be said with Emboar if he were ever given a Ground typing. BTW, Game Freak does care about the metagame. Just ask Joshawott.
 
If they considered weaknesses they wouldn't make it impossible to catch any pokemon that has the advantage over Brock in the Kanto games. If you start with charmander, the only other available pokemon are pikachu, caterpie, weedle, and pidgey. It's okay to repeat starter sub-types, but doing it three Generations in a row is annoying. Luckily HGSS was there in between. Also the secondary type is only useful against Roark or Roxanned if you overpower your fire starter at the beginning and evolve it.
 
mwto said:
If they considered weaknesses they wouldn't make it impossible to catch any pokemon that has the advantage over Brock in the Kanto games. If you start with charmander, the only other available pokemon are pikachu, caterpie, weedle, and pidgey. It's okay to repeat starter sub-types, but doing it three Generations in a row is annoying. Luckily HGSS was there in between. Also the secondary type is only useful against Roark or Roxanned if you overpower your fire starter at the beginning and evolve it.
Click to expand...

If my Gen I knowledge is right, it was also possible to catch Rattata, the Nidos and Spearow prior to Brock, and Butterfree learned Confusion. Additionally, Mankey was catchable in Yellow prior to the first gym, and the Nidos learned Double Kick at a low level in that game. With Gen III's HGSS, there was Metal Claw for Charmander and low-level Double Kick for the Nidos.

As far as the types go, I'm not too miffed about the Fire/Fighting combo starters. Sure, they could have done better, but it's worked well so far. Also, it's useful for Aloe (2nd Unova Gym, forgot the US name) in Gen V.
 
Game Freak's been enamored with the Chinese epic Journey to the West. The major characters include a fighting monkey and a fighting pig, which were the direct inspirations for two of the fire starters.

There's also a river spirit in there, so maybe there will be a Water/Fighting starter coming soon?
 
mwto said:
If they considered weaknesses they wouldn't make it impossible to catch any pokemon that has the advantage over Brock in the Kanto games. If you start with charmander, the only other available pokemon are pikachu, caterpie, weedle, and pidgey. It's okay to repeat starter sub-types, but doing it three Generations in a row is annoying. Luckily HGSS was there in between. Also the secondary type is only useful against Roark or Roxanned if you overpower your fire starter at the beginning and evolve it.
Click to expand...
How about Lenora/Cheren? Also, the members of the Striaton Trio have a Lillipup
 
PenblooeR said:
mwto said:
If they considered weaknesses they wouldn't make it impossible to catch any pokemon that has the advantage over Brock in the Kanto games. If you start with charmander, the only other available pokemon are pikachu, caterpie, weedle, and pidgey. It's okay to repeat starter sub-types, but doing it three Generations in a row is annoying. Luckily HGSS was there in between. Also the secondary type is only useful against Roark or Roxanned if you overpower your fire starter at the beginning and evolve it.
Click to expand...
How about Lenora/Cheren? Also, the members of the Striaton Trio have a Lillipup
Click to expand...

Adding to this, if you picked Chikorita in Johto, there were plenty of other options available in the first routes to counter the first gyms. (and then when you got to Whitney, the Grass type resists Rollout)

Simply put, the games encourage players, especially younger ones who don't know much about the mechanics of team balance, how to catch other types to help defeat each gym. Extra types for the starters aren't supposed to do them any favors. They don't work that way.
 
Ghetsis-Dennis said:
They've been backed up by bulk though. Camerupt, being the only Fire/Ground type in the series, does not, even with Solid Rock, so the same can be said with Emboar if he were ever given a Ground typing.
Click to expand...

Actually, 4X Weaknesses are of even less consequence if you are frail.
As for starter types, they are dependent on the concept behind the Pokemon. Monster designers do not just sit down and say "Right, the Fire starter is going to be part Fighting because that removes a Stealth Rock weakness and is a good type to use in the metagame!".
The first principle of a starter is the concept behind the design. If competitive value can be derived from it then so be it, but it doesn't work the other way around. Game freak don't design the metagame, they simply throw out the tools that shape it in a haphazard manner.
 
BlackWhite2!! said:
I've got an idea, what about a Fire/Psychic starter?
Click to expand...

Actually, I created that, despite that psychic is my least favorite type. See, the reason it's my least favorite is that I find it annoying to combat and I don't like any of the designs so far except for Mew. So I chose to remedy the latter, at least, by making my fan fire starter evolve into a fire/psychic type.
 
UnovaCastaway said:
Game Freak's been enamored with the Chinese epic Journey to the West. The major characters include a fighting monkey and a fighting pig, which were the direct inspirations for two of the fire starters.

There's also a river spirit in there, so maybe there will be a Water/Fighting starter coming soon?
Click to expand...

The pig in Journey to the West had an association with water, if I'm not mistaken. By that logic, Emboar should have been Water/Fighting.

Adding to this, if you picked Chikorita in Johto, there were plenty of other options available in the first routes to counter the first gyms. (and then when you got to Whitney, the Grass type resists Rollout)
Click to expand...

Grass doesn't resist Rock. It is, however, not weak to Normal, which is about as good as its gonna get for Chikorita in the Johto games.
 
/\ my bad, I confused the Ground resistence with Rock. Still, every game after Gen I gives you plenty of Pokemon tha aren't weak to the first gyms.
 
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