Pokemon Diamond & Pearl Still Has The Best Starter Trio In The Series’ History
Infernape, Empoleon, and Torterra still make up the best starter trio in Pokemon history.
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My favourite starters of all time are probably Squirtle, Mudkip, and Popplio – guess what my favourite type is, eh? – and I’m a huge fan of Grookey, Pokemon Sword & Shield’s mischievous little grass monkey. These ‘mons account for Gens 1, 3, 7, and 8, respectively, so it’s probably going to sound a bit weird when I say that Gen 4 has the best starter trio ever designed – but it’s true.
Anyone who has ever played a Pokemon game knows that mainline starters are separated into three types: Water, Fire, and Grass. This trifecta is strategically designed to facilitate the main story. What I mean is, in all games but the most recent ones, your rival will pick the Pokemon that is super-effective against yours. If you choose Chikorita, Silver – the best Pokemon rival ever – will nick Cyndaquil from Professor Elm.
Navigating the type effectiveness triangle of a starter trio generally operates on a one-way basis. Squirtle beats Charmander, Charmander beats Bulbasaur, Bulbasaur beats Squirtle, and so on. In Gen 4, though, things are different, mostly because it used secondary typings to excellent effect. Despite being introduced in Gen 3 – and retroactively applied to Gen 1 – secondary typings for starters weren’t very well considered at first. Swampert, the Water and Ground type, was 4x weak to Sceptile, who was 2k weak to Blaziken, who was 2x weak to but could pack a serious punch against Swampert. It was all a bit messy – although it’s worth noting that both Blaziken and Swampert have aged almost stupidly well, to the point that they’re almost guaranteed to be overpowered forever in at least some capacity.
With Gen 4, things were different. In their fully evolved forms, all three starters were individually capable of checking both of the remaining ones. Torterra’s access to STAB Ground attacks meant it could hit Infernape like a truck, while Infernape’s Fighting-type gave it the ability to hit Empoleon super-effectively. Empoleon, meanwhile, used its Steel typing to resist and wallop Torterra’s Grass and Ground halves, respectively. The ordinary type effectiveness dynamic is still mostly in place, but the counters are less hard and unforgiving – if you play your cards right, you can stay in against the starter you’re weak to and smash it.
Unfortunately, this has yet to be replicated in the series since. Gen 6 actually went in the opposite direction, positioning the Fire/Psychic Delphox as a complete hard counter to the Grass/Fighting Chesnaught, while the Water/Dark Greninja was 4x super-effective against Delphox. Going from all three starters being decent against each other back to the traditional trifecta structure but increasing super-effectiveness to 4x just seems… silly. Meanwhile, most of the other post-Gen 4 starters simply maintained their primary typing the whole way through their evolutionary line. Gen 7 is an exception to this rule, but its starter trio is just a bit weird. Great Pokemon, mind, but the dynamic is strange, almost arbitrary – poor Decidueye was designed to get battered.
It’s intriguing to see that not only are Diamond & Pearl being remade at the moment – Legends Arceus is also set in Sinnoh, although with a different starter trio. Don’t get me wrong, I like the starters it chose, but it seems like a bit of a missed trick opting for two single-type final evolutions in the region that made secondary typings truly matter. If there’s one thing I want to see in Gen 9’s starters, it’s an homage to how clever and considered Gen 4’s trio was.
Cian Maher is the Lead Features Editor at TheGamer. He’s also had work published in The Guardian, The Washington Post, The Verge, Vice, Wired, and more. You can find him on Twitter @cianmaher0.
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