Pokemon One-Shots and Headcanons

The Most Overrated Starter in Every Generation

In my honest opinion, it's a bit hard to decide what counts as an overrated Pokémon because so many people make the mistake of assuming that just because a Pokemon happens to be popular, it automatically means it's overrated. For this post, I decided to take into consideration how popular each starter is compared to the other two from each respective generation, as well as how deserving that Pokemon really is of their popularity.

Before I get too much into things, I do want to point out that just because a Pokemon is on this list doesn't mean I dislike it. As a matter of fact, a lot of the ones I'll be talking about today are ones that are some of my favorite Pokémon of all time. Also, this is just my own opinion so don't take anything to heart. With that being said, let's get into the list.

Gen 1: Charizard

I'm sorry to all the die hard Charizard fans out there, but there's no way our favorite fire lizard wasn't going to be on this list. Now, don't get me wrong, I absolutely love Charizard. However, there's no denying that for all the hype it gets (and it gets quite a bit), it's not really all that good a Pokemon. Not only is it the worst starter to pick in Red and Blue, but it's absolute horrendous in competitive play without its mega forms. Without its mega forms, Charizard ranks all the way down in the PUBL tier, which, for anyone who doesn't know, is only slightly above the tier for the worst fully evolved Pokémon in competitive play. And yes, I'm aware that Blastoise and Venusaur aren't all that great without their mega forms either, but they're not hyped up nearly as much as Charizard.

Gen 2: Meganium

This one was a bit difficult since it's hard to say which of the Johto starters is the most popular of the bunch. As a matter of fact, I've seen a lot of love for all three within the fan base. Unfortunately for Meganium, however, it suffers from the curse of a lot of grass-type starters in that it's just not very good. It's terrible in Gen 2 playthroughs and it's even worse than Charizard in competitive play. I know Meganium has good defenses, but those are literally the only good stats it has. Everything else I would have to say is average at best. Besides all that, Meganium also has an extremely shallow level up move pool. Feraligatr can at least be used as a bulky physical attacker and Typhlosion makes a good speedy special attacker, but with Meganium the most you can hope for is to get a bit of chip away damage while praying that it has enough defensive power to survive hits long enough to get the knockout.

Gen 3: Sceptile

Now, I know a lot of people think Blaziken is actually the overrated one, and I won't deny that Blaziken is definitely a popular Pokémon. However, unlike Sceptile, at least Blaziken is actually good even without its mega form. Speaking as someone who loves Sceptile, I can almost guarantee that if Ash didn't get a Sceptile that turned out to be one of his best Pokémon, no one would give this thing a second glance. Not only does Sceptile have five type disadvantages (the most out of all the Hoenn starters), it was the only one not given a secondary typing to provide a counter to its weaknesses or a boost to its advantages. Well, that is, until Mega Sceptile became a thing and, surprise, it turned out to be arguably even worse than regular Sceptile. I know I was beating on Charizard earlier for only getting into a good competitive tier because of its mega forms, but at least it got into a good tier. Mega Sceptile didn't even make it into the UU tier. Why? Simple-because it's absolutely terrible. While the added dragon typing provides a counter to its fire weakness, that's literally the only counter it provides. Mega Sceptile is weak to six different types, one of which is a quad weakness. All it takes is one Ice Beam and this thing is as good as dead. But if that wasn't bad enough, someone at GameFreak thought it would be an amazing idea to give Mega Sceptile the ability Lightning Rod. Seriously? Why on earth couldn't Mega Sceptile have been given Unburden as an ability? It's already extremely fast, so an Unburden Mega Sceptile with a sitrus berry would make for an amazing offensive threat. Besides, Unburden is already the hidden ability of regular Sceptile. But no, instead they decided to give it freaking Lightning Rod, because of course people are stupid enough to use an electric-type move on a grass/dragon Pokemon. And yes, I'm aware that it's mostly for Doubles play, but who on earth is going to use any sort of electric-type move with a Mega Sceptile on the field even in that scenario?