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Yeah i like gen 9 starter visual designs a lot more compared to gen 8, with even the two humanoid designs at least showing some good personality, but yeah their stats and movepools are. Not very interesting. I do have some ideas on how i might make them more fun to use if i ever put them in a romhack, but as is...eh.

Once i saw THAT style of thumbnail i knew it was over. The fall off of zen mode has begun 😭🙏

It'd be cool if you did a video about non starter Pokémon that should have been starters but the type stopped it. I might be biased because Ampharos is my favourite Pokémon, but I always thought Mareep would have been a good starter for Johto.

@zenmodeYT hey I’m pretty good at gen 3 rom hacking. If you want to send me your ideas for an emerald or FRLG improvement, I can make that so you have footage for a future video.

21:33 bitter blade But I agree that galar has the worst starter selection when I saw the final evolutions. However rillaboom grew on me with his hidden ability + grassy glide. Gen 9 was better but if only the rival just chose the better one against you.

I adore the gen 6 starters, the warrior-mage-rogue archetypes made them so characterful to me and Delphox remains my favourite to this day, even though I’ve been playing since Red and Blue first came to the UK! That doesn’t change the fact that everything you’ve said here is correct; especially the human-like designs. As much as I love Delphox, it’s pushing up against the boundary of being *too* human, and I wish it had stayed a quadruped, but then gen 8 put me off so much that I skipped it entirely! (Or rather, wasn’t willing to buy a Switch for them, which I changed for gen 9)

“Oh no the starters have design aspects that make them feel less bland than a lizard with wings or just a monkey on fire! How am I supposed to burlier these creatures with personalities, interests, and places within the natural balance of the world as merely cool creatures that spit fire or sap your strength with spores.” Pokémon has been going out of its was to show these creatures are more than creatures; they have places in the world like you do, interests, ways of existing. A group of the scorning line playing soccer with each other because they learned from the Galar (British analogous) peoples is cute; inteleon using its form to take high ground and snipe enemies in the wild could be informed by spies. What do charizards do I. The wild? Fly? Set shit on fire? Roar? Oh boy almost like any Pokémon that COULD do those activities. Incineroar being an asshole and begging for 1v1s and taunting it’s wild enemies is much more interesting than just swampert sitting in some mud, like a million other water or ground types would. Idk this is the most aggravating argument I see to the idea Pokémon have worst designs. Muk is sludge, diglett is a nub, machamp is a dude, ekans is a fucking snake. You have a proclivity to like the games you grew up with, before your brain developed anything close to media literacy and critique; and everytime this argument comes up, it’s devoid of the argument that it IS good that a kid who loves magic and maybe gets bullied over it can connect with meowscarada, or a group of friends with different interests can all love a different Galar starter. I hate this argument because it’s devoid of any view point or positive/negative weighing outside YOUR OWN biases.

❤

Skeledirge already is a defensive fire type starter, its only role in competitive has been defensive because it's very good at it. Torch song doesn't make it a special attacker, it's supposed to help it tank by spiraling out of control against poor responses from the opponent. Ironically serperior is a Pokémon that only ever has a role as a sweeper

I would love to watch a cartoon were the new desings are the main cast and get to talk, have jobs, plan adventures, decorate their houses... What I don´t love is leaving a bowl of dog food at their feet, letting them sleep on my bed like Pikachu and giving then belly rubs. They are not animals, they are desing to be human.

I would love to see a "Sound" type added and given to Rillaboom

Great video but I disagree that the issue debuted in Gen 6. I think you have to look at the popularity of Blaziken and Infernape in their generations to see where it started.

Alola was the first time I didn’t choose a fire type starter first because I was very off-put by Incineroar’s design, though Primarina being tailor made for my love of mermaids definitely sealed the deal

To me, Pokemon starters fell off in gen 4. I boxed my starter in gen 4, 5, 7, and 8. With none of them being really appealing to me and with a limited roster, why waste a spot on a pokemon I don't really like.

i feel that like humanish traits like Soccer, spy, dancer, mage etc are made that way is because for gens 5-9 there have been a need Pokemon making philosophy of making pokemon more related to the culture of the region in the real life version and having the culture in the starters make sense to show the culture of the place to the trainer

Id like to see a region where in the late game in a hidden area or as extremely rare spawns a second form of the final starters, showing how they are in the wild and your trusty partner is the domestic form. I think this would solve another aspect of the Trading Problem that modern games have been trying to fix by making Pokémon like Gengar available in the wild. Picture a Meowscarada thats super stealthy instead of being flamboyant because it was raised as a pet

The roleplaying and story you inject into these runs is so wonderful, inspired me to be more thoughtful with rpg playthroughs instead of just crunching numbers and going through the motions

The thing I hate about the Galar starters is that I absolutely adore Grookey and Sobble. I find them to be so adorable, they come off very much like pets, where their personalities feel, well...personal and emotional. Grookey's curiosity and optimism and Sobble's timidness bleed through their designs. But by the time they become Rillaboom and Inteleon, their "professions" ARE their personalities. I could never look at a Rillaboom and think "wow, he's happy/angry/feisty/cunning/reckless" I could just think "he's a drummer." Gen 9 is even worse. My favorite starters are the Bulbasaur, Cyndaquil, Totodile, and Turtwig lines, without a doubt, because they seem like cute-to-badass animals, rather than animal-to-humanoid professionals.

Time for something different. Fighting Dark Psychic Starter trio

I had a thought during the course of this video that i don't think I've seen anyone else comment... What if the starter trio were all types of a fully neutral triangle and their final forms gained the traditional Grass/Water/Fire triangle; almost the inverse of what we've gotten in recent years? I did some mapping and found that there are 16 triangles that are fully neutral to each other that specifically don't include the traditional triangle, Normal, Ghost, Dragon, or Steel (all types that are either too nonreactive or was too powerful/resistant for early game). I think the ones that interested me most were Electric/Ice/Fairly and Poison/Flying/Dark. The second one could also pass as the starter trio for an evil team game!

Haven’t met a Fire starter final form I didn’t like. Yes, even Cinderace but it’s probably the lowest on the list. But I did slightly regret my fire tradition when I saw Quaquaval because Quaquaval is one of my favorite starters of all time. But I think maybe I just unconsciously like Fighting Starters.

Rillaboom is very human like if you think about it. It reminds me more of a guy that is very fit and strong than a gorilla. Gorillas doesn't have that humanoid shape...

you're so right about the signature moves, skeledirge just clicks torch song and destroys all of paldea lol

Haven’t met a Fire starter final form I didn’t like. Yes, even Cinderace but it’s probably the lowest on the list.

delphox the mother you are

Torchic supremacy forever

I think the problem is that humanoid Pokémon are fairly uncommon, and usually their pre evolutions are also somewhat humanoid. Think Pokémon like lucario. Starters, however, are something you are forced to get, so unless you ditch them early on (Which you can do, but this is discouraged as your rival always keeps their starter), you’re stuck with them, and if you don’t like any of the designs, too bad.

They’re making them fur bait to get free advertising from the furry community. This is 100% the case, my uncle works at Gamefreak.

They're better that's it.

Some of these complaints feel like general issues unfairly thrown onto modern starters. Signature moves and the defined characteristics are only a good thing to me. It’s clear that generally modern starters as a whole stick out more compared to older sets.

This is the best gym leader rebalancing I have ever seen. I feel like a lot of youtubers don't really get what makes gym battles fun and interesting but you definitely do!

14:55 is a really weird point to get hung up on. Does anyone actually believe that the starters are wild pokemon? I always had the impression that they were the mainline WAR Pokemon bred by each nation, since they are never found in the wild!

This is the best Pokémon channel on RUclips. The way you speak about this series, about each little thing with so much passion and charm, you are an expert writer and you’ve created a wonderful series of work on RUclips.

Welp my region is 3 bear starters LOL

I think they need to experiment with giving starters new abilities. It's crazy that every trio has had the exact same base abilities since abilities themselves were introduced

Personally I LOVE the designs that brim with personality. But yeah, I cab see how it can be offputimg to others with making them more human like and giving the personality to the whole species (I dislike Incineroar and Innciderace myself), but god I LOVE decidueye, quaquaval, meowscarada, inteleon, greninja.I feel like pokemon has shifted from the pet aspect to a friend and partner. So while I understand your point I disagree heavily with you in plenty of your points, cuz I love this new direction, but I do agree that pokemon should balance it out, and they are doing that! Skeledirge is proof that animalistic designs still will be used as you pointed out. And gameplay wise I personally feel like the designs far outweigh the stats, idfc that thyplosion has the same stats as charizard, theor designs are so different that gameplay barely affects my view of them

I really dislike humanoid pokemon. I almost never use them. They weird me out, especially when they WEAR CLOTHING.

I think something interesting would be split-evolutions for starters. Picture one being more animalistic while the other more humanoid which will not only allow for them to play different roles but appeal to different types. Also for typing there are types that haven't been used at all for starters alongside types that have only been used once. I think fighting and dark are over done. I feel like the signature moves should also be status moves or work like body press and scale off of a non-attacking stat for a defensive/support based starter

Oof… that last line hit surprisingly hard.

I totally agree, when the designs get too humanoid they stop looking like a species of monster you can find in the wild and more like sentient characters from a show/game. This is made even worse with the human skills/professions, like a drummer, football player, singing with a microphone (on fire), assassin, magician, samba dancer, like good lord what's next, a cashier Pokemon?

I have a hard time faulting the new gen starter Pokemon, especially when they follow a lot of design elements of old gens in contrasts to some of the claims here. Meowscarada has a STAB move that automatically critical hits, just like Venusaur does in gen 1 with its Razor Leaf, and Venusaur gets to be backed by Sleep Powder as well. Skeledirge has a setup move that allows it to sweep through much of the game, similar to how Charizard can abuse Swords Dance and badge boosts in the first generation. All three gen 1 starter Pokemon even tend to play similarly as specially focused mixed attackers with good to great speed, while gen 2 starters riff on their stats if not copy them in the case of Cyndaquil. It’s also useful to consider the design elements of gens 8 and 9 in making the starter Pokemon so powerful. Scarlet and Violet are asking younger players to explore an open world and battle between 400 and 500 Pokemon instead of 150, so the partner Pokemon need to have stats and movepools that are optimized in a way that they stand out against all of the options the player will find and continue to be relevant even when they reach their final evolution stages. This is the kind of “power creep” argument, but it’s useful to point out that the type of game Pokemon is has changed to the point where players have to solve more battling problems, fight harder and smarter opponents, and battle a greater diversity and variety of Pokemon on each route, which means needing starter Pokemon that keep up. I think a lot of the gen 9 design sensibilities go back further than gen 6. It’s useful to point out that the more human like designs are more likely the result of needing to animate full 3d models of Pokemon instead of gliding around or stretching rigged sprites. Pokemon with more humanlike motions and walking are more easy to rig and animate, so it’s not unexpected that there would be a change from Pokemon like Charizard, Feraligatr, and Empoleon’s more bulky designs which weren’t made with the idea that players will see them in a 3d space so much as a representative snippet of pixel art. Beyond design aesthetics, gen 9 pulls not just from the gen 1 designs I mentioned earlier but also the experimentation with secondary type triangles and re-emphasizing that some Pokemon are going to struggle with different challenges in the game. A lot of early game experiences in Pokemon began to flatten from gen 3 onward, where the starter choice was less determinate of early boss difficulty as much as what people might use on their teams. Fire/Fighting types subverted early game challenges from Rock or Normal types. Several games including BW, SM, and SS balance the early game with a focus on Normal types and the starter type trio to give the player a balanced experience with little game difficulty change. I think the idea of the design philosophy of newer gen starter Pokemon is a lot more nuanced than this video taps into, both because of its length and because it would rely on considering a lot more of the contexts of hardware, developer design intent, and more broad and detailed cross-sectional comparisons of starter Pokemon. The point about the tiredness of the secondary type triangle doesn’t resonate with me as much because it’s been about 10 years and 4 gens of constant readjustment of it punctuated by gen 8 returning to the monotype starter triangle formula and a notably less core experience in Legends Arceus. Meanwhile, early gen Pokemon is getting by on echoing stat spreads of gen 1 starters in gen 2, having a Fire/Fighting type for 3 gens in a row, and incomplete movepools or locked abilities that left a lot to be desired until gen 6. All of the Pokemon games have very different approaches to how they construct their difficulty and their intent for how players are supposed to interact with starter Pokemon. Was it a bad experience that you, like me, did not want to take a gen 8 starter? I used that as an opportunity to build a whole fresh team of Pokemon I found in the bountiful Wild Area and decouple myself from the obligation to run my Grookey all the time when SWSH is generous with EXP. I liked Fuecoco in SV, but I brought a rotating party of Pokemon around the region similar to SWSH, a choice the game affirmed. I appreciate a lot of the questions around newer gen designs, because I do feel that Pokemon is qualitatively different and more vocal about what the process is for designing the starter trio of games as a sort of trial balloon meets media hype circus meets color wars. I hope you revisit this topic again and go more into depth on what starter Pokemon are supposed to do in their respective games, and how they interact with changing mechanical landscapes in situations like remakes, post-game rewards, and later gen scenarios like XY and SM and SS and SV where there’s a range of potential for players to obtain first partner Pokemon outside of their own starter choice.

The Quaxly line, especially Quaquaval, have legit become my second favorite starter of all time. It overtook the Turtwig line, but the Snivy line will always come first for me. I agree that Gen 8 has the worst set of starters by far, I don't like any of the evolved forms, and I HATE Thwacky and Drizzile

Starter Pokemon are no often to the Pokemon you often see in the wild, like sure Gardevoir is eerily a humanoid Pokemon but much of the community loves that Pokemon, would you say you'll like Gardevoir if she was a starter Pokemon. Also I find it funny you'll say you hate Gen 8 starters like sure Cinderace & Inteleon I can understand but Rillaboom is literally an gorilla size monkey and you just said you love Infernape right after that! Also everyone has there preference when it comes to the latest fully evolve starters, for me it's Quaquaval for how expressive & fruity that Pokemon is and it's design is that of Carnival dancer that's fits in region Brazil which Paldea is base from. Gamefreak despite their business practices have actually done well with designing the Pokemon/Starters on what region they're base on.

The starter trio I want to see, in a region based on China perhaps, would be to have all 3 starters become different types of dragon. The main reason we've never had a dragon starter (Aside from mega-sceptile) is that it would be resistant to both the other starter types, but if they all got the same treatment then that would be moot. And it would be a different version of the dark, psychic, fighting trio, except they're just all good against each other

I hate gen 4 cause i can never decide between the three starters. They’re all too good ! 🥹

I don't know where to even start with this shit. I will give you this: Starters that all gravitate towards being humanoid and having a high-power signature move doesn't make for variating playstyles among them. It's basically the same bomb with different colors. Signature moves SHOULD be the most useful moves in that mon's kit, otherwise everyone would pick earthquake and U-turn every time. However, whatever signature move that starter may have should function vastly differently from its peers. Still, the fact that these signature moves exist at all shows that GameFreak came up with ways to differentiate them from past starters. They can't change type in a way that disrupts the type triangle, but they can move around everything else, and signature moves are very memorable and iconic to a Pokemon's design. They also tie well into their designs and origins, which I feel are becoming more creative with time. Charizard is literally just a dragon that's technically not even a dragon, but Quaquaval is a capoeira-using samba-dancing peacock. How is that not interesting and cool? Also, starters being strong makes sense when you consider the fact that the other Pokemon in the same region are also getting stronger as well. It's not a "starters being strong" problem, even if the generation 9 starter's signature moves all basically function the same. It's always been a general "the bosses are too weak" problem. I WOULD be annoyed at starters being strong if it weren't for the fact that Pokemon like Garganacl, Espathra, and Kingambit are all ridiculously strong too. Power creep is a problem, but that's not solely Meowscarada's or Skeledirge's fault. The fault is on Gamefreak for making Paldea an easy region to pick up hundreds of potions and rare candies on the ground, as well as XP candies being far too good. The Pokemon in general are more powerful than ever, but the boss fights aren't hard enough and Paldea in particular has the illusion of choice and a hilariously scrambled level curve. You COULD do the gyms and titans in any order, but if you go to the wrong spot, you will get destroyed. "OOPS, better use all my XP candies to get through this hard boss fight! Huh! Why is my Meowscarada destroying EVERY SINGLE other boss with one hit??" Starter strength is not the problem. It's the balance of the game it's in that's the problem. Furthermore, I disagree heavily with the notion that humanoid Pokemon don't belong. Do they make sense as animals? Hell no. Neither does Voltorb. Or Grimer. Or Mr. Mime. Your idea that Mr. Mime and Machamp were meant to be taken as jokes that don't belong in real-world nature falls apart when you look at literally any Pokemon based on a possessed object or magical fairy. It's a children's RPG about magic animals that can fit in tiny metal balls. It doesn't have to make sense to be cool. I believe Gamefreak's trend of humanoid starters - while monotonous - to be an interesting creative choice. I've noticed that GF doesn't make humanoid Pokemon as common in a general sense, but when they do work on a humanoid Pokemon, it's usually a starter. It drives home the point that Pokemon aren't just pets, they're our PARTNERS. This makes me think that GF wants the starter to stand out further from all the other members of your team by being relatable to you the player instead of making them look like any other magical pet on your team. As long as this balance is kept where the only humanoid Pokemon you are likely to have on your team that's not a joke is the starter you've had since the beginning and grew up with you the whole journey, I have no problems whatsoever. What I do have an issue with is the idea of an "easy, medium, hard" mode when it comes to starters. I can't possibly comprehend how choosing a starter that's straight-up an inferior choice based on the challenges ahead is good game design. If your starter is weak to the next 3 gyms in a row, that's not "hard mode." That's bad game design. All 3 starters should be decent in their OWN way, not strictly worse than its peers for an in-game playthrough. As easy as Paldea is, it did that part well. Every type has a specialist to battle, and any bad matchup for your starter can be fixed with the sheer amount of other mons available to you in an open world. I understand that having an underdog story where your starter clutches a win is compelling, but that's because the boss fight you barely beat had a great strategy or moveset you had to work around, NOT because they had the type you're weak against. A loss that was decided solely by the type matchup feels incredibly cheap when compared to a loss that was decided because your strategy wasn't as good. The gym leaders don't have to be smart, but... give them a coverage move I didn't expect. More held items. Hidden abilities maybe. Even have them hard switch sometimes for a more favorable matchup. Just something that makes them not brainless. Oh, and definitely give the rival the starter strong against yours. That NEEDS to return, along with Set Mode being on by default. I'm so mad they took Set Mode out. TLDR, I love the way the modern starters are being designed, even if I wish there was more variety in their body type and playstyle. Zen Mode, If you have decided to Volt Switch from making cool ROM hack videos that try to rebalance a Pokemon in a way that fits their personality and design to doomposting about modern Pokemon games and saying that GameFreak is ruining Pokemon by not doing things the way YOU want them to, then I will unsubscribe. I don't need that kind of negativity in my life, especially slander on my favorite videogame franchise coming out of the mouth of someone who I presumed to be a fan just like me.

Starters should lean more to the animalistic side. They are meant to be like a best friend like a dog. You wouldn’t want your dog to stand up like a person and be a juggler. The starters shouldn’t make you uncomfortable. If Pikachu was humanoid the franchise would not be where it is today.

I see the complaints online about the humanoid designs, but these designs end up leading in popularity polls each generation. The hate might just be a minority opinion. I don’t care either way. Pokémon are not just pets. I agree with what you said about the issues with the mechanics.

I see the complaints online about the humanoid designs, but these designs end up leading in popularity polls each generation. The hate might just be a minority opinion. I don’t care either way. Pokémon are not just pets. I agree with what you said about the issues with the mechanics.

I strongly disagree that picking an "easy, medium, or hard" run with your starter is a good thing. The three don't need to be perfectly equal, but you shouldn't be heavily punished for picking your favorite. I started in gen 2 and Meganium was my favorite, and I was punished for that, as it was the "hard" option. That isn't satisfying, especially to a little kid. As adults, of course we want a challenge, but our starter shouldn't be what sets it. Just give us a difficulty setting instead.