#152-154: Chikorita, Bayleef and Meganium

Ok, so to rip-off Professor Sprout: "Welcome to Greenhouse 3, second gen!" Yeah, because we're kicking off gen two with the grass-type starter!

Chikorita was one of the starters in Gold, Silver and Crystal, the latter being the first Pokemon game I played. I did say I was late to the party. Anyway, it was one of the starters I overlooked, so it'll be interesting to see what I missed out on (except that was a long time ago and it's now utterly different). As I've mentioned, you're a grass-type, but you have rather disappointing stats, with some 40s (45 in HP and speed, 49 in the attacks) and some indifferent defence (65 in both). It suffers from the balance issue, clearly. You get the ability overgrow (boosts grass attacks to 1.5x power when your health falls to a third), with the hidden ability of leaf guard (in sunlight, you are immune to status conditions, including self-induces sleep by use of rest). Neither ability is that great, to be honest.

You can see why I didn't take it...

Is there any point in telling you that you start with tackle and growl, or any point in describing them? Go back and look at virtually any one I've written so far, I'll wait... Back? Good. Razor leaf comes in at level 6, hitting as a grass physical move with base 55 power, 95 accuracy, a boosted critical hit rate, the ability to hit all adjacent foes and the ability to cut grass in generation 6 battlefields. Poison powder carries 75 accuracy but will lead to the foe being poisoned (unless immune for whatever reason), and synthesis heals you, with the amount of healing being based on the weather (2/3rds max for sunshine, half for normal and quarter for rain), so this could be useful if you have leaf guard and can't rest...

You evolve a little early at level 16, so reflect coming in at 17 suggests that it probably belongs in another paragraph. Reflect effectively halves physical damage that would be sustained by the team for five turns. Magical leaf ignores the accuracy check and is a special move, so therefore is basically a grass version of swift, whilst natural gift hits with different powers and typings based on the berry you are holding. There are lots of berries... Sweet scent lowers the foe's evasiveness, and if used in the overworld (like you would use an HM) when in the grass, it will cause a wild Pokemon to attack, in some places provoking a horde battle. Remember a couple of lines ago I mentioned reflect? Well take that, swap physical for special and for some reason add 10 PP and you get light screen instead. Body slam is fairly powerful at base 85 (doubled if the foe is minimized), with a 30% chance to paralyse a foe as a 100 accuracy normal physical move. Safeguard protects the team for a few turns from the chance of picking up status problems (did someone forget leaf guard), and aromatherapy heals the whole party of status issues. The last level move is solar beam (you know the drill: base 120 grass special move with a charge turn unless used in sunshine). Why are there so many things that work with sunshine?

As far as TMs go, you get a rather standard array, with toxic included to make poison powder rather irrelevant. You can pick up sunny day here if you like the risk, hidden power can be used for coverage, protect could be useful, return/frustration depend on how much you love it. The thing is, you don't get the moves like thunder, flamethrower and ice beam, so every damaging move seems to be normal or grass... Hmm... Rest does nothing with sunny leaf guard, round, echoed voice and energy ball (base 90 grass special) all pop up, along with swords dance of all things. Substitute is there to shield you from fire damage for a nano-second, swagger and confide are there, and so is cut.

Breeding can grant you ancient power, which does base 60 rock special damage and can boost all your stats, which is ace, and you can also grab counter since you're really slow (but you lack the HP to allow it to work), flail can be used to go well with your terrible HP and ok defences as it hits harder the weaker you are. Leaf storm is there as a base 130 grass special move that will drop your special attack by a couple of stages, heal pulse and ingrain can be used as running a tanky set, as can leech seed, which can drain some health from the foe each turn. Aside from that, the rest are pretty dull and uninspired. The tutor is fairly similar, with iron tail, worry seed, synthesis and snore cropping up. However, you can pick up seed bomb as a base 80 grass physical move, giga drain as a base 75 grass special move that will also heal you a bit, and grass pledge (guess the type) as a base 80 special move that can be combined in multi-battles with water and fire pledge, doubling the power output, and creating a hazard foe the foes: water+grass gives a swamp that drops speed, fire+grass gives a fire that does 1/8th HP damage per turn.

I mentioned you evolve at 16, and you become a Bayleef. You're still a disappointment. 60 HP and speed, 62 physical and 63 special attack and 80 in the defences. Still nothing really looking too good. Also no change to abilities. You know what else doesn't change? The movelists... Boring...

It looks like a crappy dinosaur with a sword in its head...

It may be boring, but that means we can skip straight ahead to level 32 and Meganium. It has mega in the name, so it has to be good, right? Right? The base stat total is lower than both the other starters of the gen (they nail 530 and 534, this caps at 525), but that doesn't make it bad. The spread of stats makes it bad. Add 20 to all the stats of Bayleef and you're there. Not enough bulk to tank, not enough defence in either to really wall too well, not enough speed or offence to offer a sweep. Jack of all trades, master of none: this is pretty much right, but it doesn't really offer much in any format due to the stats, the abilities and the poor movesets. Wow! I've summed it up already. It also lacks a mega as of writing.

Just... What?

Yeah, this is probably the weakest starter ever. I'll leave it at that since I've bashed it a fair bit already...

(All artwork presented by Ken Sugimori, taken from the Bulbapedia image archives)