Generation 1: Worst Pokemon?

[randomspot555]

I have to still disagree with you:

Magikarp Being Used to Destroy Team of all Legendary Pokemon
Sunkern Being Used to Destroy Whole Team

Both of these are either incredibly staged or the example of facing a complete idiot. Against a competent battler, this wouldn't have happened. Everyone pretty quickly learns that Baton Pass is one of those strategies that people love trying out when they first battle. Usually with an Eevee team. And yes if you pass a zillion Calm Minds and Acid Armor and Aqua Rings and Swords Dances and so on, you'll be unstoppable with almost anything. But the likelihood of getting there against someone who isn't a complete idiot is very, very small.

So yes, I'm willing to go out on a limb and say that Magikarp is a weak Pokemon. Against non-idiots, he is useful in 0 situations. However, he serves an important lesson that, with some patience and training, a weak Pokemoon can evolve and become one of the most enduring competitively used Pokemon throughout each generation. Against a non-idiot, Butterfree loses to Heatran 100% of the time.

You may say "But what about using a TEAM to beat it???" and then I counter that with "The opponent also has a team of six Pokemon with similar power levels such as Heatran or whatever".

This does not make these Pokemon bad. Hey, they can even compete quite competitively against Pokemon of similar power levels, for lack of a better term. But to say that any Pokemon has a realistic chance of beating even the most powerful among them is a naive statement.

It is very possible to pawn stat/ability/type/movepool superior Pokemon with your favorite lower ones if you set up the right dynamics. There is no such thing as a "weak" or "strong" Pokemon; it is all relative to the situation at hand.

Pokemon isn't about stats; it's about strategy.

This is true. But to execute a wining strategy you must have Pokemon that can do the job. In most situations, the most powerful Pokemon such as Cover and Event Exclusive Legendaries can typically only be beaten by Pokmeon with a similar power level. Butterfree, or a team of Butterfree and Farfetch'd and so on, are never going to take down a team of Dialga, Palkia, and Mewtwo.

 

[Missingno.Fan]

I know that some of the early Pokemon are not as creative when compared to more modern Pokemon. One that always bothered me was Grimer to Muk. The only difference is that it was bigger and darker.

 

[jesusfreak94]

I have to still disagree with you:

Magikarp Being Used to Destroy Team of all Legendary Pokemon
Sunkern Being Used to Destroy Whole Team

It is very possible to pawn stat/ability/type/movepool superior Pokemon with your favorite lower ones if you set up the right dynamics. There is no such thing as a "weak" or "strong" Pokemon; it is all relative to the situation at hand.

Pokemon isn't about stats; it's about strategy. Maybe on-on-one, the Pokemon is weak but if you combine it with a team (which is the whole point of Pokemon), it can utterly destroy anything that it comes across.

To be honest, I had a far better Sunkern sweep than that back in BW1 OU, and I didn't need a crazy Baton Pass team and a bad opponent to do it. I literally just forced the guy's Swampert out, set up Growth in Sun, and OHKO'd his Garchomp, Starmie, and Swampert to win the game. Even then, though, that sweep could have been performed with literally any Chlorophyll sweeper with a decently powerful Grass attack and HP Ice. If it wasn't for the novelty of using Sunkern, I would have been far better off with Venusaur or something.

But yeah, I'm going to have to say that stats, abilities, types, and movepools do matter. A lot. Pokemon is a game of numbers and raw luck, and some Pokemon are statistically weaker than others. Just because Sunkern can sweep bad players with a ridiculous amount of support doesn't mean that it isn't weak. In fact, those sorts of battle examples prove just how weak Sunkern really is, seeing as how you need so much support just to make up for its pitiful stats. Just think what your team would be capable of if you were basing a Baton Pass chain around something with far better stats and moves.

Also, can we please stop quoting Karen all the time? I don't mind if you like her philosophy on favorite Pokemon, but her advice should not be taken when talking about actual Pokemon strength and ability in battle. Seriously, she gets destroyed by a 10 year-old every time some kid beats their game, and she comes at you with a Gengar whose strongest move is Lick. She's not exactly a battling virtuoso.

 

[zozo]

Hmm... whenever I see a thread like this one, I almost feel bad just answering the OPs original question, then leaving. I mean, the thread doesn't really seem to be about the worst Pokemon from Gen I anymore...

But whatever. It's an interesting question, I'd like to answer it, so here's my opinion:

Pidgey. Of all the birds in Gen I, I find Pidgey to be the ugliest and least appealing. Luckily for Pidgey, it eventually evolves into Pidgeot, who is much nicer. But it's still a horribly boring Pokemon, especially since it's supposed to be one of the first ones you encounter in the games. It was kind of like Bidoof, in that sense. You start the game, you're excited to begin your adventure, aaaaaand one of the first Pokemon you see is a brown blob. Seems Gen III was the only one to really get the first few Pokemon right. Near the beginning, you get Zigzagoon (who is extremely cute and really different-looking from any of the other rodents, until it evolves, anyway) and Taillow (bright colours, sleek design, really appealing). All the other games seem to really force you through a bunch of terribly boring pokemon right at the beginning.
Runner up is Rattata/Raticate who are horrifically ugly. For the longest time, Raticate topped my list as ugliest all time Pokemon, along with Clefable.

As a bonus, the best Gen I pokemon are Gengar, Mewtwo, Tauros, Marowak, and Pinsir. Kangaskahn gets an honourable mention for being a bad*** female. The thing that really made Gen I Pokemon great in my eyes was the fact that there were so many monstrous Pokemon. I really enjoy those! However, the big downfall for that gen's Pokemon, in my eyes, was the fact that the colour palette was very drab. I know that the capabilities of the GB and GBC were very limited, but even after the hardware got more advanced the colours remained pretty blah, especially when compared with newer Pokemon that seem to have many more colours. That's one thing I'm really enjoying about more recent gens, they seem to be progressively more colourful.

 

[Inferno Vulpix]

A few Pokemon are not the full representation of an entire region, as anti-genwunners would argue. The same applies here, that there are good Pokemon mixed in with the inevitable bad ones. However, it should be noted that it is surprisingly easy to make anything sound horrible. With minimal effort you can make any Pokemon sound like the lamest design ever, (an Ice Cream Pokemon? Seriously?(Note: This is not how I regard Vanilluxe)). All you need to do is ignore good details, and focus on things you can easily make fun of.

That aside, I have a bit of a defense for Gen 1. As we know, technology was not as good back then. The entirety of Pokemon Red is a whopping 1MB, where Pokemon Black is nearly 256MB. It's actually quite surprising Pokemon Red was as extensive as it was with such little to work with. Also, the development period was not the best before the initial releases. The project took way longer than anticipated, and Game Freak nearly went bankrupt trying to make it, with many employees quitting and Satoshi working unpaid a lot. This was before Pokemon became a hit, obviously, so there also weren't excessive funds to make it easier.

to sum all that up: making Gen 1 was hard. And so I think that we can excuse the necessity for sub-par work, even if it as such.

Another thing to note about the lack of size of gen 1, that meant that there was a lot of content that could've been there, but wasn't. The whole theory of Cubone and Kangaskhan family tree thing could have been intended, but the lack of space prevented it from being fully realized, for example. But take the lack of space to work things out with and all you have of Cubone is a Ground type who just so happens to be found in Pokemon Tower and has some features that make excellent fan theory fuel, not the tragic orphaned child of Kangaskhan those theories speculate it might be.

 

[Icychalk]

I basically love all Pokémon but I will agree that there are some designs that could of had more work put into them. Most people are probably not going to like me for saying this but I don't like Charizard's design. Well I do like Charizard (Except Ash's Charizard in the anime.) because I love reptiles. Charizard is my least favorite of the Kanto starters because of how plain the design is. I feel like the Pokémon in the Charizard line look way too similar. Charizard just seems like a really uncreative Pokémon to me overall and I find that very disappointing. Now design-wise I feel like one of the most uncreative Pokémon is Poliwrath. It looks exactly the same as Poliwhirl. But this is my opinion on a couple of the Gen 1 Pokémon. I will admit design-wise many of the Gen 1 Pokémon are uncreative. Although I wouldn't say a Pokémon like Geodude is uncreative. It's based on something you can see in a mountainous area which is well... rocks. Just like how treats, ,machines, and pollution can be found in a city like New York. (Vanillite, Trubbish, and Klink.) All Generations have their share of uncreative Pokémon. But despite all this I love them all.

 

[Ampy]

What a rude thing to say. Instead of actually contributing to the topic, you're bashing on someone who actually is. Stop being a jerk.

To be fair, coming in and claiming that this thread is going to end in disaster multiple times is hardly contributing to the discussion.

Jynx is the obvious choice here.

 

[Dooppliss]

I've never really liked Ekans/Arbok. My shiny Arbok is the only shiny I've ever traded away. Why? Because it was gathering dust in my PC Box.
Quite frankly, I think Muk's kinda cute. (readies hate shield)

 

[Flying Weasel]

Muk and Grimer are literally piles of sludge with mouths.

Geodude is literally a rock with arms.

Magikarp is pretty much just a karp.

They barely bothered to changed Mankey's name from the real-life animal it is based on.




This is pretty much how Trubbish is described in W1's dex and Garbador in B2W2.



...so?

You seem to think that I'm attacking Garbodor for being garbage or for being uncreative, and just to clarify I'm not nor was I trying to. I was merely stating why I dislike the pokemon. I don't like it but I can respect other peoples opinions for liking it. I don't care if a pokemon is goo with a face, a rock with arms, a chandelier, or a bunch of gears combined into one. I just don't like the idea of garbage for the simple fact that it is product waste turned into a pokemon. When I think of garbage I imagine rotten banana peels, egg shells, spoiled food, vacuum cleaner waste, milk cartons, and any other vile thing you find in a trash can. And I PERSONALLY don't find all of that coming to life and trying to give me a hug appealing.

If they want to make more pokemon made of slime, goo, sewage, mulch, gas, or anything else like that then I'm fine with it. If they want to make more pokemon made of garbage then they can go ahead. I don't care if you like it or not. I won't attack you if you say it's your favorite pokemon in the whole world. So please don't attack me if I say I hate it. It's my opinion, it means nothing, it won't change anything, so please don't attack me by pointing out "uncreative 1st gen designs" for stating it.

And regarding the slime monster Muk thing. It was a popular and common concepts for enemies/monsters in Japanese RPGs, and because of this people didn't care that much about it being a glob of goo with arms and a mouth. It was a popular concept and GameFreak was most likely just hopping on the bandwagon when they designed it.

If you like Garbodor then more power to you, but I personally don't. I'm not a fan of the concept and I dislike it, but I'm not going attack everyone that says they do just because I disagree with them. All I said was that I don't like it because I don't like the idea of garbage I never said it was uncreative or a terrible concept. In fact living garbage is a pretty original design, it's just not one that I personally like. There's a difference between disliking something and just attacking it.

 

[mjunior3]

As far as "Worst Pokemon" go, I would have expected from a battle standpoint. But I found it a thread where you complain about design. I have no problem with the designs of Pokemon (Yes, I'm fine with a Sludge and Garbage Pokemon). I do have problems with power. It may say "Worst", but I don't think it should be based on design. I saw something about Electabuzz, yet he is used in alot of teams because he is strong. If we used Pokemon based on design, we would have only cool looking Pokemon, vs. effective Pokemon. I vote Farfecht'd, because it's weak.

 

[melonjaywalk]

So uhm.

We can at least agree that nostalgia gets in the way of fair judgements in circumstances where someone says 'These new Pokemon look terrible and the first generation was way better and more original' because each generation has it's fair share of 'good' or 'bad' Pokemon which in itself is a matter of opinion.

Yes?

I just wanna' ask why did Poliwag evolve into a tadpole and then another tadpole. Before Generation 2. I mean, wow.

 

[Swampert is my Homeboy]

I prefer the majority of the Pokemon in the first gen to the majority of those in the second gen.

The second gen is my least favorite of them all.

 

[The Sylveon Mastermind]

So uhm.


I just wanna' ask why did Poliwag evolve into a tadpole and then another tadpole. Before Generation 2. I mean, wow.

Biology.
Some tadpoles don't become frogs.
Seriously guys, they don't make random Pokemon designs without reason.

 

[melonjaywalk]

Biology.
Some tadpoles don't become frogs.
Seriously guys, they don't make random Pokemon designs without reason.

Mm. I thought for variation that a frog would be like, logical. Because I mean, first generation at all, no guarantee it'd be a hit, that they'd want as many different types as possible. I guess not though I mean, we've already been over how Pokemon even now 'aint always gonna' change too much when they evolve. Even in the first generation..

I seriously thought that the whole Poli- forever tadpole thing was just

sheer laziness lal? Probably not. Like you said..

 

[The Sylveon Mastermind]

Mm. I thought for variation that a frog would be like, logical. Because I mean, first generation at all, no guarantee it'd be a hit, that they'd want as many different types as possible. I guess not though I mean, we've already been over how Pokemon even now 'aint always gonna' change too much when they evolve. Even in the first generation..

I seriously thought that the whole Poli- forever tadpole thing was just

sheer laziness lal? Probably not. Like you said..

I don't think it was lazy, but I see what you mean.

 

[CeilBlack]

I will be honest there is a pokemon in gen 1 that I hate more than pretty much any other pokemon in any game. I can not stand Exeggutor. I have no particular reason to hate it either. I have just never liked it.

Oh and while we are at it add F***ing Dunsparce to that list. He is my closest for 2nd worst pokemon ever made.

 

[Chapter]

Now before I start let me say one thing, I'm not saying that Gen 1 was the worst gen. I'm saying that if it wasn't the first, everybody would hate the pokemon. I expect a lot of hate when i finish. Lets get started.

I love gen1 more than any other region, and I'd say the single pkmn I dislike in the gen has to be... Oh, no one. Gen 1 had no precedent to follow- it WAS the precedent and had no limits to being too similar to other pkmn! it's the first region and had creativity available to it.

 

[CeilBlack]

So chapter your telling me that their is not a single pokemon in first gen that you would never use?

 

[Typikachu]

Worst 1st gen pokemon. Zubat, yep Zubat. Why they no leave you alone? Can I at least once go through a cave and not run into a Zubat.

 

[Shymain]

So chapter your telling me that their is not a single pokemon in first gen that you would never use?

There's a difference between not disliking them and actually just stating that you outright have no problem with any of them at all. Just because you like a Pokèmon doesn't mean you'll use it just because it's not bad. Heck, I don't even use many of my fave Pikemon because there are others that take precedence over them!

And excuse me for answering for you, CoC, but, yes, if it came right down to it, I would be happy to use pretty much any Pokèmon there is.