Hardest starter

[Guitar God in Training]

I'm basing my choices on how easy it is to beat the game with just your starter as any starter is easy if you make the right team.

Charmander
Chikorita
Treecko
Turtwig

Treecko because of Wattson's Magnemites and Flannery's Torkoal seems to be able to take an annoyingly high amount of damage and can probably take you out with Overheat.
Turtwig because of it's double weakness to Candice's Pokemon, other than that the 4th gen starters seem to balance quite well due to the dual types.

 

[jellsprout]

If you do a starter solo, this is probably the ranking for each generation:
R/B:
1. Squirtle. It doesn't have any trouble with the first two Gyms, you can skip the third Gym till later in the game, you have Ice Beam by the fourth Gym and it is either neutral against the other Gyms or it has the advantage. Either way, it is overleveled enough to not have any trouble. In the E4 with a set of Surf/Ice Beam/Earthquake/filler you have type advantage against every Pokémon except for Lorelei's Pokémon and Bruno's Fighting Pokémon, non of who can do anything back. The rival is should also be easy to beat, especially with Ice Beam to KO Venasaur. I don't think the other rival battles are difficult either with Squirtle's bulk.
2. Charmander. It will have trouble during the first two Gyms, but after that it is smooth sailing. Fire, Normal and Ground provide pretty decent coverage.
3. Bulbasaur. It sails through most Gyms, but it is terrible in the rival battles and against the E4. It only learns Grass and Normal type moves, giving it terrible coverage.

Yellow:
1. Pikachu. Duh.

G/S/C:
1. Totodile. A Totodile solo is so easy, the game isn't even fun anymore. Surf/Ice Punch/Return/Earthquake beats everything in the game.
2. Cyndaquil. Not as easy as Totodile, but Flamethrower(or Fire Punch at lower levels)/Thunder Punch/Eartquake/Return still beats everything with ease.
3. Chikorita. Not overly difficult like Bulbasaur, but not easy like Totodile either. With Tackle and Mud Slap it should be able to make it through the early game, with Return, Earthquake and probably Double Team it is able to make it through the late game as well.

R/S/E:
1. Torchic. Its typing is perfect. Because it takes much longer to reach the first Gym in this game than the others, it should have evolved by that time. And with Fire/Fighting STAB it rips through the Gyms and the E4. Wallace's Gyarados in Emerald might give it some problems, but I think he will be enough overlevelled by that point to KO it with Return.
2. Mudkip. Nothing can really hurt it, while STAB Surf and Earthquake hurt plenty of stuf back. With Ice Beam and Return for coverage it won't really have any trouble.
3. Treecko. Treecko still makes the game easy. Unlike Bulbasaur and Chikorita, Treecko actually has a movepool bigger than Grass/Normal(/Ground). With Dragon Claw, Brick Break, Iron Tail or Aerial Ace as possible fourth moves, I don't think there is much that it will have trouble with.

Fr/Lg
1. Squirtle. Not much has really changed for Squirtle. It is still able to use Surf/Ice Beam/Earthquake and slaughter everything in its path.
2. Charmander. With Metal Claw to beat Brock and Dragon Claw to cover Lance's Dragonite, everything has only gotten easier for Charmander.
3. Venusaur. At least he learns Earthquake and Sludge Bomb now. But with Gengar now having Levitate, that still doesn't help much.

D/P/P:
1. Chimchar. Torchic, but faster and with better moves. Even easier to beat the game with than Totodile.
2. Turtwig. STAB Wood Hammer and Earthquake with Stone Edge for coverage is nice. Torterra doesn't have the raw power of Infernape, but it still rips through the game.
3. Piplup. Steel isn't too good as an offensive type. With Surf/Ice Beam/Earthquake it is still able to get through the game just fine, but not as easily as Infernape or Torterra.

I don't know about Hg/Ss yet. Especially with the Elemental Punch TM's being removed and the physical/special split there could be some differences. But I still think it is 1. Totodile, 2. Cyndaquil and 3. Chikorita.

If you don't do a solo, it doesn't matter which starter you use. The other members of your team are more important.

 

[Evilo]

Each Gen has a "harder" starter to pick.

Gen 1: Charmander. It's pretty obvious why, since brock and misty are the first two leaders. FR/LG made charmander a LITTLE easier by letting it learn metal claw, but obviously that wasn't available in the original games, not to mention, charmander didn't get a gym type advantage until erika, since there was no steel type therefore Surge's magnemite was just plain electric.
(and if you count yellow version, pikachu was really hard to start if you did a pikachu only run, like me, but we'll not get into that.)

Gen 2: Chikorita. Poor thing had the same problem as charmander where the first two gyms are its weaknesses. Totodile was also difficult since you had to run through the sprout tower and all those bellsprouts could vine whip him to death. Overall, however, I think Chikorita proved to be the most difficult starter in 2nd gen.

Gen 3: Torchic. Obvious. First gym is rock. Unless you've reached level 16 by the time you get to Roxanne, you're out of luck.

Gen 4: Personally, they're all evenly easy. Almost anyone can get their chimchar to level 14 before you get to the first gym, so that's covered. Just mach punch those rocks. Piplup overall has the worst OFFENSIVELY, but defensively, it's monsterous. Infernape rocks the speed and attacks category. Poor torterra gets landed with a terrible x4 weakness but makes up for it in having a decent movepool and great defense and attack.

 

[Indragon]

For the hardest starters:

Kanto: Charmander
Johto: Chikorita (ridiculously so)
Hoenn: Torchic
Sinnoh: they're all equal

 

[Lykoto]

1st Gen: Squirtle
2nd Gen: Chikorita
3rd Gen: Treecko
4th gen: Piplup

for me that is although i havent tried chikorita much

 

[scarecrow_stitches]

I would say... Charmander, Chikorita, Torchic, and Piplup.

 

[Abysmal Flames]

In fourth Generation, Chikorita is the hardest starter when referring to HGSS. First two gym leaders are Bug and Flying.

4th Gen is insanely easy. Even Chimchar picks up fighting type moves when he evolves to Monferno, which can eliminate the first gym leader with ease, unlike 1st Gen and picking charmander. It was actually difficult to defeat the first gym leader if you picked charmander, forcing you to raise a butterfree with confusion.

 

[Torpoleon]

I think that all the Generation IV starters can fare pretty well in the Sinnoh Region Gyms. Going by Pltinum gym lineups:

1st Gym: Piplup, Turtwig and Monferno
2nd Gym: Monferno and Prinplup(Peck)
3rd Gym: Monferno, Prinplup and Grotle
4th Gym: Infernape and Torterra
5th Gym: Torterra
6th Gym: Empoleon, Infernape and Torterra
7th Gym: Empoleon and Infernape
8th Gym: Infernape and Torterra

So generally, all of them do pretty good. I usually choose Piplup who does good in the gyms.

 

[foxyman1167]

Hmmm, lets see;

Gen I - Charmander, until FRLG, when he learned Metal Claw, then they're even.
Gen II - Chikorita, had a weakness to the first two gyms.
Gen III - Torchic had trouble, unless you evolved it into Combusken.
Gen IV - Same thing for Chimchar, if evolved into Monferno, it could win.

In the case of Torchic and Chimchar, both could do some damage to the first Gym, mainly because Geodude/Onix and such have such terrible Special Defense.

 

[jellsprout]

You people seem to be forgetting the horrible Special stat of Onix and Geodude. Charmander's Ember will deal tons of damage to them. They don't have any Rock or Ground attacks either, so they won't deal much damage to Charmander. By the time you reach the third Rival battle and Misty, Charmeleon will have learned Mega Punch from a TM. These shouldn't be too difficult either.
Bulbasaur however can barely get past Agatha. She has two Gengar and a Haunter, which you can only hit with a weak Razor Leaf. They have a very high Speed stat, so I don't know if you'll be able to outrun them, and they have a sky high Special stat, so your Razor Leaf will do very little damage. Venusaur won't enjoy Blain and Lance either.
You have to look past Gym matchups. Feraligatr has less good Gym matchups than Typhlosion, but thanks to his movepool and the E4's types (specifically Lance), Feraligatr has less difficulty storming through the game.

 

[zennyrpg]

Whats all this about Torterra horrible typing? We are talking in-game right?

Ice - I can't remember the last time something hit me with ice. Well yeah I can, Milotic in the final battle, but thats it.
Fire - Strong ground moves wipe out fire so I never had a problem with those. Plus, who doesn't have some one with surf in their party for most of the game. Plus, there are like what, 3 fire pokemon in DP?
Flying - This is the only real problem in game and infernape shares the weakness.

Torterra's type is a disadvantage in competitive battling, but in game its two strong stabs rock a large amount of what you're up against. Plus it learns earthquake and leaf storm via level up so theres no need to waste tms.

I'd almost say piplup's the hardest, as in game its pretty easy to rock everything just based on doing super effective damage. Defense isn't really a big deal.

 

[MizuJosh]

I wouldn't say there's difficulty modes at all, unless you mean a difficulty for specific parts of the game. Bulbasaur, for example, is good early-game and bad late-game, whereas Charmander is bad early-game and good late-game. Squirtle stays mediocre the whole game.

The same can apply for every other game.

 

[bugman03]

Chickorita I think is probably hardest overall, since unlike the fire starters in FR LG/RSE/DP
it dosn't ever learn a move to help with the first or second gym.

 

[DrJo]

I´d say its a tie between CHIKORITA and CHARMANDER.

 

[2Percent-Miltank]

It seems usually the Grass or Fire type starters make the game more difficult. I've almost always chosen the Grass starters, because I el it gives me a challenge as the game goes on, and I lurve them. :>

I guess Chikorita is the hardest for Johto, and maybe Chimchar is the hardest to work with in Sinnoh, if you go simply by their advantages in Gyms.

 

[LordLati]

Here's my vote:
Red/Blue (Green): Charmander, because you pretty much had to carry a a random grass type through the game. Though Pikachu was a tad harder unless you taught it surf.

G/S/C: definitely Chikorita hands down. I remember trading for an Onix to beat the 1st gym and carrying a Geodude through the entire game afterwards.

I had no problems with any other starters, although Chimchar and Treecko were a tad fragile.

In any case Chikorita takes the cake as it really didn't have a type advantage in any gym, not to mention having to clear that tower full of Gastly so early in the game. Charmander takes 2nd place because it is faster and has "sweeper-like" stats compaired to Chikorita's "bulky-grass" playstyle. Also beating Misty with Weepinbell/Gloom was a lot easier than beating Bugsy with a Geodude.

 

[hawaiian ale]

Kanto-bulbasaur(easy) charmader(hard) squrtile(medium)
jhoto- chickorita(hard) cyndiquil(medium) totidile(easy)
hoenn- treeko(easy) torchick(hard) mudkip (medium)
sinnoh- turtwig(easy) chimchar(medium) piplup(hard)

this is what i think is easy and hard starters

please don't hate on me for my opion

 

[glowing_light010]

They're all pretty reliable. But Turtwig can give you some challenges with Gardenia, Fantina, Byron & Candace. That's half of the gym leaders. But if it's trained well, then there shouldn't be too much if a problem.

 

[richard]

Kanto- I can't really decide.
Johto- Chikorita, it gives a very hard at most of the gyms.
Hoenn- I have to say Treecko. It really doesn't have many good moves until it gets Leaf Blade.:/
Sinnoh- Piplup, I really don't like using Empoleon much. It can easily get OHKO by a powerful ground-type attack due to being a steel-type. Due to being a steel-type, it can take normal damage from fire attacks now.:/

 

[parasky]

Chickorita is very weak, but is rather easier to handle if you do a all-teamer.