I think whenever a new gen is announced, there's always leaks of the new starter evos, many of which are fake. I remember when Sun & Moon were coming out and I saw a supposed Corocoro leak of the starters' evos, which I thought were real until the leaks from Game Freak came out. I thought Popplio was going to evolve into some kind of Darth Vader seal.I chose Piplup because when I first played Diamond I thought that the fake Piplup evo that I saw online was real so I was excited to have that on my team. Imagine how mad I was when I saw that Piplup evolved into Empoleon.
I chose Chimchar in Platinum too.I choose Piplup in Diamond and Chimchar in Platinum. Overall I prefer Chimchar because Infernape is awesome.