20 Most Underrated Pokémon In History

Remember when Pokémon battling was about so much more than just hammering the screen of your smartphone? Good! Pokémon is about so much more than the fly-by-night phone app that's currently dominating all attention on the franchise.

Fortunately, the strategic battles and exciting turn-based combat that made the series so great is making a return with Pokémon Sun & Moon before the end of this year, so it's time to start dusting off that 3DS and hitching up your trusty trainer's pack. There'll soon be a host of brand new monsters to get out there and capture, but what of the older generations?

Earlier this year I brought you a list of twenty severely underrated Pokémon that were deserving of a second chance in your battling team. Now it's time to take that list one step further and consider the most downtrodden Pokémon of all time, ahead of the next instalment's release.

Here we have the twenty most underrated Pokémon in the history of the series...

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20. Altaria

Despite the fact that one of the trickiest Gym battles in the third generation of Pokémon games features a pesky Altaria, very few players seem to give it its dues. Flying Type leader Winona utilises an Altaria as her strongest battler, with the Dragon and Flying Type Pokémon causing plenty of problems.

Altaria's type combination means that it benefits from a great number of type strengths. It's rare to find something that's really able to seriously hurt Altaria, and its excellent defensive stats even at base ranges make it a sturdy battler.

Better still, however, is its ability to truly frustrate players with its longevity. An Altaria featuring Roost - like Winona's does - is able to recover any lost HP regularly without sacrificing too much in the way of attacking time. It can be employed to outlast plenty of early battlers, before powerful moves like Dragon Pulse and Sky Attack can dish out severe damage when things get a bit more open later on.