Pokémon: Ranking The Starters Of All 6 Generations From Worst To Best

18. Chikorita

Arriving with generation two, the brand new starters had the unenviable task of following one of the greatest introductory games of all time. While Gold & Silver arguably managed to somehow improve on the quality of Red, Blue & Yellow, sadly the starters didn't fare as well.

Chikorita and its evolutions arrived with a staggeringly shallow moveset, offering very little in the way of potential through levelling up alone. The majority of the moves it does learn lean heavily on protection and defensive boosts, but its Speed is never adequate enough to make deploying such moves early in battle a workable strategy.

In its final evolutionary stage, Chikorita becomes Meganium, one of the ugliest Pokémon of the first two generations by far. Bayleef isn't much of a looker, either, and with Pokémon like these it does get easier to find value in the complaints that ideas for new monsters were running thin even after generation one...