As my blog and my thoughts gain a varied audience, I have noticed that there times when my advocation is not completely understood. With this in mind, I am staring a “Bear in Mind” Series which highlights some of my “blind spots”. I have said some of these things in the past, but they bear repeating. Note that some of these will come from nuances that someone who knows the Pokemon series may think of these concepts as elementary, but since I do not have a Pokemon background, these “simple concepts” are not so simple. I do understand some of these concepts generally, but not necessarily how it pertains to Pokemon Go. I start with a concept that seems “simple”, but there is a specific meaning to Pokemon Go…
I understand that there are various classifications of Pokemon. Some are Mythical (Meltan, Darkrai). Some are Legendary (Mewtwo, Kyogre). There are so the various types (Ice, Dark, Dragon, etc…) Then there are the more specific sub-varients. Some are event specific (Party Hat varients). Others can be shiny, hatched, caught at a raid, traded (all of these are self-explanatory I think), etc… There is one classification I do not fully understand though. What is a Starter?
I read how some were happy that Snivy was the last CD since it’s a Starter (I argue that being a Starter should have no bearing on CD qualities, but it seems important to some). That designation had little meaning to me. I gather that fire (Charmander), water (Squirtle), and grass (Bulbasaur) are Starters Types and those four names I specified are all Starters. I have heard that even though Pikachu is Electric, it is considered a Starter from what I understand. That seems to be the only exception. There is no way to look up in game what the starters are. This does not help me to understand what the Starters are.
By my own definition, I would not call Charmander a Starter. Charmander does eventually turn into something quite useful… Charles Zard… and if you have enough Mega Candies, MEGA CHARLES ZARD (Charizard for those of you who can spell that without looking)! (cue superhero theme). So does Squirtle (Mega Blastoise). Snivy, however fits my definition. Even at L50, Serperior is not overly useful to me at least. I have no use for the low CP mons in general. Pikachu seems to run similarly. There does not seem to be any universal qualifications other than to be one of the three basic types (fire, water, grass). If it was not for that qualification, I would put Wurmple and Caterpie as Starters since they (and their evolutions) are Pokemon which do not do much of anything other that count towards the Pokedex and are a proverbial dime a dozen.
Does this mean that since Wailmer is a water that he’s a Starter and I can use that as part of my campaign for Wailmer for CD? I am serious. I want Wailmer for an upcoming CD and would love to be able to use this as a talking point. If not, I would use it as a counter since we just had a Starter in April, so let’s get a non-Starter in this month.
I cannot just assume that because a Pokemon is a certain type that it is a Starter. My personal definition of Starter is not correct. So what is a Starter. Please let me know if there is an easy to read list that tells me clearly what the Starters are. I would like to be able to go back to it so I can understand the game play better.
Moose's Pokemon Go Blog 