I'm going back to the original 151. Nostalgia blinds us all, but you can't deny that there are some really good designs that capitalize on the simplicity that the Game Boy engine affords, and how much personality that even the crappy sprites from Pokemon Red/Green/Blue showed so much personality even before the anime and manga came along and made them awesome.
Of course, there are some that aren't... all that... awesome. I covered some of them in my Top Ten least favourite Pokemon article, but, hey, here we go, I guess. Keep in mind, Top Ten Favourite lists are subjective, and some of these include ones that I have personal attachment to for personal reasons. So yeah.
Here's the top ten favourites!
With the old-school Red/Blue sprites, just to get the nostalgia factor ramped up. Y'all know how the original 151 look and if you don't just google them. But hey, old-school sprites!
#10: Victreebel
I'm a geek, if my blog hasn't told you enough about me already. But Victreebel (who I always misspell as Victreebell as a kid, which makes sense) has always appealed to me. See, the idea of plants that eat animals is just so weird and mind-boggling as a kid. What kind of abomination of nature does that? Victreebel is based on the pitcher plant, and what Nintendo loves to do is to take obscure yet cool creatures from real life and adapt them into Pokemon. Vileplume is based on the Rafflesia, Paras is based on a parasitic mind-control fungus, stuff like that. Victreebel is based on the carnivorous pitcher plant, and when I first saw Victreebel in the Pokemon Adventures comic -- which I read a ton of as a kid -- having this super creepy colony in the Safari Zone, and just the sheer weirdness and quirkiness of its design, I kind of fell in love. Victreebel also got a lot of showing in the Anime, being one of James' signature Pokemon throughout the length of the Kanto and Johto seasons, always showing up to chomp down on its trainer and letting out the most hilarious EEEEEEE screech ever whenever he shows up.I love Victreebel, though! I like weird real-life animals and plants, and Victreebel is elegant in its simplicity. All they did was give a pitcher plants eyes, fangs, and a couple of leaves. I dunno. I just loved Victreebel. Any Victreebel I own inevitably never really sees that much fight because in Kanto games I always use Bulbasaur as my starter, but I often have one.
#9: Poliwhirl/Poliwrath
Red from Pokemon Adventures started off with a Poliwhirl, who is honestly a pretty cute design. I can never see how this weird circular thing with eyes, limbs and gloves is based on a frog, but he's cool! I admit my love for Poliwhirl is 100% based on Red's Poliwhirl from the manga, but I have raised a fair amount of Poliwraths throughout my playthroughs of the Kanto and Johto games. It's a bit annoying that the two Pokemon look practically identical, especially in earlier games -- really, the only way to tell is by Poliwrath's angry eyes and his big muscles -- but what're you going to do. Poliwrath's an awesome dude once you get to that stage, with an insane amount of coverage. Water and Fighting is a very cool type combination and I'm a bit miffled that Poliwrath's Gen-VI moveset doesn't have much more Fighting type moves, but my Poliwraths (nearly all of them are called some variation of 'Fuhrer King Bradley') have always been awesome bros that tank hits and take down their opponents. Shame the dude fall short compared to practically almost everything else, but favourites doesn't have to be on the uber tier.#8: Pikachu/Raichu
Pikachu gets a lot of unfair hatred for being the overexposed mascot all throughout the franchise's 20 years, and spawning a crapton of clones (of which I would say that only Togedemaru, Pichu, Plusle and Minun are actually crap) but I loved the dude! He's mellowed out a lot over the years in the anime and comics, but back in the earliest episodes and mangas Pikachu has always been portrayed as a total dick who refuses to cooperate, and I loved him for that. He's not the most powerful Electric-type in the game, but you get him in the first big area, Viridian Forest, as a supremely rare encounter if you're playing Pokemon Red or Blue, and as the starter in Pokemon Yellow. My Pikachu in Yellow single-handedly took down Brock's Onix with a Double Team/Quick Attack death by a thousand cuts strategy. Yeah, you can get Butterfrees and Mankeys to take down Brock, but I ain't going to do that. No, little me took down Brock with nothing but a Pikachu. I guess a lot of the hate that goes to him is how insanely powerful he seems to be in the anime, taking down Ground-types and legendaries, but really that's the fault of the anime's inconsistent writing with game logic more than any fault of Pikachu's, and I love the little electric bugger for what he is -- a cool rare encounter of a type you don't get options to catch until later in the game. And, yeah, he's a mascot, and the perfect one too. Cool enough for boys, but cute enough for girls. Very few Pokemon can claim to have both, except maybe the starters.
But man, I will always evolve all my Pikachus into Raichus as soon as I can. Raichu's awesome! He's an orange fat jerboa, he's got the most metal-looking whip-tail ending in a lightning bolt, he just looks so much more powerful and durable than PIkachu, and I'm really sad that Raichus don't get the time of the day in the anime thanks to the spotlight on Pikachu. I've got a couple of Raichus that put in the biggest work and I've always imagined my Raichus to move really quickly on the battlefield, lashing out with lightning-empowered whip-tails.
#7: Gyarados
Gyarados is awesome! I'm just sad he's Water/Flying instead of Water/Dragon, but I guess that would be overpowered. See, Gyarados evolves from Magikarp, which is this stupid-looking weakling of a fish you can fish up literally in every body of water who can't do jack shit but Splash -- an attack that literally does nothing. And Magikarp looks derpy as all hell, with modern sprites even highlighting its uselessness by having it flop around like a dead fish -- an indignity that only Magikarp has among every aquatic Pokemon in the game.But level him up enough -- a surprisingly low threshold of 20 -- and you get this monstrous sea serpent. Gyarados' design is surprisingly intricate for a Generation I Pokemon, with a horrifyingly angry face that encapsulates the rage and ferocity that a Gyarados is wont to have. He's the Atrocious Pokemon, for crying out loud! He's a giant, angry sea serpent, and he truly looks like he can fuck your day up. Gyarados looks impressive, and when you finally get your Magikarp to really go through all this hardwork and finally turn into this leviathan of a beast, man, he's awesome. Granted Gyarados looks a lot more awesome than it actually is -- after evolution Gyarados needs more training to get actually good moves beyond Bite and Dragon Rage, and the slightest electrical shock will turn Gyarados into sea serpent sushi, but damn if he isn't an awesome monster. Properly trained, he can absolutely wreck anything without an Electric move in its path.
Gyarados is generally my go-to water Pokemon in nearly every game I play where I don't pick the water starter, simply because of how awesome he is, and how early you can get him in the game. What a majestic sea serpent.
#6: Articuno
Articuno's generation one sprite looks like an angry chicken, but his appearances in later games and in the anime portray him as this absolutely majestic bird with an icy crown and a great, flowing tail. He's easily my favourite among the three Legendary Birds of Kanto, looking the best (though Zapdos and Moltres are cool designs too, no hating on them) and just looking majestic and regal, exuding the power that a Legendary Pokemon really should exude. And Articuno is the absolute hardest among the three Legendary birds to get. Moltres is literally sitting randomly in Victory Road, while Zapdos' location in the Power Plant is straightforward. Articuno requiers some skill and solving of the Strength/Surf puzzles of Seafoam Islands, easily the most intricate areas of the original Red/Blue game. And is it worth it, to capture this harbinger of winters? Absolutely. These days the Legendary Birds of Kanto don't get a lot of respect for their lackluster movepool and the fact that the game is overloaded with overpowered legnedaries, but these three birds will always have a special place in my heart, and among those three, chief among them will always be Articuno.
And besides, phoenixes and thunderbirds are in practically every RPG ever. Snow birds of majesty? Less common and thus Articuno looks a lot more awesome because of that. There's just a sense of simplicity in Articuno's simple majesty.Also included is Pokemon Yellow's sprite for Articuno, which has 100% less chicken and 100% more majesty.
#5: Aerodactyl
I've already loved Aerodactyl in 1996 when I first played Pokemon. I loved dinosaurs as a kid -- who doesn't? My favourite dinosaur (pterosaur, dinosaur, shut up) is the pteranodon. And Aerodactyl is a bona fide pteranodon dinosaur, except instead of a beak he's got a gigantic T-Rex head, and a devil tail, and you have to revive him from a fossil! Aerodactyl is an awesome design, I loved him from both the anime and the manga, and, jeez, he's a freaking horrifying-looking dinosaur! It's a shame you don't get Aerodactyl in the original Red/Blue game until Cinnabar Island, and you get a level 15 one... when you probably already have Pidgeots and Fearows as your resident flier. But I love Aerodactyl anyway... a love that was amplified a thousandfold in Generation VI, where Aerodactyl is obtainable as early as the second gym, and he obtained a mega evolution in that game to boot. Now Mega Aerodactyl isn't the most competitive thing, really, and not the best designed one out there, but I absolutely fell in love with Aerodactyl all over again, with my Aerodactyl in Pokemon Y, Amber, possibly seeing more battles than my starter.And, y'know, Aerodactyl is a freaking murder-dinosaur. Even twenty years down the line Aerodactyl still remains one of my favourite Pokemon, and it's telling that even after several more dinosaur pokemon down the line I still think Aerodactyl is still the coolest among them How can you not love him?
#4: Haunter
Yeah, Haunter isn't a final evolutionary stage like a majority of the Pokemon here, but I spent half of Pokemon Blue with a Haunter instead of a Gengar. I don't have a link cable as a kid. Shut up. But man, Haunter's so much cooler than Gengar! Not that Gengar is a bad design in any means, but Haunter's just so much cooler! From that simple ghostly design, to those disembodied claws, to those horrifying eyes, to that jagged maw full of teeth, Haunter is just so utterly awesome. And despite all that horrifyngness of being a ghost made up of poisonous gas, Haunters are playful enough to pal around, lick your buddies and generally have a good time. Again, I like Gengar as much as the next Pokemon fan, but Haunter's just such a cool, creepy design. There's honestly not much to it, really, but man, I loved Haunter. He was a bomb in several other later-series games I had a Haunter in, too, just wrecking house by shooting Sludge Bombs and Shadow Balls everywhere, and fucking the enemy with Hypnoses and Licks. Nintendo has always been consistently awesome with designing creepy but not over-the-top-horrifying designs for Ghost-type Pokemon, and honestly, considering their first three: Gastly, Haunter and Gengar, you can see that they have been absolutely consistent with it.#3: Butterfree
What is this? A weak-ass starter bug beating Articuno, Gyarados and Aerodactyl in my top ten list? Well, yeah. As a kid I have had a morbid love-hate relationships with bugs. I really, really am fascinated by them and their utterly bizarre biology, yet put me within two meters of a spider or a wasp and I will scream bloody murder. But I love bugs, still, and bug-type Pokemon are some of my favourites in the game, which is strange considering that they're the weakest. Pokemon's whole original concept was based on bug catching, and it's telling by the amount of Bug-types in the first games. And they're all cool bugs, too! Beedrill, Venomoth, Scyther, Pinsir, Parasect... but my favourite has always been the humble Butterfree. Yes, Scyther and Pinsir are the coolest motherfuckers around, and Beedrill's giant stingers of doom has given me an unhealthy phobias of bees of any kind, but Butterfree is a bro. I'm not sure why I liked Butterfree so much, because Ash's Butterfree in the Anime didn't last very long before being released. But I loved mine. Even in Pokemon Blue where I go with the true-and-tried six year old strategy of 'level up my starter and body everyone in my way', my Butterfree stayed with me throughout most of my journey. Yeah, other people bring Pidgeots with them to the Elite Four from the starter routes (which I admittedly have done a couple of times), but I do it with a Butterfree.See, evolution is a truly awesome moment in Pokemon, and while your starters are liable to evolve after the first gym, Nintendo has always consistently placed low-level Bug-types in the early routes that evolve twice in quick succession, sort of as a little trial run for far more awesome evolutions down the line. And it makes sense! The caterpillar transforms into a sedentary cocoon and then into its mature butterfly/bee form. But while Beedrill is cool and all, and I've had Beedrills in playthroughs, I have utterly wrecked house with my Butterfree in Blue, Yellow, Crystal, Fire Red, Heart Gold and Y. Basically, any game where I can catch a Caterpie at an early route, I generally will turn it into a Butterfree and have it kick ass. Anyone can sweep the Elite Four with a team filled with Garchomps and Lucarios, but I have gone through several Elite Fours with a humble Butterfree kicking ass with the best of them. Buttefree needs TMs to truly earn his keep -- but man, he can Psychic, he can Giga Drain, he can Sleep Powder... and yeah, he's not competitive by any means, but fuck competitive. The most memorable memories while playing a Pokemon is the utter awesomeness that your team members pull through, and there is a special delight in having this badass monster of a butterfly just wreck house even though it's universally agreed to be one of the weaker Pokemon.
And it's a cool-looking design, too! It's got a creepy bug feel to him without looking too cute the way that other butterfly Pokemon (Beautifly, Vivillon) do, but without looking too monstrous (Volcarona, Venomoth). Butterfree's just a total bro, really.
#2: Mewtwo
There is absolutely no way Mewtwo is not making this list. Who is Mewtwo, you say? How the hell did you get through that wall of text talking about Pokemon and not know about Mewtwo? Jeez.But honestly. Mewtwo! Advertised as the most powerful Pokemon in existence when his first movie came out, and twenty years after the fact, Mewtwo is still kicking ass with the strongest of them. Mewtwo is the final Pokemon in the original 150 Pokedex (Mew was a 'secret') and boy, he does look cool. I know nothing of Frieza or whatever, but even then he just looks awesome, this weird humanoid-cat monster that looks organic and unnatural at the same time, but not without being overdesigned like a lot of later-generation Pokemon. He's got a weird tube on his neck, a very awesome-looking face, weird ball-tipped-fingers that just scream 'weapon', and, well, Mewtwo's story is part of Red and Blue's overreaching plot. It's never spelled out in the games itself, because the 'main' plot is just your journey to bring down Team Rocket and become the champion, but context clues from Team Rocket facilities describe of them attempting to create the most powerful creature by cloning the mythical Mew, only to have it mutate and become, well, this insanely powerful psychic powerhouse.
Mewtwo has gotten awesome appearances in both the anime in the form of two great movies, and a very important main character in Pokemon Adventures, growing from a plot device and a monstrous juggernaut to a very awesome redemption-seeking character. And the first Pokemon movie really sold the unbeatable-ness of Mewtwo. Birthed from a lab that he promptly destroys upon birth, Mewtwo just looks unnatural, and began wiping the floor with literally every single one of the original 150's best -- Onix? Nidoking and Arcanine? Magneton? A herd of Tauros? Alakazam? Mewtwo literally one-shots them all to submission, and easily takes out anything out heroes send at him, including Ash's mighty Charizard. He goes through a crisis of questioning his moralities (which is beautifully different depending on whether it's the English or Japanese dub, both having great parts to them) all the while being untouchable.
His backstory is awesome, his movie is awesome, his comic appearances are awesome, and his design is awesome. He's easily the most powerful of them all, able to learn all the powerhouse moves from TM's, and being nigh-indestructible in battle. Even with the advent of so many overpowered legendaries powercreeping on the original generation, Mewtwo manages to stay on the upper echelons by sheer virtue of stats and movepool alone, before surpassing even Arceus, the god of Pokemon, with his two Mega Evolutions in Generation VI. Yeah, Mewtwo is the most powerful Pokemon, and he's got the best and most intricate story among all the legendaries. There ain't denying it.
Do we need honourable mentions? I guess so.
Beedrill! Pidgeotto! Sandslash! Koffing! Nidoking! Kadabra! Magneton! Muk! Cloyster! Kingler! Eevee and her evolutions! Scyther! Pinsir! Starmie! Zapdos! Dragonair!
#1: The Starters
A bit of a cop-out? A bit of a cop-out. But I realized that fitting all the starters into the Top Ten would have three out of ten be filled with starters, so I might as well as lump them all together and talk about them at once. If you're going to rank them properly, well, we'll have Blastoise probably below Mewtwo, and number two be Charizard and number one be Venusaur. But, hey, the starters are iconic. The first three Pokemon you get to choose from, you get to choose from three simple and sweet looking buddies that all look cool in their own way, easily embodying their type. You've got the grass-type Bulbasaur, a non-slimy frog with an onion. You've got Charmander, the kinda-dinosaurian lizard with a flame on its tail. You've got Squirtle, a cute tortoise with a squirrel tail. Tortoises are aquatic, right?
And honestly, I love all three lines that I can't make a Top Ten without them. My favourite is undoubtedly Bulbasaur's line -- Venusaur's a fat bastard, but he's my buddy for twenty years, my one and only Kanto starter. I'm not sure why I love him. I think I liked the gradual progression of Bulbasaur growing bigger and his flower slowly sprouting, whereas I was a bit confused why Charmander changes colour to red when turning into a Charmeleon, then back to orange as a Charizard, or why Squirtle sprouts fluffy ears and tail as a Wartortle, before having them disappear. But I love Bulbasaur. He's cute and tough at the same time, and I don't care that Venusaur doesn't look as imposing as Charizard or Blastoise. Venusaur's my bro since 1994, and any time I get to choose between the three Bulbasaur's going to be the pick.
That's not to say the other two are bad by any means, because they're awesome. I played through Blue with Squirtle until the second or third gym before accidentally restarting and going with Bulbasaur all the way, and Blastoise's awesome. He's a turtle with cannons! He looks like he's ready to fuck shit up, and Wartortle's a very cool-looking middle stage. I just don't have as much to say about the Squirtle line like the other two, but I like them.
Charizard gets a lot of flak for being superpopular like Pikachu, but fuck that, Charizard is awesome. Yeah, he's not a dragon until he mega-evolves, and he needs to go on a diet, but back then Charizard is the most awesome thing you could own. He's a freaking fire-breathing dragon with giant wings! He's a dinosaur dragon! And the anime had a field day showing just how utterly badass Charizard is, that really the only limit to Charizard's power is that the dude doesn't obey Ash. Charmeleon is cool as all hell, and I really liked the design of the three.Really, their big loss is that they're just not Bulbasaur. I really love the Kanto starters. Yeah, part of it is nostalgia, but man, I don't love a set of three starters as much as I do the Kanto ones. They're my first love, the originals, the ones that started it all, the first friends you make in the Pokemon world.
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And here are my top five least favourites of the first generation. It's really hard to come up with this list. Some Pokemon like Goldeen or Farfetch'd or Chansey I simply don't like, but that's simply because they're boring, not because I hate them. And, no, I don't hate Zubat and Geodude simply because there's a lot of them in the wild, nor do I hate Voltorb for self-destructing. But there are a couple that I rather despise.
#5: Lickitung
Taking number five for our top five least favourites is Lickitung, the tongue Pokemon. What and why is this a thing? I've grown numb to Lickitung's existence over the twenty years that he exists, but he's a weird pink... thing... whose only gimmick is that he's got a tongue as long as his body. Is he supposed to be based on a lizard? A fat pink lizard? It looks derpy, and not in a way that the (very similar visually) Slowpoke line does. He just looks confused to be around, with his gross tongue just lolling about. Again, I'm honestly annoyed that a lot of cool Pokemon like Heracross got cut out of the original 151 and had to wait a generation to show up, but badly-designed things like Lickitung snuck in. He's just weird, boring and borderline disturbing with his super long tongue.#4: Mr. Mime
Yeah, Mr. Mime is in this list. Is it a surprise? Now I never got the pedophile vibes from Mr. Mime, and I have nothing against mimes. But man, what a weird design! Human-shape Pokemons are always a bit weird, because you're capturing them and training them like animals, but I guess it's cool when you have cool-looking things like Machamp, Alakazam or Gardevoir, who look like they stepped out of a fantasy RPG anyway. And then there's Mr. Mime. He's... a fat mime-clown with horns. He's got a cool gimmick of making actual barriers, but that's it... I'm baffled why he exists. Generation IV gave him Mime Jr, a very adorable pre-evolution, and Generation VI made him a Fairy which still does not make sense to me, but Mr. Mime (who isn't always a 'Mr', even) is just weird and has never been relevant. He does get a couple of chapters as Sabrina's Pokemon in Pokemon Adventures, but that doesn't make him cool. You get him in the original games by trading a very rare and hard-to-catch Abra... who can grow up to be the badass powerhouse Alakazam. And you get this idiot, nicknamed 'Marcel', with sub-par stats and an inability to evolve... yeah.#3: Hypno
Hey, let's make the dream-tapir Pokemon evolve into this weird, disgusting troll with a fur boa and a hypnotism gimmick! Hypno is a lot uglier than Drowzee, but ugliness isn't a sin, not really. I mean, yeah, you need a 'lesser' Psychic type to really sell Alakazam's awesomeness, and there's nothing wrong with being inferior either. But did they have to make Hypno into a child kidnapper with a very wrong feeling with that stupid hypnotism gimmick? Hypno's big contribution to the game lore is to be the creepy-fuck Pokemon that attacked a poor little lost girl in FireRed and LeafGreen, one of the very few instances in the games that a Pokemon is outright violent towards humans instead of being ordered by villains. Yeah, fuck off, sexual predator.#2: Clefairy
I like Jigglypuff! Jigglypuff is cute. Clefairy? I dunno, not so much. The original sprite is cute enough, I suppose, but I've always disliked the official cartoon or control artworks. I've nothing against the pink cutesy Pokemon -- I prefer cool dragons and insects and shit, but I do admit that thre are a lot of cute pinkums. But Clefairy? She's a pain in the ass to capture, and she doesn't look that cute. I dunno. I just really can't articulate why I dislike Clefairy so much, but I don't like her. I've never trained a Clefairy at all, really, though at least unlike the other five Pokemon on this list Clefairy is somewhat integrated to the plot of the original games, being central to the lore behind Mt. Moon.#1: Jynx
Yeah. Jynx is my least favourite Generation I Pokemon. Is that even a surprise? I've talked about Jynx at length in a previous article and why I hate her in my least favourite Pokemon article, but man, just check out that Generation I sprite. She even looks confused why she's in the game. What a disgusting thing.
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