Friday, May 25, 2012

Poll change: starter ditching in Pokémon?

Sorry for being late on this, I was held by... other occupations. Anyway, seems like as I predicted, this is a very console-friendly community. Out of 354 voters, 66 play exclusively on consoles, 118 (including me) play only a few PC games, 63 play both but more consoles, 35 say it's about 50-50, 43 prefer the PC by a slight margin, 21 rarely play console games, and 8 never do.

Next question: when playing Pokémon games, do you ever ditch your starter, or is it an unwritten rule that you must always stand by it, no matter how crappy?

13 comments:

  1. I don't think someone would actually systematically ditch it... especially because they think of it as an hindrance... but I might be surprised. There are probably some players that do so to add a little bit of challenge, though.

    The first time I ditched a starter during the actual storyline was in Pokemon White, but considering how disappointing they were, it was to be expected.

    But in any other Pokemon game, when messing around during post-game, I often try to build new teams without my starter, so I guess it counts as the 3rd option... or not... I don't know.

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    1. I know that, I just want to have the full gamut of possible answers. I expected no one to say they only played PC games, but look at what happened.

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  2. The only time I box my starters is when playing Black or White. I usually choose tepig and then replace it with a chandelure, but since I've done one playthrough with each of them, I try to discard them as soon as possible to add some variety.

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  3. I ditch my starter depending on my team. I generally try to mess around with weird sets and see if they can get through the laughably easy ingame. Despite that, in gens 2 and 3 I always pick Totodile and Torchic respectively, and I always stick with them. I've only ever ditched Combusken when it "died" during an iron man run.(If a pokemon faints, it can no longer be used, without all the gay nuzlocke rules)

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  4. I always use my starter. Even if it's bad, it helps enrich the experience of finishing the journey with your starter. It helps fuel my imagination with the thought that something stuck with me from the beginning. It's a bit corny, but still.

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  5. I always use my starter as well, so I'd keep my Emboar all the way through Black. Serperior? Maybe not.

    The only times I've ditched my starters is whenever I modify my team for the post-game; for example, I ditched my Torterra in the Platinum post-game the last time I played, but I did replace it with Swampert who came back from Emerald.

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  6. I WAS going to drop it in BW2 for the very first time, but now that it's a sequel I might not even. As a non-competitive player, having even the crappiest starter doesn't faze me.

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  7. I've only ditched my starter in my two runs of Pokemon Black and White. And I plan to do exactly the same in Black and White two. Especially since I've got such a great new selection of team members.

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    1. I know right ? Even the protagonist ditches his Emboar for an Arcanine in the animated trailer. :P

      (I know it means absolutely nothing, but I found that little detail quite funny.)

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  8. Even in GSC, I usually keep my starter around. It was only generation 5 that forced me to ditch my starter, for obvious reasons. It's funny how so many comments express a similar opinion.

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  9. The only time I ever ditched my starter was in Black and White.

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  10. I only ever ditched my starter three times. First with Meganium in soul silver, because i changed my mind on what my team was going to be. Second with torterra in platinum, because it was the post game and i had better options. And i boxed emboar in black, because i changed my team idea.

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  11. I Play Pokemon like I would if I was in an RP. My protagainst thinks of the starter as his best pal. but in gen 5 I found all the starters to be garbage. I actually couldn't use them on my team. they were so bad. Yeah the Gen 2 starters were pretty bad, but they didnt give me a kick ass Pokemon that could get me thrue the early game like they did for gen 5 (Drillbur)

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