pokemon spotlight: starting birds

The pokemon world is vast, with many many different pokemon to pick from, from strong to weak, many battles to a world that you as the player must save. We all start off our journeys small however, When you turn on that pokemon game for the first time, you are given a choice of thee starters, always fire, water, and grass. Then you are sent on your journey with a pokedex and balls to build your team up. It never fails though your first few grassy patches on your own you will encounter one of three guanteed types. a normal pokemon, a bug type and a bird. for the latter two you will likely out level there usefullness as you progress but the world is large and a reliable flyer will likely stay at your side for a long while. With this Spotlight instead of talking about one starting bird, i decided to do all of them, from pidgey to fletchling and all that fall in between. I have two rules that allow this flyer on this list, one it must start off as a bird, no bugs that evolve into flying. Two you must be able to catch them before you arrive at your first gym.

So who quailifies, i think most of you know, From gen 1, you have pidgey and spearow. From gen 2 we add in hoothoot, (pidgey and spearow appear again here. In gen 3 we add tallow and wingul to the mix. Gen 4 is starly, gen 5 we have pidove, and finally in gen 6 we have fletchling. I am going to try and not make this article two big but before we get to the ranks, maybe we should take a little stroll down discription lane first.

Pidgey’s family: Pidgey is probably the most famous out of all the birds on the list, well known to fans of the anime and gamers alike. Pidgey is the only bird in this group of starter birds that not only gets two evolutions (pidgeotto at 18 and pidgot at 36) but it also gets a mega evolution. That is high praise in deed, from both fans and the pokemon company to give one of the first bird types that most players run into a mega. The train doesn’t stop there either for pidgey, no this birds fan base grew even more when earlier this year Twitch played pokemon. A whole lore built around the game and Pidgey became so much more to people. it became bird jesus…the protector of the helix. I tell you out of all the starter birds here…pidgey’s fame beats all of them.

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Spearow: poor forgotten and neglected Spearow. This bird was released the same generation in the same areas as Pidgey, but this guy is often neglected and forgotten for one of two reasons. One likly reason, gen one is oozing with birds and it just gets worse after. two Pidgey has two evolutions Spearow just has the one fearow. dispite all this, fearow is a really decent flyer who learns one of my favorite flying moves drill peck. This is a ferce bird type that deserves just as much love as pidgey. Sadly though…i think pidgey got a better agent.

Hoothoot: I honestly don’t have much to say about this guy, all my playthoughs in gen 2 i rocked spearow all the way though. I really can’t think of single time i really played with this guy. i will say this though, i really like owls so i have always been a big fan of the design. Its kind of sad though that this is the only instance of owls in the game. I have used this bird to breed with snorlax though, Noctowl learns zen headbutt, one of my favorite psychic moves, breeding it with a snorlax (holding a full incense) you will get a little munchlax born that knows this move. It is a difficult process but to me makes this starter bird worth having around.

Wingull: Oh wingull so cute…so damn annoying. Its only when playing oras did i remeber how annoying this bird is, and how much fun it is to electrocute the crap out of it when i run into it. Most starting birds have it rough with electric, ice and rock out to get them, but add water to the mix, wingull can’t even look at an electric pokemon with out fainting. Do not even get me started on Pelipper, I just have never been a big fan of its evolution. Sure its nice the game gives you a water type, especially since the first gym you come across is a rock type, but no.

Taillow: this is another generation 3 starting bird and honestly the better of the two. Taillow has a little more durbility then wingull ever had, but i am afraid unlike wingull if it wasn’t for ruby and sapphire rerelease this might fall into to the forgotten bird catigory. like wingull and hoothoot this little one only has a single evolution. I honestly forgot this pokemon existed until i was trying to complete my dex in Y, that is really sad, because taillow was also featured in the anime as on of ash’s pokemon. the problem here i think is its move pool is very shallow and the first three gyms where starting birds can really shine. Hoenn is just not a good place for starter birds with shallow move pools and gyms that don’t really take advantage of thes starting critters, gen 3’s starter birds just get obscured. so while design wise taillow is one of my favorites, it never really makes into a party.

 Starly: in gen 2 and gen 2 the starting bird types have ranged from not choosen because there were better and more familer options there, to competly useless and forgetable. When Pearl and diamond rolled around i think many pokemon fans were looking for a change in this trend, and what we got was starly. For me at least this little bird impressed the heck out of me, staying on my team though the elite four (five). This was the first starter bird in a long while that had pretty unexpected natually learned moves. I mean it learns close combat, then it has a pretty nice arrary of teachable moves as well. Plus this little guy is tough, i played though gen 4 twice, and both times i had a starly at my side. This one is one of the few starter birds you can take to the elite four and know they will be right there till the end. This is the only one on this list, i want to have a mega evolution to.

Pidove: this derpy thing, I can’t blame its design, honestly unova is more of a city scape, and supposdily designed around good old NYC. You can’t go a block in nyc without running into a pigion, so to have one in the game espeically in gen 5 must have been a no brainer to the designers or unova. My complaint with this isn’t pidoves design even though i really hate the male design, but thats ok i primarily go female anyways. My complaint with this guy, is more to the fact given how awesome starly was in gen 4 pidove is kind of a let down. no where near as strong as its predecessors i think pidove is doomed that as the years drag on to be forgotten like little taillow and hoothoot. Unlike hoenn though, unova has a few more bird types later game, so if you havn’t ditched by then you likely will by the end of game. its design is great its just if your a player like me who has been there for every generation, to see how stater birds can excel then the following generation we return to mediocrity. poor little pidove.

Fletchling: Well we have seen it all with starting birds, from gods, to forgetable and everything in between, but until gen 6 we hadn’t seen a starting bird quite like this one. Until fletchling all starting birds were normal flying with wingull being the only exception, now we have this one that as it evolves gains fire typing. None of these birds had been featured in a story. this all changed with the latest entry into the pokemon universe. the game starts off with as i would call it a smart ass little fletchling waking up out character, and when the game closes out we see probably the same smart ass fletchling flying away, talk about a good agent, (must be using pidgys). For a starting bird fletchling is probably the most useful bird on this list, not only does it gain a fire typing, it gets flame body, making talonflame the perfect pokemon mother(or father) to what ever pokemon you might be trying to hatch. Example pick up five eggs from the breeder, fly to Luminous city to bike around in a circle, until the five hatch, (hatching faster due to flame body) then taking flying to the next city to check on your new babies potential, just to start the process over again.

So now you have met, or reintroduced yourselves to the starter birds how would i rank them.

1 Fletchling, for its ability to help with breeding and its decent combat skills.

2 Starly, decent move pool, access to fighting and some of flyings best move sets.

3 Spearow: Fogotten by many, but not by me. a decent all around bird with the potential to take you end game

4 Pidgey: while a star in its own right with being dubbed Bird Jesus and getting a mega stone. compared to the others pidgy is just average bird.

5 Hoothoot: learns some intresting moves, but overshadowed in its own game by two birds from the previous generation. great for breeding move zen headbutt into other pokemon

6 Pidove: doomed to be forgottened, just an average bird with nothing really special going for it besides having two forms based on gender.

7 Taillow: Forgotten warrior of hoenn, and taillow was in the anime. Just an average starting bird with nothing to really make her stand out

8 Qingull: falls way to easily in battle, while it might be able to beat fletchling in a fight due to typing, in the end wingulls frailitys just makes it the worst of the starting birds.

What do you guys think, am i being fair. How would you rank these guys an why? Anyways until next time.

Oh and on operation hoenn christmas day, this week i am going to start breeding turtwigs to send over, who will you choose/