I feel like basic and stage 2 Pokémon tend to overshadow their stage 1 counterparts. Name some stage 1 hitters you really enjoy (or dislike).
I’ve always liked Haunter, especially considering his holo treatment in Fossil. Conversely, I dislike Kadabra. He’s basically just Alakazam with a thicc tail.
Yeah Poliwhirl is kinda boring, just like Machoke IMO. I really like Ivysaur because it’s such a nice logical transition. Also Graveler, poor guy gets overlooked a lot.
Crystal Kabutops is a stage 2 Pokémon (Fossil/Kabuto), and although Raichu is a stage 1 Pokémon in the card you’ve mentioned, it’s actually a stage 2 Pokémon as well with Pichu/Pikachu as basic/stage 1 Pokémon before it.
Some stage 1 Pokémon I personally really like:
Pikachu
Clefairy
Magneton
Haunter (one of my favorite Pokémon)
Seadra
Chansey
Dragonair
Quilava
Marill
Grovyle
Loudred
Ok, I’ll stop here halfway through gen 3, but there are a lot of cool stage 1 Pokémon. I also just realized I only picked stage 1 Pokémon of 3-step evolutions, skipping over a lot of great final evolutions of 2-step evolutions, like Steelix or the Eeveelutions.