Gen 1
Games - Bulbasaur>Squirtle>Charmander
Collecting - Squirtle=Bulbasaur=Charmander
Nostalgia - Squirtle>Charmander>Bulbasaur
Gen 2
Games - Totodile>Chikorita>Cyndaquil
Collecting - Totodile=Cyndaquil=Chikorita
Nostalgia - Cyndaquil=Totodile>Chikorita
Gen 3
Torchic>Treecko>Mudkip
Gen 4
Piplup>Chimchar>Turtwig
Gen 5
Snivy>Tepig>Oshawatt
Gen 6
Fennekin>Froakie>Chespin
Also I’ll just leave this here for no reason at all…
Me and my brother had a link cable and a copy of each main game up to gen 4 so we always just used to get all 3 starters from the start in general I always picked grass starters though as I like the evo lines, anything past gen 4 can do one anyway so I’m only talking up to the tort of terror.
#006
Gen 1: I always picked up that Charmander because… well, Charizard reasons. But I have some special feelings for all those original 3 starters and I remember being a fan of Blastoise as well as a kid.
Gen 2: I love both Cyndaquil and Totodile, but my pick for the games was always Totodile as I prefer Feraligatr just a little more than Typhlosion. Quilava is my favorite from the Cyndaquil line, I don’t know why but I just think that it’s so cute :3 Oh and that super happy Totodile in the anime probably has grown on me that much so that’s why I want to pick that happy little crocodile always haha
Gen 3: My pick has always been Treecko. I just like Sceptile the best from those final evolutions and I started to like Treecko back in the day because of the anime. Blaziken and Swampert are both better than Sceptile in general if you think about competitive play and stuff but I always had the preference for Sceptile.
Gen 4: Really difficult. I’m not a big fan of any of the starters on this gen. My choice was Turtwig because I like Torterra’s typing being half ground. Dragon and ground types are the ones that I like using the most so that’s why Torterra used to be my choice. Empoleon’s design is probably the nicest of the final evolutions though. Meanwhile I’ve never been a big fan of Infernape…
Gen 5: I went for Oshawott because he is so cute! Samurott wasn’t the greatest though but as there really weren’t other water types in gen 5 that I liked in general, it was good to have him to do all the surfing job.
Gen 6: Froakie is the one to go with, ahh I love Greninja so much! That Pokemon really grew into me thanks to Pokemon X. He has such a great ninja design and is amazing in competitive play too. I’ve got a shiny Greninja on my competitive team and I think he is never going to drop away from there as his speed and Protean ability are amazing.
The fire starter in Gen 13 is just effing awesome.
Celebi confirmed.
We have the exact picks for all generations. XD
You have a perfect taste! High five! 
@azulryu
I: Charmander > Bulbasaur > Squirtle / Blastoise > Venusaur > Charizard
II: Chikorita > Totodile > Cyndaquil / Meganium > Typhlosion > Feraligatr
III: Mudkip > Torchic > Treecko / Sceptile = Swampert > Blaziken
IV: Piplup > Turtwig > Chimchar / Empoleon > Torterra > Infernape
V: Tepig >>>>> Oshawott = Snivy / Emboar >>>>> Serperior > Samurott (COME AT ME)
VI: Fennekin > Chespin > Froakie / Delphox > Chesnaught > Greninja
Overall Favorite: Piplup / Meganium
I’m surprised nobody has mentioned the competitive game scene of RBY and what the best choice is. If anyone played it completely you’d know that all three choices aren’t that great, not many pokemon are, but at least Venusaur could be a decent lead sleeper as well as an anti golem/rhydon threat.
BTW the complete list is Venusaur>Charizard>Blastoise for completive play. Ironic because that’s the exact opposite of the video.
Blastoise is not bad but just generic in terms of what it can do in battle. That’s the problem all of the Water-types have because the type has always been huge. I would still prefer Blastoise over Charizard competitively because Fire was fucking garbage in Gen 1.
There was no Steel yet, the only Ice-type weak to Fire was Jynx, and nobody used Bug Pokemon and rarely used Grass Pokemon other than Exeggutor. Defensively, it only resisted itself, Grass and Bug (even Ice hits neutral in Gen 1). Meanwhile, Surf and Earthquake were everywhere. Terrible.
You can’t judge a pokemon just on their type when playing competitive. You have to look at what their role on a team would be, support, physical sweeper, mix sweeper, special sweeper, special wall, defensive wall, etc. You have to put a lot of stock into stats, and movepool, then you need to think what’s going to counter your pokemon, type is almost the last thing you’re going to look at.
Charizard has the niche of fire spin, decent speed, and access to swords dance and decent attack. He can learn Earthquake and Hyperbeam which are the two moves you’re probably going to want to teach him, because like you said Fire doesn’t do much to anything, but two of the pokemon you listed Exeggutor and Jynx are on a lot of competitive teams so that’s a big plus. His biggest counter is going to be water types, so you’re just going to have to play around that, golem and ryhdon are the next biggest counter, but after swords dance earthquake will have a chance at beating them.
If you’re playing Charizard competitive you’d need a lot of paralysis support on your team, you have to get rid of starmie/water type on the opposing team, then Charizard is a semi decent late game sweeper. There’s a lot more decent choices then Charizard for this role obviously, but that’s what he would be doing on any completive team.
Blastoise on the other hand is completely useless on a competitive team, other then a wasted pokemon choice. He has decent stats, but his movepool is horrid. He has to resort to using mimic/body slam/toxic as his last move. toxic is extremely risky in RBY because you want to hit stuff with paralysis/sleep not toxic and if someone switch at the right time they’d ruin your game, mimic is probably the best way to go because you’d have a chance at copying the opponnets switch in water types that have thunderbolt to kill it but that’s a 25% chance, I’d rather have a wall that’s capable of countering his switch in 100% of the time instead of 25%. It can’t do anything against Chansey or Alakazam, Tauros laughs at it, really there’s only Rhydon and Golem that need it would do anything to, literally everything not named Golem and Rhydon would have its way with Blastoise on a decently built competitive team.
The worst part is his role would be a wall and as a wall you’re going to use him a lot, but the only thing you’re going to be able to play him against is two pokemon. You’re probably going to run into one of those two a lot but that’s going to give your opponent a huge leg up knowing that you have a pokemon that’s only role is to take out one of their pokemon. If I was playing against that I’d send out my golem/rhydon into something they counter, switch while you switched into your blastoise to one of my support pokemon and get probably set up the win.
Charizard as a sweeper, you can play around with enough support. Blastoise as a wall completely hinders the team.
Also, I couldn’t disagree more on water types being generic. Starmie is arguably the best support if not one of the best pokemon out there in RBY, Tobybro is one of the hardest things to defeat if played correctly, Lapras is also really good at support and can be annoying as hell with confuse ray/thunder wave, Cloyster would be a great defensive wall if Rhydon/Golem didn’t exist, if gyarados didn’t have a x4 weakness to thunder it would probably be in a lot more teams then it is, same with tentacruel not being weak to psychic and ground. I just listed a two support pokemon, one defensive wall, one special wall, a support, a mixed sweeper and a tank (wall with sweeping potential). None of them would function the same way, all are going to do different things to help you achieve victory.
*Edit: I forgot to mention, I’d love it if everything my charizard goes against tried to earthquake it.
Rather than “all” I meant to say “many” Water Pokemon end up being generic because the pool of candidates is so huge. Starmie, Lapras and Slowbro in RBY are all top-tier for a reason because they can do things beyond the typical Surf/Ice move/filler spam that every Water can do. Like, I meant that comment more in the kind of way that if Blastoise were in a much smaller type than Water, it’d seem a heck of a lot more viable than when it has to compete with three of the best Pokemon of Gen I (or in Gen 2, add in stuff like Suicune too).
I did forget all about Fire Spin. At least at the places I frequented back in the day, the whole spin trapping strategy was frowned upon/disregarded for a long time after RBY had come out and it was only a few years ago I found out, via Smogon when they updated all of their older Gen content, that it was considered acceptable again. It’s not a strategy that typically jumps to the forefront of my mind because of that, but Charizard does admittedly get it over Blastoise.
The best starter is Chikorita *drops mic*