With the announcement of Pokemon’s ninth generation, Game Freak also revealed a brand new set of starting Pokemon to begin your journey with. Starter Pokemon tend to become the most iconic monsters of each generation as everyone is guaranteed to get one of them and usually carries their chosen starter — always water, grass, or fire types — across their Pokemon journey. Immediately after the three starter Pokemon are revealed, people create memes, fan art, and jump feet-first into social media to frantically express the decision paralysis of trying to figure out which of these Pokemon is right for you.
Fortunately, we’re here to help.
Your starter is in some ways a reflection of your personality, but it’s at minimum an indicator of your preferences. With the wild differences between the starter designs this time around, your choice actually says quite a lot about you.
Sprigatito
There have been cat starters before, such as Pokemon Sun and Pokemon Moon’s Litten, but Sprigatito is the first grass cat starter. Much like Litten, however, it’s a simple quadraped animal with some coloring indicating its type. The little tufts on the side of its face resemble leaves, though, so the theming is a little better here.
If you’re going with Sprigatito, you’re probably pretty used to playing it safe, but want to get a little weird here and there. You want a Pokemon that basically just looks like an animal but you don’t want to go so far in that direction that you could be considered boring. It’s a cat, but the cat is green, and that’s fine for you. You don’t need to speed on the highway or eat hot peppers to get a thrill.
You probably love the Generation 1 starters and tell multiple people about how much you hate Klefki and Vanilluxe.
Fuecoco
Fuecoco is the newest fire starter Pokemon who is also an actual fire-starter. The crocodile/pepper hybrid has become a fan favorite already for its slightly goofier design and big happy smile. While the memed joke of third-stage fire/fighting starters hasn’t been true for a while, it might make sense for Fuecoco to eventually become a big brawler Pokemon when it grows up.
If you are gravitating toward Fuecoco, that probably means you’re cool, but the kind of cool that no one cares about. And that’s okay, you don’t need them to care, because they definitely do not. You like them big and goofy and don’t care if a Pokemon actually looks like an animal or not. It could actually be a bell pepper with a mouth and you would still love the Veggie Tales-lookin’ idiot.
Your favorite generations are probably 2 or 4 and you spend a lot of time telling people on the internet that Pokemon was never about graphics.
Quaxly
Quaxly is by far the simplest starter of the bunch, to the point where it almost looks like a regular non-starter Pokemon that was promoted to the big leagues. It has a cool little hat, which is weird because Quaxly was born with it on, so it’s more like a weird blue pompadour. It is hard to imagine Quaxly becoming anything more complicated than a bigger, meaner duck.
But neither you nor Quaxly care about that. It’s fine to be simple and maybe keep your aspirations realistic. You want your Pokemon to basically be 1950s Disney cartoons without the racism. You want a buddy to just go through the world with, and you’re not looking for a pinata come to life or a Final Fantasy boss. Quaxly knows exactly what it is and doesn’t care about trying to stand out in a crowd.
If you’re a Quaxly main, your favorite generations are probably 5 or 8 and you definitely had opinions about the way the Pokemon anime art style changed a few years ago.
This Didn’t Help
Regardless of which Pokemon you choose at the outset, Scarlet and Violet will probably still have plenty of new friends to battle and capture across the entire region. Choosing a best friend at the outset can be hard, but they’re going to be just one part of your overall Pokemon team when the game releases this holiday.
