Alternate Starter types (revisited)

Grass, Fire and Water

The 3 iconic types of Starter-Pokémon.

Before I start writing about the idea of the primary starter types being changed, I have to acknowledge that this is probably not going to happen anytime soon.

A fanmade set of Starters with untraditional type
that was part of a popular rumor
in the pre-release months of Diamond and Pearl

I know most PKMN-fans are already rolling their eyes and are about to dismiss the idea before I even explain my thoughts, but listen: I've been the guy saying the starter types will never change, back like a decade ago when people were still speculating about the possibility, with the most popular idea having been the trio of Psychic, Fighting and Dark. So it's not a suggestion I take lightly.


Anyhow, let's start with looking at...

The basics

Every generation, a new trio of Starters is introduced, and besides the cover-legendaries, they're the closest to being the mascots of their generation.

They are the first Pokémon you obtain for your adventure in every main-series game, and because of that, Gamefreak deliberately spends more time for their designs than for most other Pokémon, in an attempt to make them hit that balance between looking friendly and cool, and as appealing as possible. So starters are always a big deal.

It's one of the most fundamental traditions in Pokémon, and they often tend to become some of the most beloved monsters of their generation.

Ask any pokemon fan about their favourites and chances are they're gonna tell you one of the starters.

The reasoning behind the current trio

The reasoning behind their iconic group of primary types is that they are meant to showcase the mechanics of type effectiveness to new players. Water is strong against Fire, which is strong against Grass and Grass against Water. These are some of the most intuitive examples of type-match-ups.

Demonstrating how types work is of course crucial.
But this lesson could be tought separately, it doesn't necessarily have to be through the starters.

Striaton Gym Quiz

Black&White already showed us an example: the whole first gym is based around teaching the Grass/Fire/Water cycle of weaknesses, and it uses the elemental monkeys that were probably made specifically for this role. (I know they are quite disliked, but that doesn't mean that the core idea is bad. So just imagine if there was Grass, Fire and Water Pikachu rip-offs made for that purpose)

I could easily see a new Pokémon game having a tutorial gym before the actual gyms (Gym #0), which would teach you type effectiveness in a similar manner, using Pokémon completely unrelated to the starters.

Starters are not the only ones that can be used to teach type basics

With that out of the way, let's take a look at the starter types as a group from a conceptual standpoint.

A more balanced concept?

Recently, it occured to me that Fire feels more extraordinary compared to the other two if you think about it.
Quite literally, Grass and Water are more ordinary. They are types that are very natural and abudant in any ecosystem. Fire on the other hand is a much more energetic type. It's more like an element used by wizards in fantasy RPG games.

And this makes the group a bit imbalanced in my opinion.
Because Fire is a type you don't see often on a typical Pokémon adventure.

Water and Grass-type fans have always struggled with the reality that choosing the respective starter kind of prevents them from using many of the regular Water or Grass Pokémon seen through their journey, while Fire-type fans always complain about a lack of options when the Fire starter isn't appealing to them.

You can see this in any discussion about Diamond and Pearl for example. It doesn't take long for someone to bring up the lack of Fire types as one of the flaws of those games... but if you take a step back, you realize that for Sinnoh, which is supposedly a colder region, Diamond and Pearl didn't even have more Ice than Fire types.

Clearly, Fire is a more exotic and elemental type.

So what would be a more balanced group? (again, conceptually speaking, not in weaknesses)
Well, we could replace Fire with something natural and mundane like Ground!

Just kidding of course. The Fire-starter crowd is probably the most passionate and would be the most vocal about their favourite type being replaced  as one of the starter types.

So, the obvious thing to do would be the reverse: make all 3 starters exotic colorful RPG-magic-kind of elemental types, that will stand out throughout the journey as cool and special.

The new starter trio I propose would be...



All three of these types are colorful and elemental. They are the definite trio of offensive magical elements.
It's the reason we have seen this group featured before. The first example that comes to mind are legendaries like the classic birds trio, as well as the Unova Dragons, but it's also always been like a fundamental grouping behind the scenes, with well known counterpart moves like Thunderbolt, Flamethrower and Ice Beam, or other moves that come in 3 elemental variations like the elemental punches and fangs.

For Electric and Ice, getting upgraded into a starter type would be really exciting, because both of these types, like Fire, often lack a solid presence in a regions ecosystem. They are either ocassionally put on an otherwise generic animal that appears in regular grassfields (like Mareep and Growlithe), which often creates Pokémon that are instant favourites for a lot of people, or they appear in a very exclusive thematic locations (like a volcano, a powerplant or an ice cave).

So while starter types are guaranteed to get a new carefully designed 3-stage Pokémon every generation regardless of geography and themes, right now, it feels like a rare luxury when it happens to Ice or Electric.

So imagine for a moment, if the next set of starters were Electric, Fire and Ice.
Fire is easy, since it's always been a starter type and we have seen 7 already. Electric has a few examples of regular 3 stage PKMN that got close to being starter-like in appearance and stats, like Mareep and Shinx. For Ice.. there aren't even any real examples.. sure there is Swinub and Spheal, but neither of them make it obvious from looks alone that they are Ice types (despite it being their primary type). Vanillite does make it obvious, but it's not starter-like design-wise. Alolan Vulpix is probably the closest, but it doesn't have 3 stages... in other words, it feels like for Ice this is severely underused potential as it is!
I think it would be quite refreshing.

Keeping Fire and replacing the rest with more fitting partners feels like the most elegant option to me, and I think it's a unique suggestion.
Because usually when people discuss possible alternate starter types, they tend to propose trios of entirely different types to distinguish it from the existing trio, and there is always a big focus on trying to keep a cycle of weaknesses going (like the infamous Fighting, Dark, Psychic trio I mentioned earlier), but I honestly don't see the value in forcing the weakness rule at the expense of finding types that are conceptually consistent as a group.

In conclusion, I've come to like this trio as an alternate option for starter types, as well as the idea of exporting the type-weakness-lesson to a separate group of pokemon made for that purpose.

If the starter types did ever change, it would also open up other possibilities like having starters that are all special kinds of creatures like a Bug, a Ghost and a Dragon type or something.