Pokémon Thread XIII: Our Ponies are ON FIRE!

[tgva8889]

Rock-type gyms just annoy me. Since your starter is by default amazing against all the 1st Rock-type Gyms, you don't actually have to go looking for anything, which actually refutes your point (even in Gen I). As a result you catch all these Pokemon that are unusable and you just use your starter to do all the work anyways. "Why am I catching all these Pokemon, they don't do anything!" It'd be more interesting if, like in Gen V, your starter was weak to the first Gym Leader so you had to use something else, like perhaps a Pidove or a Lillipup. And then you learn that wow, maybe these guys are usable! Rewarding you for catching Pokemon at the beginning of the game instead of punishing you for wasting your time/money/effort, what a concept!

Gen II didn't quite do this well either. Though it did reward you for catching and using Ratatta or Pidgey in part, it punished you hard for using Bug-types, Bellsprout, or Gastly, who I'm pretty sure can't touch Pidgeotto for the majority of its levels. Or Zubat for that matter, but Zubat is pretty painful to use anyways.