>>40182245Appearing late does matter. It means it contributes for way less of the game.
I've also used Ludicolo in Emerald, it was absolute ass until the very last section, so yeah. Lotad and Lombre also have shit level up movesets and you don't even get a Water move for half the game. It's great when you finally get there, but that's a long investment considering how crap it is until then. That's an entire game of shit for a small good portion.
Lileep only evolving at level 40 also matters since it's utter shit until then, and that's also extremely late. At least Grovyle can use Leaf Blade from level 29 onwards in RSE. Probably less of an issue in ORAS.
Trading in a Houndoom shouldn't count, by that logic you could trade in a legendary or level 100 mon and decimate the game that way. Houndoom is good but the level grinding in Johto is so bad and Houndoom has the Slow exp curve to make it worse that you're better off sticking with Typhlosion at that point. Hell in Crystal you could buy a level 40 Larvitar if you need a Dark type that badly.
I used Abomasnow once. Again, you have nearly the whole game of it flatly not being there so Turtwig is better from that alone. Also it's weak to everything, slow, levels up slowly, and hurts your team by merely existing. But I will admit it was decent, 100% accurate Blizzard was noice.
Heliolisk is a strange choice because it's the only one that's not the same type as what you're comparing it to.
