>>44790660I agree that team choice should matter, in fact I'd argue it's the #1 appeal of Pokemon, but certain starter choices shouldn't be vastly better than the others across the game. It's cool when you know from the dialogue that you will be fighting a steel-type gym and you balance the opportunity cost of catching an underleveled ground type versus relying on a fire-type move one of your mons has. Those choices are cool because there's some agency and information involved. It sucks when one of the starters like Mudkip can steamroll the entire game and the others don't have much of a place to shine. There should be value between each of the choices where each one can shine at certain parts of the game. Getting the elemental monkeys super early reduces this effect, while still keeping your starter choice important since they're all better than the monkeys (hence why the monkeys only have one evolution, so you can replace them mid game).
