While most people have pointed out the Starter/Kanto Starter/Lucario core, few people have identified why that's the case unlike something like the Johto core of Starter/Ampahros/one of like two story Pokemon depending on your starter pick and type variety autism. The starter Pokemon is obvious, but the Kanto one is more interesting for several reasons. Not only is there a nostalgia element for older players and new toys to play with in the form of megas, they're actually just solid Pokemon without it (unlike the elemental monkeys) and immediately provide solid coverage. Lucario, again aside from being a popular Pokemon, is not only foisted on you in the story, but much like B2W2 Riolu is available early and on one of the vanishingly few optional areas as well (which arguably makes both availability options feel worse). The reasonable power level with the option for something better also makes this feel better than something like the free Lati@s in ORAS because holy shit that thing is busted and removes any remote challenge from the game, at least the non-Mega Kanto starters are just solid. Outside of that core there's probably a fairy that is probably Sylveon, Blaziken if you played a launch giving you a trio of starter Pokemon with a variety of types if you don't like Delphox or Charizard, and then the last spot is probably filled with one of the good Pokemon that probably exist as one single encounter on the bloated encounter tables with nothing else worth using over that single Pokemon. Honorable mention to Hawlucha who I feel is the Chandelure of Gen 6 in that it's not a shillmon and people just genuinely like it and want to use it, shame it's overshadowed by the cool ninja frog that Game Freak unpersoned rapidly for some reason.
