The first gym is rock, the second is water, the third is electric. Charmander has a really hard time in those first two matchups and only hits neutral in the third. At this stage of the game, it’s really difficult to fill out your types because the wild Pokémon are largely birds, bugs, and rats.
If you’re really lucky, you’ll hit the extremely low encounter rate for Pikachu in Viridian Forest, and if you’re even luckier, you’ll catch one. But that only helps you against Misty.
In contrast, Bulbasaur is super effective against the first two gyms, and is merely neutral against Lt. Surge and his electric mice.
And by that point you’ve fed two whole gyms full of trainers and gym leaders into your Bulbasaur (by virtue of not having to constantly rotate through your back line just to survive).
Which means it can both take a beating and lay a smackdown in what is on its face a “neutral matchup”.
After that point the game opens up dramatically and that initial advantage fades.
In contrast, bulbasaur is weak to all the birds and bugs that are so common in the early game.
To make it more difficult, Bulbasaur is the only one of the three starters to not learn a STAB move as their first move after the debuff at 5.
Squirtle gets bubble, ember for Charmander. Leech seed for Bulbasaur. And while leech seed has uses late game when you’re tanky, it is mostly useless against wild pokémon.
That is to say, both Charmander and Bulbasaur have a lot of trouble early game until you get a diverse team. But Squirtle will just stomp through it all (especially in original Gen1 when Special was imba, combined with its natural high defence state).
The first gym is rock, the second is water, the third is electric. Charmander has a really hard time in those first two matchups and only hits neutral in the third. At this stage of the game, it’s really difficult to fill out your types because the wild Pokémon are largely birds, bugs, and rats.
If you’re really lucky, you’ll hit the extremely low encounter rate for Pikachu in Viridian Forest, and if you’re even luckier, you’ll catch one. But that only helps you against Misty.
In contrast, Bulbasaur is super effective against the first two gyms, and is merely neutral against Lt. Surge and his electric mice.
And by that point you’ve fed two whole gyms full of trainers and gym leaders into your Bulbasaur (by virtue of not having to constantly rotate through your back line just to survive).
Which means it can both take a beating and lay a smackdown in what is on its face a “neutral matchup”.
After that point the game opens up dramatically and that initial advantage fades.
In contrast, bulbasaur is weak to all the birds and bugs that are so common in the early game.
To make it more difficult, Bulbasaur is the only one of the three starters to not learn a STAB move as their first move after the debuff at 5.
Squirtle gets bubble, ember for Charmander. Leech seed for Bulbasaur. And while leech seed has uses late game when you’re tanky, it is mostly useless against wild pokémon.
That is to say, both Charmander and Bulbasaur have a lot of trouble early game until you get a diverse team. But Squirtle will just stomp through it all (especially in original Gen1 when Special was imba, combined with its natural high defence state).