Starters

[Arma]

New/old thought to bring up discussion, How should starters be typed? I personally think they should be Rare typing. Something not often seen or not at all seen, in order to add some kind of novelty to the starter.

I don't necessarily agree with you. the only "rare" type the main games used is Fire, as there often are lots of grass and water Pokemon available.
On the topic of typing though, I'm always glad to see new combinations used in fangames. the old Grass/Water/Fire thing was getting a bit lame. even more so when the game just offers canon starters from the main games.

Seeing non-canon starters, or even types, is rather exciting to see, but most often the choices seem a bit weird. Like the Pokemon were different just for the sake of being different. I love seeing starter Pokemon that make thematic sense.

In terms of stats and balance... All pokemon's stats are editable, and though It would be weird having a Weedle being on par with a Bagon, I do think the argument that some Pokemon can't be put together because of their stats is a tad moot here.

 

[aiyinsi]

I think it is totally ok to have non balanced starters. Pokémon is not about stats. It's about raising any Pokémon you like and every Pokémon being able to become strong. (That's why I don't like the design of male Combee)

As long as there is no rival battle at the very start e.g r/s/e/oras has you go through 2 routes and a city before the first rival battle.

I think it's more important that it's easy to get attached to the starter Pokémon. It's like Arma said ... if the starters aren't among your favorites you won't be excited to see them. So the best picks are either popular Pokémon or rather rare Pokémon since the most players may not be too familiar with them and new stuff makes things interesting. If you have fakemon in your game go ahead and have the starters be fakemon. It spotlights your fakemon(people tend to love their own party), makes clear that your game has fakemon and gives the player something new to experiment with.

 

[TreadingWater]

For me personally, I really liked it in Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness when they just gave you an Eevee and it was up to you to choose which form you wanted to evolve it into.

But I think that there could be more interesting ways to determine the starters.

For my project called Garden of Eden, I chose the starters that would incentivise the players to head to a specific area first once they arrive on the island the game takes place on, having a field-skill that is useful for exploring that area (Surf for the Lagoon, Cut for the Jungle and Rock Smash for the Caves). The player always have the option of catching a pokemon that would be able to use the other if they wish to tackle the areas in a different order, but new players will have an idea on where to go first.

Note: I apologize for any grammar-mistakes or spelling-errors. I may be pretty good at English, but it is not my first language.