Appendix:User142 Ruby Sapphire walkthrough/Which starter
From Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia.
As in all versions of Pokémon except for Yellow, you have a choise between a Fire-type Pokémon (in this case, Torchic), a Water-type Pokémon (Mudkip) and a Grass-type Pokémon (Treecko). Here are some things you should consider:
1) The first gym: Like in Red/Blue/Yellow, the first Gym is a Rock-type gym. This gym has mostly Geodudes, which are double-weak to Grass and Water, and are single-resistant to Fire moves.
- This is less important than in Red/Blue and their re-makes Fire-Red and Leaf-Green, because;
- a) You can catch [[{{{1}}} (Pokémon)|{{{1}}}]] and Shroomish, which are Grass type Pokémon.
- b) You can also catch Wingull, a Water-Flying Pokémon. (Be careful - Wingull is weak to Rock moves.)
- c) At level 16, Torchic evolves into Combusken, a Fire/Fighting type Pokémon with a Fighting move called Double Kick.
- d) You can catch a Pokémon called Ralts who learns a Psychic move early on, which allows you to do a regular amount of damage to Rocks.
2) The second gym: This gym is a Fighting gym, and so it is weak to Flying and Psychic. One of the Pokémon here is Meditite, who isn't weak to Psychic because of its other type. Torchic learns Peck early on.
- However, here again Wingull can deal with the situation using Wing Attack.
3) Availability of similar Pokémon: Torchic is the only Fire Pokémon you can get until after the third gym. You can, however, get several Grass Pokémon early on - Shroomish, [[{{{1}}} (Pokémon)|{{{1}}}]] and Oddish; and Water Pokémon - Wingull, Tentacool and Goldeen.
4) Training up: Treecko can be trained up on water you fish up, or on Geodudes; later on, you will be doing most of your training in the water.
