I see so much Bulbasaur hate and Charmander dickriding. In my opinion, he's the best choice for a starter because he makes the first 2 gyms manageable, after which point you will have access to a wide range of other Pokemon to build your team with. You'll get comfortable with the game quite early on, without feeling the slow ass grind that you'll have to inevitably endure later on.

 
The other 2 starters make you grind out just to beat the first 1/2 gyms which can make the start of the game a bit of tedious drag and kill the flow a bit. If you pick Bulbasaur you are able to beat Brock and Misty relatively easy and make it to Vermillion City where you'll have to start relying on other stuff. You have quite a range to choose from at that point, so I find that it's a good balance, imo.

So uh, yeah that's what I think. Discuss what the best gen 1 starter is in terms of actual game progression and pace.

The fact that Bulbasaur is essentially the game's easymode kinda makes me dislike him more, to be honest.

You do have to grind a lot if you pick Charmander, which sucks, but that's why I think Squirtle's the best option.

The fact that Bulbasaur is essentially the game's easymode kinda makes me dislike him more, to be honest.

Really? I only find him to be too useful near the start, after that he's pretty much only useful as a support Pokemon. It's my first time playing Firered in a while though. From what I can remember, once Charmeleon evolves into Charizard the game goes into easy mode. Just Flamethrower/Wing Attack everything.

The thing is, Bulbasaur gets early access to one of the most broken moves in the game--Sleep Powder. There's no sleep cause in single player, so you can just use it on everything with impunity.

But yeah, as for the Charizard thing--I'd say that applies to all the starters. Once your starter is fully evolved, it should be able to wreck just about anything, as long as you're faster.

It misses most of the time when I use it. Could just be my terrible luck. And I find that using Charizard makes me less inclined to use the rest of my team because I can just burn everything with Flamethrower. I mean it's useful to have something so fast and powerful yeah, but I like having a nice balanced team I can rotate at will.

Bulbasaur is the best.

At least in Gen 1 you have the toxic/leech seed glitch which makes Bulbasaur super good. I usually pick between Bulbasaur or Squirtle in Fire Red/Leaf Green though.

Hes the cutest gen 1 starter