Out of starters of all the Gens, Gen V is also the worst, as the move paths are really limited… How limited? Level up or not, you can always learn the same moves. No variance what so ever…

Yeah, the Gen V starters were lackluster overall.  The Oshawott line was okay and cute until its final stage which was a weird change of pace.  The Tepig line was incredibly disappointing, especially since it was the third consecutive iteration of a Fire/Fighting starter, and the worst of the 3.  The Snivy line was pretty good, but still overall not good.

The bulk of my issue with Gen V is the changes to the experience mechanics that had been in place since the series’ inception, and was immediately reversed at the beginning of Gen VI.  The issues with the experience system were only augmented by a LOT of the Pokemon in Gen V having higher evolution points than ever before, an issue that was only exacerbated by the absolute lack of any previous generation Pokemon in the initial Black and White games, which was thankfully rectified in Black 2 and White 2.

Meh… I only played White 2, So I missed a lot of that… Sorry…

My interest in Pokemon evolution and moves really took off when I saw the Death Battle for the Gen I starters, which lead me to analyze who would win in the others, and how varied they are stat and move wise. I can post my findings if you are interested.

No problem.  One of the biggest problems with Gen V, at least with Black and White, is that it was intended to recapture the spirit of the original games by providing not only a new locale, but an entirely new set of Pokemon without interference or interaction from the previous generations.  This would not have been an issue if the new Pokemon were more unique from their obvious Gen 1 counterparts, or if the new area was more than a circle, or if they hadn’t destroyed the experience mechanic which forced players to grind, especially early on, and ESPECIALLY in Black and White.  The early gym leaders, especially Lenora, could be a nightmare in those games.

Later on in the games, when trying to round out teams the unusually high evolution levels really became an annoyance, coupled with the borked exp system.  In every previous game the highest level to evolve a Pokemon was 55, and that only with Dragonair->Dragonite and Pupitar->Tyranitar, so some of the best Pokemon at the time in terms of stats.  In Gen V there was suddenly a huge push to have Pokemon evolve at higher levels, like the first bug types you encounter evolving at 20 and 30 instead of 7 and 10.  Some of the most guilty of this came towards the latter end of the game with Pokemon like Rufflet and Vullaby, pretty basic flying types that don’t evolve until level 54, or Pawniard that doesn’t evolve until 52.  The worst offenders were the Deino line, which doesn’t evolve once until 50, and then again at 64 (the line has some of the slowest growth in the series, and stat wise are almost identical to the Bagon line which reached its final stage by the time Deino would evolve once) and Larvesta which wouldn’t evolve at all until level 59.

Some people would say that it wasn’t a problem, but they should consider that not only has it not been done before that, it wasn’t done after either.  Pretty much every change that was made for Gen V was reversed come Gen VI, another thing that hasn’t happened before in the series.

Gen V was an attempt to revitalize the series, and it was a pretty dismal failure at doing that.  Thankfully Gen VI did a much much MUCH better job at the same thing with X and Y.

I see you are quite the fact giver. Riddle me this, how many Unique moves can a Chimchar learn through Level up compared to his/her other starter companions in gen IV? (Not including evolution exclusive moves)

Through just leveling up, and without allowing Chimchar to evolve it can learn 12 different moves, though again that’s without allowing it to evolve at all.  In species that gain an additional typing upon level up, having a separate movelist from its evolutions isn’t unusual.  Piplup without evolving has access to 13 moves via leveling, and Turtwig has access to 12.  They’re pretty even.

True. Now if we included Evolution exclusive moves, Turtwig would have 13 and the other 15.

With this in mind, which do you think is the best starter in terms of move variance (Between move typing and the moves possible. This is the point most people miss.)

Turtwig would actually end up with 14, 15 if you count Wood Hammer which Torterra has access to via level, but cannot learn through natural leveling.  As for which has the greatest variance and coverage I’d have to give that to Turtwig between Ground, Grass, Normal and Dark moves.  Piplup gets Steel, Water, Normal and Flying which does provide good coverage, but not great, and Chimchar gets Fighting, Fire, and Normal, with one Dark move in Punishment, again good but not great.

Hmm… I may have miscounted… But still, your point is fairly valid. But the one thing people tend not to notice is that out of every Starter in Gen IV, Infernape has the most diverse moves possible. Granted, not in typing, as Torterra has that, but in evo exclusives. Why does that matter?

Well, given that there are some moves that only specific evolutions (or not) can learn, when one evolves their pokemon changed, which changes their move pool and in some cases, their stats by the time they reach lv 100.

Gen V for example.. Has none. None starters there have exclusives, with Gen IV scooting by just barely… 

The variety of moves available through level is a less important point than the size and variety of the movepool in general, and both aren’t as important as how well the Pokemon can utilize its movepool with its base stats.  That was an issue with Gen V moreso than Gen IV, the movepools were pretty shallow for all starters, but only the Snivy line could really, really take advantage of its natural base stats.  This is especially true if one has access to a Snivy with its hidden ability of Contrary which makes it, frankly, scary.

Right. Who is your favorite starter overall across all Gens?