Celebrate Pokemon's 20th Anniversary With Our List of Favorite Pokemon Types

23 Mar 2016

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Pokemon turns twenty years old this month, and we thought it would be fun to stroll down memory lane and revisit our favorites. Unfortunately, there are 721 individual Pokemon, and almost 75 games (and counting) to cover, so the easiest way we thought to go about this was to break it down by types. Types are properties for Pokemon and their moves, and is the best way to categorize them because there are so many. Feel free to chime in on which are your favorite, if we are forgetting any, and how/why we are wrong. We are fully prepared to deal with that reality.

Without further ado, here is our list of favorites!

18. Normal

There are a ton of normal type Pokemon, and they don't get much respect. Mostly because they don't do anything particularly special, and there really isn't any defining features that link them. So instead of 'normal', maybe they should have renamed this class 'miscellaneous'.

Standouts include: Chansey, Meowth, Lickitung, Ditto, Eevee, Porygon-Z, Snorlax, Zigazoon, Zangoose, Buneary, Munchlax, and Bunnelbly.

17. Bug

We do not typically like bugs in real life. In fact, we hate bugs! They bite and lay eggs in your ear while you're sleeping. And a lot of the Bug type Pokemon remind us too much of real bugs, but we cannot deny others of liking creepy, crawling disgusting Pokemon. In the original animated show, gym leader Misty hated bugs. We are with her on that.

Standouts include: Caterpie, Metapod, Butterfree, Kakuna, Weedle, Venomoth, Beedrill, Scyther, Scizor, Combee, and Durant.

16. Steel

One of the more rare types to find in-game, Steel usually indicates a Pokemon is quite strong, fierce, cool looking, and/or metallic. And find all of those attributes hard to find, which is why we are quite found of Steel. It's a shame this is a newer classification, or else there would be more stand-outs, but at the rate Nintendo and Game Freak are pumping out Poke games, we'll get plenty more soon, don't you worry.

Standouts include: Klink, Klang, Steelix, Metagross, Magneton, and Aggron.

15. Flying

We always think of certain Pokemon who can fly, like Charizard, without remembering that there are actually Flying type Pokemon who can't breathe fire. This obviously makes them less cool, in our eyes, and most flying types are also normal types. But there is still a need to acknowledge and respect flying Pokemon, because in game, without them we couldn't travel around towns as fast as we currently do. And we couldn't have aerial battles without them! Do not take flying Pokemon for granted.

Standouts include: Pidgey, Zubat, Farfetch'd, Dodrio, Gyrados, Aerodactyl, Hoothoot, Pelipper, Lugia, Ho-oh, and Talonflame.

14. Fairy

The newest type of Pokemon, this was introduced to balance out the battles in the games. A large number of former normal types were reclassified as fairy, which is great, because there are more than a few that look the type. Some include fan-favorites, which were switched, and while it's incredibly rare, we expect that to change soon as well.

Standouts include: Clefairy, Togepi, Swirlix, Xerneas, Jigglypuff, Mr. Mime, and Mime Jr.

13. Rock

You want to be a tough guy or gal? Pick only rock Pokemon. Because they rock. What a badass unifying theme for a fictional animal; they are either totally encased in rock like The Thing, or they use rocks and boulders to fight. How sick is that? We've always liked rock Pokemon, even though their natural enemies, water types, are the most common in the entire game. Oh well, we just like throwing rocks at things, I guess.

Standouts include: Sudowoodo, Gigalith, Geodude, Golem, Onix, Kabuto, Omastar, Solrock, Rhyhorn, and Shuckle.

12. Ground

While 'ground' is quite vague, if you've played enough Pokemon games you'll understand that ground types are a scrappy bunch. Going underground, throwing sand, fighting with bones, hacking and slashing your way to victory at any cost; there is not much tying these types together thematically, but spiritually they are all linked. Other than they all crawl around on the ground, I guess that's a defining feature...oh, and they're all awesome. That too.

Standouts include: Sandshrew, Diglett, Dugtrio, Cubone, Groudon, Donphan, Hippopotas, Sandile, Krookodile, and Diggersby.

11. Grass

This might be blasphemy, but there are so many grass types, it sorts of works against the type. Not that we don't love a good grass type, but it's so common, especially throughout the early game, that they seem commonplace by the end of your Poke adventure. But it is tried and true, and you cannot deny the impact grass types have on the game. Not to mention we would pick them over bug types, hands down.

Standouts include: Chikorita, Tangela, Sunflora, Treecko, Cacnea, Turtwig, Snivy, Pansage, Bulbasaur, Vileplume, Bellsprout, Exeggcute, Sceptile, Celebi, and Paras.

10. Poison

A close cousin to grass types, poison types are a great mix of more traditional grass types who can combo with poison moves (they're very annoying and effective in battles) AND dark/ghost Pokemon who have a toxic slant to their move set. Poison types can be so diverse from each other that we really think there is no one look to a poison Pokemon, which is dope.

Standouts include: Ekans, Nidorino, Grimer, Muk, Koffing, Weezing, Garbodor, Nidoking, Nidoqueen, Golbat, Skuntank, Venusaur, Gloom, Tentacool, Tentacruel, Foongus, and Roselia.

9. Dark

Just the name alone, dark, forced us to put this into the top ten. Dark. It's so mysterious, and eerie, and conjures up quite the aura of a strong Pokemon type. It's rare enough, and vague enough, that many normal types seem like they were painted black and switched to be dark type mid-way through production on a few games. Which is fine, we're down for some more darker and more nefarious Pokemon types. Not everything can be pink and fairies, Pokemon can have an edge to it.

Standouts include: Greninja, Umbreon, Absol, Houndoom, Weavile, Scraggy, Vullaby, Sharpedo, Pangoro, and Spiritomb.

8. Ice

The rarest type of Pokemon is ice, and we don't know why. Maybe because so many water types aren't cool enough to be ice types.

I'll stop making puns now.

Standouts include: Vanillish, Cubchoo, Articuno, Dewgong, Cloyster, Lapras, Jynx, and Kyurem.

7. Psychic

This might be from certain gyms in the game, or from some epic episodes of the animated TV show, but psychic types are just intimidating. Their moves are so much different than the rest of the types, because it's not phsyical attacks being utilized. Making a Pokemon confused, so it hits itself, is the most dangerous side effect to fighting against psychic types. We also like how a lot of psychics aren't animalistic, or gigantic, or outlandish in how they look and move. It's all reserved, creepy, and psychedelic.

Standouts include: Alakazam, Hypno, Mewtwo, Mew, Unown, Wobbuffet, Munna, Solosis, Swoobat, Slowpoke, Starmie, and Lunatone.

6. Fighting

With the recent release of Pokken on Wii U, fighting types have gotten really great exposure. I mean, Pokemon do two things: breed, and fight. And who is better at fighting than fighting types? They're the most active, agile, acrobatic, and exciting Pokemon around, and there are tons of fan-favorites included in this type.

Standouts include: Primeape, Machop, Machoke, Machamp, Hitmonlee, Hitmonchan, Sawk, Throh, Pancham, Lucario, Hawlucha, Poliwrath, Heracross, Blaziken, Emboar, and Croagunk.

5. Water

The most common type, and for a reason. Water is everywhere in Pokemon; beaches, rivers, streams, lakes, and the ocean (which you need water types to travel around). Using surf is one of those moments in the original game that was so amazing, and water types have carved out their own niche, despite most of them being iterations on fish Pokemon.

Standouts include: Squirtle, Blastoise, Psyduck, Poliwhirl, Seel, Shellder, Magikarp, Kingler, Horsea, Seaking, Staryu, Vaporeon, Suicune, Mudkip, Wailord, Clamperl, Oshawott, Panpour, and Marill.

4. Dragon

Dragons are inherently cool, in folklore, and in other video games. So there wasn't much heavy lifting to be done here, but at least the dragon types in the pokemon games are actually very cool takes on traditional dragons, the old school kinds scrawled on caves. They can fly, they are quite powerful on their own, and did we mentiont they are dragons?

Standouts include: Dragonair, Dragonite, Axew, Goodra, Haxorus, Salamence, Rayquaza, Reshiram, Zekrom, Flygon, Palkia, and Dialga.

3. Pikachu

Sorry everyone, ONE Pokemon we all love is not enough to make electric types the top gun. Pikachu is the best, he's the mascot, we all love Pika-anything. Hats, shirts, bags, shoes, you name it. But honestly, there aren't many electric types, they are only used for beating water gyms, and while we think electric powers are really cool, the design of many electric types are lazy. But, third best is still quite good for being carried by one single Pokemon.

Standouts include: Pikachu (obviously), Voltorb, Electrabuzz, Jolteon, Pichu, Mareep, Electrike, Plusle, Minun, Zebstrika, Magnemite, Zapdos, and Joltik.

2. Ghost

Ghosts are awesome. Pokemon are awesome. Ghost Pokemon are double awesome. Some are dead, some are alive, some are inbetween, but it doesn't matter. Ghost types are the best mix of poison, dark, psychic, and also being freaking ghosts! Some of the best designs, and some of the best backstories for Pokemon. They made certain levels and towns scary, the animated show spooky, and they add a nice flavor to the world. They're also incredibly rare! So they feel special when you catch them, since they could just fly out of the pokeballs, technically. We think.

Standouts include: Duskull, Gastly, Haunter, Gengar, Drifloon, Litwick, Chandelure, Phantump, Pumpkaboo, Sableye, Doublade, and Hoopa.

1. Fire

We believe fire to be the best type. Picking a fire type in the beginning of the game was always the right move, because they are the best, clearly. They were hard to find and catch in the games, not many levels take place on the side of volcanoes, and they do quite well against bugs (did we mention we hate bugs?) Burning Pokemon to a crisp has never gotten old, and the second best Pokemon ever, Charizard, has become a phenomenon in almost every game, and even in the collectible card game. Some all-time standouts are in fire, and we love all of them.

The best Pokemon include: Charmander, Charizard, Vulpix, Ninetales, Arcanine, Ponyta, Rapidash, Magmar, Flareon, Cyndaquil, Magby, Torchic, Chimchar, Magmortar, Tepig, Pansear, Fennekin, Braixen, Moltres, Combusken, Delphox, Pyroar, Volcanion, and Victini.

 

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