I was. :raise: Last I heard, they were exclusive to White, and were the counterparts of Black's 624 and 625. That could be wrong though.

Cept, we're talking about someone who is just starting the game. They don't know they are picking the harder route(at the start) by picking charmander, they just thought he looked cool. Mankey only helped if you had red, if you were blue, you pretty much had to grind a bit.

Yeah, bu that was back in Gen 1. Now Charmander gets Metal Claw early and rapes Brocks Gym in no time. Though I still like to think that the kids who picked the fire starter in Gen 1 because it looked the coolest grew up to be better at the game than the kids who went the easy modes.

Anyway, arguing over Charmander at this point is silly because not only is he not the fire starter in this game, unless someone has leaked the new Gym line-up from the hacked Rom then there's no telling that choosing the fire pig as your starter sets the game on hard mode like choosing Charmander did in Gen 1.

It was leaked a couple of days before the rom, and like always,
It's in the instruction manual. Also, I'm laughing my ass off at the concept of Bulbasaur being "easy mode." Especially in Gen 1, where Psychics ruled everything. Same with Squirtle, actually. Sure he could beat Brock, but so could a sufficiently leveled Rattata. Squritle
Had trouble with Misty, Surge, and Erika. Meanwhile, Charmander only had trouble with Brock, and Misty if you were stupid enough to use it against her.

Also: I need to stop typing on my iPod.

Wait... so I just heard about Black/White last week, and it's already out.

Sneaky...

Japanese version only, of course.
Q-something 2011 for the rest of the world.

Ah, was panicking for a second there. I think SoulSilver came out in February in the UK.

Gonna test the online options on SS later, maybe trade the Kadabra I've sneakily levelled for another Kadabra, if that's possible. Haven't got the manual or game to check it until later tonight though, does it require "friend codes" or other such nonsense?

So, my copy came in yesterday and I finally got to play a little last night. It's far improved from 4th gen. I'm having a blast.

So far I've beat the first gym and my party includes(all nicknames in katakana save one, hence why there may be more than 5 roman characters):
Pokabu named Ganon @ level 10
Minezumi named Panic @ level 10(this guy is my cut slave and is used to run away from wild pokes)
Yooterii named Pochi @ level 10
Choroneko named Mephisto @ level 10
Yanappu named Aniki @ level 11
Tabunne named Popo @ level 8

Yeah, I like to evenly level my guys. I'll probably be replacing them as I get to cooler pokes, but for now that's what I got. I'm trying to see if I can get ahold of an event Celebi so I can get Zorua when I reach Huin.

My roommates way ahead of me(his pokes are 25 and he's picked up Victini...) but from what I see, the animation is amazing. That one fighting pokemon that has the tree...it tosses it around in battle(I'm sure it's evolutions will do something similar with their "props"). The otter, uses the shells on it's legs during some of it's attacks. They really put a lot of care into the game.

If you had Blue, all you needed was to find a Caterpie and get it to level 10, at which point you have a Butterfree with Confusion. Or I may be thinking of Yellow, but Pikachu is even MORE useless in that battle. Butterfree can easily wipe out Geodude on its own despite the Flying-type disadvantage and take a chunk out of Onix before going down, at which point you just throw the rest of your assorted mons at it despite their various weaknesses.

This makes me want it, despite having given up on SoulSilver after losing my sense of direction and realizing I'd just wasted all of my Oran berries on that stupid sick Miltank without seeing any benefit from it. I didn't expect to be playing enough to use the Berry Pots without them dying on me and they don't grow on trees anymore. :(

RBY-era Geodude and Onix couldn't do anything more threatening than Tackle at levels 12-14. Their 'special move' was the spectacularly useless Bide, during which your Butterfree could just Harden and make their tackles even less threatening.

There is absolutely no reason why either of Brock's pokemon should pose a threat to a Butterfree, especially if you got it to lv 13 (Poisonpowder) or 14 (Stun Spore).

[edit]Also, the Nidoran twins could learn Double Kick at level 12 in Yellow.