Pokemon FireRed Best Starter: Bulbasaur, Charmander, or Squirtle?

Bulbasaur, Charmander, or Squirtle — every FireRed run starts with the same choice, and most advice online settles for “Bulbasaur is easiest” and stops there. That’s not wrong, but it skips a genuinely useful fact: Squirtle actually matches Bulbasaur’s exact type advantage against Brock, not a weaker one. So does the reverse showing up later — Charmander’s FireRed/LeafGreen-specific Metal Claw is real, but it’s a mitigation, not a fix.

This breaks down all three by Gym, by Elite Four member, and by what you’re giving up if you don’t pick a given type — using exact FireRed teams and Generation III type mechanics, not general Pokémon-series assumptions.

Quick answer: Bulbasaur is the easiest for a first playthrough — it’s the only starter with a clean advantage at both Brock and Misty, the two fights that shape how early FireRed feels. Squirtle ties Bulbasaur’s type advantage at Brock and becomes the strongest all-around pick for Blaine, Giovanni, and much of the Elite Four. Charmander is genuinely the hardest start — Metal Claw helps at Brock but doesn’t solve it, and Misty remains a clear unfavorable matchup with no early counterplay.

Quick Comparison

Which Starter Is Best in Pokemon FireRed?

There’s no starter that wins every fight, so “best” depends on what you’re optimizing for. If you want the smoothest possible first playthrough, that’s Bulbasaur — it’s the only one of the three with a real advantage at both Brock and Misty, the two Gyms that set the tone for everything after. If you’re optimizing for the Elite Four and late-game specifically, Squirtle edges ahead: it matches Bulbasaur’s type advantage at Brock, then holds a clear advantage at both Blaine and Giovanni and picks up a genuinely strong Lance matchup once Ice Beam is in the picture. Charmander is the honest “hard mode” pick — not because it’s weak overall, but because its worst matchup (Misty) comes right at the start, before you’ve built up a team to compensate.

Generation III rule worth knowing: move category is based on type, not the individual move. Fire, Water, Grass, Electric, Psychic, Ice, Dragon, and Dark moves all use Special Attack. Normal, Fighting, Flying, Poison, Ground, Rock, Bug, Ghost, and Steel moves all use Attack. This matters for reading the matchups below — Charizard’s Fire attacks, for example, run entirely off its Sp. Atk stat, not its Attack stat.

Bulbasaur — Best for the Easiest First Playthrough

Bulbasaur → Ivysaur at Lv16 → Venusaur at Lv32, learning Vine Whip at Lv7. Once Vine Whip is up, Bulbasaur has a genuine 4x type advantage against Brock’s Rock/Ground team — Grass hits both the Rock and Ground components for 2x each. It’s the same multiplier Squirtle gets, not a bigger one, but Bulbasaur pairs it with a second clean win at Misty, where Grass is 2x against both Staryu and Starmie. That’s the real case for Bulbasaur: it’s the only starter with two strong matchups back to back at the start of the game.

It’s not a free pass through the whole game, though. Erika’s team resists Grass hard enough that Venusaur’s own offense goes mostly quiet there (safe, but not productive), and Sabrina’s fight is a real problem — Venusaur’s Poison sub-type is 2x weak to Psychic, and three of her four Pokémon are pure Psychic. Later on, Lorelei’s team punishes Venusaur with Ice coverage even though Grass is offensively useful against most of her Pokémon.

Charmander — Harder Start, Strong Offensive Final Evolution

Charmander → Charmeleon at Lv16 → Charizard at Lv36, with Ember at Lv9. The one FireRed/LeafGreen-specific perk worth knowing about is Metal Claw at Lv13 — a level-up move Charmander’s line loses again in every later generation.

Metal Claw, honestly assessed: it’s real, and you don’t need to evolve first to use it — a Lv13 Charmander already has it. But Steel is only 2x against Brock’s Rock/Ground team (2x vs. Rock, neutral vs. Ground), half of what Bulbasaur’s Vine Whip or Squirtle’s Bubble get, and Charmander’s own Attack stat is modest. It makes Brock manageable. It doesn’t make the matchup good.

Misty is Charmander’s real problem — no counterplay yet, and Fire takes 2x from her whole team. Things turn around at Erika, where Fire is 2x against her entire Grass-based team with no exceptions, easily Charmander’s best Gym in the game. Later on, Charizard’s stats are the best of the three final evolutions on paper — highest Speed, highest Sp. Atk, highest total — but it comes with real costs: a 4x weakness to Rock that shows up more than once late-game, and its worst Elite Four fight by a wide margin (more on that below).

Squirtle — The Strongest Late-Game All-Rounder

Squirtle → Wartortle at Lv16 → Blastoise at Lv36, with Bubble at Lv8. The most underrated fact about Squirtle: once Bubble is available, its Brock matchup is exactly as strong as Bulbasaur’s — 4x, not a consolation-prize 2x. Misty isn’t a weakness either, despite what type-chart intuition suggests; Water vs. Water is a same-type mirror, resisted in both directions equally. The real difficulty there is Starmie’s level and movepool, not Squirtle’s typing.

Where Squirtle actually struggles is Lt. Surge (2x weak to Electric, no counterplay) and Erika (Water is resisted by her whole Grass-based team, and Squirtle takes 2x back from their Grass attacks). But the payoff comes later: Blastoise has a clear 2x advantage against Blaine’s entire pure-Fire team, and hits Giovanni’s Rhyhorn pair at 4x each. Its bulk (highest Defense and Sp. Def of the three final evolutions) and access to TM13 Ice Beam — available for 4,000 Coins at the Celadon Game Corner prize exchange, well before the Elite Four — make it a genuinely strong Elite Four pick too.

Starter Matchups Against Every Gym Leader

Exact FireRed Gym teams, cross-checked against PokemonDB’s team listings. “Favorable” and “Unfavorable” reflect genuine type multipliers, not general impressions — a few of these break from the usual advice. For the full gym order and story progression these fights happen in, see the FireRed walkthrough.

Which Starter Is Best for the Elite Four?

Covering the first Elite Four run only, not the post-Sevii-Islands rematch. Exact teams and movesets verified against StrategyWiki’s Elite Four breakdown.

Lorelei

Venusaur’s Grass is 2x against four of her five Pokémon (Dewgong, Cloyster, Slowbro, Lapras are all part-Water), which sounds like a clean win — but Dewgong, Slowbro, and Lapras all carry Ice Beam and Jynx carries Ice Punch, and Venusaur is 2x weak to Ice. Neither Slowbro nor Jynx actually has a damaging Psychic move in this fight, so the Poison sub-type’s Psychic weakness isn’t the real danger here — offensively useful, defensively risky is the honest read.

Charizard is not weak to Ice here, despite what the Flying typing might suggest — Fire’s own resistance to Ice cancels out Flying’s weakness to it, netting a plain 1x. It is 2x weak to Water, though, and its Fire offense is resisted or neutral against everything except Jynx. Blastoise is the safest of the three: it resists incoming Ice, even if its own Water offense doesn’t do much against a team this Water/Ice-heavy.

Bruno

Both Venusaur and Blastoise hit Bruno’s two Onix for 4x and are safe against his three Fighting-types — Venusaur actively resists Fighting (0.5x) rather than just avoiding extra damage. Genuinely one of the best fights in the run for either of them.

Charizard resists Fighting too (Flying resists it at 0.5x — it isn’t immune, that’s Ground), but three of Bruno’s five Pokémon — one Onix, Hitmonchan, and Machamp — all carry Rock Tomb, and Rock is a 4x weakness for Fire/Flying. Safe against the Fighting-types themselves, genuinely dangerous from more than half the team.

Agatha

None of the three starters has a real type advantage against Agatha’s Gengar/Golbat/Haunter/Arbok lineup. Grass is the weakest of the three offensively — resisted by the Poison-typed members and hit especially hard on Golbat, where both its Poison and Flying halves resist Grass. Water and Fire are both simply neutral throughout, not strong but not resisted either. None of the three has a clean type advantage here, though Venusaur carries a couple of real defensive risks of its own: Golbat’s Air Cutter is 2x against it (Flying is super effective against Grass), and Haunter can set up Hypnosis into Dream Eater for another 2x hit if it lands (Psychic is super effective against the Poison sub-type) — though that specific combo only works if Venusaur is already asleep. Charizard and Blastoise are more evenly neutral throughout. Agatha is still primarily a coverage-and-levels fight rather than a starter-choice fight.

Lance

This is one of Charizard’s roughest major fights — its Fire offense is resisted across the entire team (Dragon resists Fire), and Aerodactyl’s AncientPower hits it for 4x. Gyarados is also a threat, but not from Water — its actual first-run moveset here is Bite, Dragon Rage, Twister, and Hyper Beam, none of it Water-type. Venusaur doesn’t fare much better offensively, mostly neutral-to-resisted throughout.

Blastoise is the one with real upside here — its plain Water offense is resisted by most of the team, but TM13 Ice Beam (available for 4,000 Coins at the Celadon Game Corner prize exchange, well before this point) changes the fight: 4x against Dragonite, 2x against both Dragonair, 2x against Aerodactyl.

Champion

Blue’s team changes based on your starter — the only Pokémon that stay fixed across all three are Pidgeot, Alakazam, and Rhydon. Pick Bulbasaur and he brings Exeggutor, Gyarados, and Charizard; pick Charmander and it’s Exeggutor, Arcanine, and Blastoise; pick Squirtle and it’s Arcanine, Gyarados, and Venusaur. The team is mixed enough across all three versions that overall coverage matters more than starter typing by this point.

Which Starter Type Is Hardest to Replace?

If you skip a starter type entirely, here’s what FireRed actually gives you instead — verified against PokemonDB’s FireRed/LeafGreen version-exclusives list.

Grass and Water are both easy to replace — Oddish is available almost immediately, and Water has several practical options spanning very early to mid-game. Fire is the harder one: Growlithe is real and FireRed-exclusive, but it’s the only strong option, and it’s mid-game at that. If you’re skipping Charmander specifically, expect a Fire-type gap for a while.

One version note worth flagging directly: Vulpix, Slowpoke, and Bellsprout are all LeafGreen-exclusive, not available natively in FireRed. If a guide lists any of them as a FireRed alternative, that’s a version mix-up.

Venusaur vs Charizard vs Blastoise — Final Evolution Stats

Venusaur is the most balanced of the three, with a strong status-move kit backing up its stats. Charizard has the highest total, the highest Speed, and the highest Sp. Atk — the most purely offensive of the three, at the cost of the lowest Defense. Blastoise is the tank, with the best Defense and Sp. Def of the three final evolutions.

Your Starter Determines the Roaming Legendary

One consequence that doesn’t show up until the post-game: whichever starter you choose decides which of the three Johto legendary beasts roams Kanto after you finish the story.

Bulbasaur → Entei. Charmander → Suicune. Squirtle → Raikou. All level 50, one per save. Full roaming mechanics, the Roar bug, and everything else about catching it are covered in the Legendary Pokemon Locations guide.

FAQ

What is the best starter in Pokemon FireRed?

Bulbasaur for the easiest first playthrough — clean advantages at both Brock and Misty. Squirtle is the stronger pick for late-game and Elite Four value.

Is Bulbasaur or Squirtle better in FireRed?

They’re closer than most guides suggest — both have the exact same 4x advantage at Brock. Bulbasaur pulls ahead at Misty; Squirtle pulls ahead at Blaine, Giovanni, and parts of the Elite Four.

Is Charmander bad in FireRed?

Not bad overall, but genuinely the hardest start — Misty is a clean type disadvantage with no early counterplay. It gets much better at Erika and pays off with Charizard’s strong stats later.

Can Charmander beat Brock in FireRed?

Yes, with Metal Claw at Lv13 — no evolution required. It’s a real, FireRed/LeafGreen-specific improvement over the original Red/Blue, giving 2x against Brock’s team. It just doesn’t reach Bulbasaur or Squirtle’s 4x.

Which FireRed starter is best for the Elite Four?

Squirtle/Blastoise has the most consistently strong run — a clear 4x advantage against both of Bruno’s Onix and real Ice Beam coverage against Lance. Charizard has the best raw stats but the roughest matchup of any starter final evolution, against Lance specifically.

Which roaming legendary do you get with each starter?

Bulbasaur gets Entei, Charmander gets Suicune, Squirtle gets Raikou. Only one appears per save file.