In assembling At the Buzzer’s list of the top 25 Pokemon of all-time, we depended on 10 intrepid young lads and lasses to sit down and seriously consider their life to this point. The result was a pretty comprehensive list. But unlike our best games list, we can take a look at more of a statistical breakdown and see what it all means.
As always, links to our complete list are below, as well as the poll for how we did.
(NOTE: In the columns below, top 25 and top 100 should be self explanatory. “Listed” is the 145 Pokemon that got at least a single vote from someone, and “Total” is the entire pool of Pokemon to choose from.)
LIST BY GENERATION
I can’t say I’m too surprised by how this turned out. Generation I holds a ton of nostalgia for pretty much anyone who has enjoyed the series. Many folks still love Ken Sugimori’s designs and art style, and for good reason — it was both simplistic and refined. Also, those original 151 Pokemon have appeared in every game since, so even new players get to check them out. More than half the top 25 was from that gen, and 37 percent of our top 100.
The rest? Well, Gen II makes a pretty strong showing even though it added the second-fewest new Pokemon in the series. Gen III and IV perform about as you’d expect. Gen V doesn’t have any representation in the top 25 (although Hydreigon was very close), but still had a strong showing in the 100. And Gen VI…I mean, you can pin the blame on there being only 70 new Pokemon, or the fact that it just came out and we haven’t developed bonds with these new creatures yet, or that the designs just suck.
| TOP 25 | TOP 100 | LISTED | TOTAL | |
| GEN 1 | 13 | 37 | 54 | 151 |
| GEN 2 | 3 | 19 | 25 | 100 |
| GEN 3 | 5 | 15 | 18 | 135 |
| GEN 4 | 4 | 14 | 24 | 107 |
| GEN 5 | 11 | 15 | 156 | |
| GEN 6 | 4 | 9 | 70 |
LIST BY TYPE
This is a little tougher to pin down without some statistical noise, because dual typing messes with things a little, but it’s still interesting.
For example, only 11 of the 18 types got any recognition in the top 25. Even though there’s only 37 Ice types, three made the cut — but none of the 86 Fighting types were nominated. Unsurprisingly, voters chose Water types the most, which makes sense because those aquatic Pokemon are EVERYWHERE (124 in total, 27 more than any other type).
Other groups getting more love than you might expect from a pure numbers standpoint? Fire, Dragon, Dark and Ghost all had strong showings, while Normal, Ground, Rock and Bug fell behind the average.
It’s also not shocking that Fairy didn’t get much love. I’m sure that’s for the same reason as the Gen VI disparity above — just released, smaller selection, bad design, or whatever other factors you might list.
| TOP 25 | TOP 100 | LISTED | TOTAL | |
| PSYCHIC | 7 | 11 | 15 | 75 |
| WATER | 6 | 18 | 22 | 124 |
| FLYING | 5 | 18 | 21 | 95 |
| ICE | 3 | 4 | 7 | 37 |
| GROUND | 3 | 8 | 10 | 61 |
| DRAGON | 3 | 11 | 12 | 40 |
| STEEL | 2 | 5 | 8 | 42 |
| BUG | 2 | 5 | 9 | 69 |
| FIRE | 2 | 14 | 17 | 59 |
| NORMAL | 2 | 5 | 11 | 97 |
| ELECTRIC | 2 | 9 | 9 | 48 |
| DARK | 8 | 14 | 45 | |
| GHOST | 5 | 10 | 34 | |
| GRASS | 10 | 17 | 86 | |
| FIGHTING | 10 | 13 | 46 | |
| POISON | 4 | 11 | 59 | |
| ROCK | 5 | 7 | 55 | |
| FAIRY | 3 | 5 | 35 |
We’re not quite through with this series yet — tomorrow, we’ll talk about our own impressions of how things went, and Friday will be the grand finale: a look at the WORST Pokemon ever. It should be fun.
Objection Network 