My Top 5 Favourite Pokemon Who Have the Best Second Stages in Their Evolution. (Gen 1)

Wow! That title was certainly a mouthful... But please don't be put off! So I've been playing a lot of Pokemon Firered and Leafgreen as of late and it got me thinking of Pokemon who have three stages of evolution and how the Pokemon in the middle of the evolution cycle, i.e. the second Pokemon in the cycle doesn't usually get much love. People either prefer the first Pokemon in the cycle or the last, never usually the one in between.

So! I've decided to make a list on my personal top 5 Pokemon who have the best second stages in their evolution. The rules are the Pokemon must be from generation one (Red and Blue) and the Pokemon in question must have more than two forms of evolution. For example, I couldn't suggest someone like Sandslash as he only has two forms of evolution: the first being Sandshrew and then Sandslash himself. I also cannot include any Pokemon who originally had two forms of evolution but due to later games have three or more. For example I couldn't pick Pikachu even though he has three forms of evolution (Pichu, Pikachu, Raichu) because Pichu came along in generation 2. So without further ado, here we go!

Number 5: Dragonair

Evolution cycle: Dratini, Dragonair, Dragonite

Number 4: Kadabra

Evolution cycle: Abra, Kadabra, Alakazam

I don't know about you but when I eat my cereal I find one spoon is just enough. Two spoons are too many and none at all is not enough. Kadabra seems to agree with my logic too! As this spoon-wielding Pokemon seems to find one spoon enough, unlike his next evolutionary brother Alakazam who needs two spoons! Pathetic! Just kidding. But in all seriousness Kadabra has got to be my favourite Pokemon out of the three Psychic types. Back in the days of my serious Pokemon playing days I would always be on the hunt for an Abra just because he was a Psychic type and they were very over-powered back in generation one. I always found Abra a little under-powered though; plus he was a bitch to catch as the only move a wild Abra knows is teleport!! So annoying. Anyway, I spent a lot of time with Kadabra as I tried to evolve my Abra as quick as I could and could only evolve Kadabra by trading him with another player; something I never really did or was that keen on. I know! One of the major selling points of the game and I didn't care for it, go figure! So because I was essentially stuck with Kadabra the majority of the time I really grew a bond with him and really appreciated him as a Pokemon. I also preferred his design to the other two Pokemon in his evolution group. He had a mystic and powerful look about him as opposed to Abra who looked like he was forever asleep and Alakazam who looked like an old mystical guru. Kadabra looked powerful but youthful; not perfect yet, in other words. which are the kind of characters I'm always drawn too as I can usually relate to them a bit more.

The first one on the list then is Dragonair. I always thought Dratini and Dragonair always looked very unique in the world of Pokemon and I always admired their designs. I never quite understood Dragonite though. How do two long snake-like Pokemon transform into the much more cartoon form of Dragonite?? Never understood that one. I've always preferred Dragonair out of all the three dragons though. Back in generation one there were very few dragon types making Dragonair a very rare Pokemon and a big advantage to trainers who had one in their possession. As mentioned earlier, Dragoniar (and Dratini) both have serpent-like designs. The dark blue crossed with the ice white colouring of the dragon makes it look very striking, it almost looks like a water or ice type Pokemon. However it is only a dragon, which is a great type to battle with especially during generation one. 

Number 3: Haunter

Evolution cycle: Gastly, Haunter, Gengar

In truth, I've always liked all of these Pokemon. I seem to have a bit of a fascination with ghosts and all things creepy so ghost Pokemon were always going to go down well with me. I prefer Haunter out of all of the evolution stages though as he seems to represent a depiction of a ghost the most in my opinion. Similar to Kadabra and psychic type Pokemon, Haunter is of course a ghost type Pokemon giving him a great advantage over most other types, especially in the generation one era just like Phychic types. The only moves which were effective to ghosts at the time were psychic type moves in addition ghost pokemon were immune to all normal type moves. So yeah, they were quite a force back when Pokemon first debuted. Regardless of his abilities and strengths though, which admittedly did help me regarding favouring this Pokemon, I've always loved the design of Haunter: his dark purple combined with his sharp glaring stare and sinister smile always made me want him in my Poke' party! In the anime he also has a mischievous attitude too; always trying to scare and haunt others whilst having a laugh about it. This made me love the Pokemon even further! Haunter has always been one of my very favourites and continues to be. There have been other ghost Pokemon created by the creative people at Nintendo and Game Freak, but none hold a chilling candle to Haunter.

Number 2: Pidgeotto

Evolution cycle: Pidgey, Pidgeotto, Pidgeot

Without a doubt the best bird trio in the Poke'verse. From the start players get to know Pidgey almost immediately as young trainers come across the bird from the start of Route 1 and then in a myriad of other places across Kanto. So when they finally evolve Pidgey into Pidgeotto they know the Pokemon pretty well. I think one of the main reasons I love Pidgeotto so much though is down to the anime series. As far as my memory serves, Ash seemed to have a Pidgeotto for quite a while in the series and used to use him on numerous occasions; Pidgeotto seemed to get a lot of screen time anyway! I sort of grew an attachment to the bird through watching the show. Pidgeotto, in my opinion, had a better design than the other two birds especially compared to Pidgeot, who I do really admire as a Pokemon but just thought he was that little bit too large. Pidgeotto just has the brilliant 'pird of prey' look; combined with his long feathers (at least I think they're feathers) which flow from the top of his head to his lower neck, Pidgeotto is just the buisness. And when all is said and done his stats are pretty strong too compared to the other wild Pokemon you'll encounter straight away: Rattata. Even when Rattata evolves into Raticate, Pidgeotto's stats are still shining strong against it. Plus its a big bird vs a big rat, who do you think's going to win in that situation? It's a no-brainer.

Number 1: Charmeleon

Evolution cycle: Charmander, Charmeleon, Charizard

Wow! Shots fired, eh? I'm sure quite a few people will disagree with this particular Pokemon! Let alone it being my number one favourite. Ever since securing him as a Pokemon card all of those years ago back in 1998, Charmeleon has always been one of my favourite Pokemon. Most people tend to pick Charizard as their favourite Pokemon out of these three, in fact a lot of people would choose Charizard as their very favourite Pokemon out of all of them, period. You've probably noticed by reading this blog but one of the big reasons I favour a certain Pokemon is due to its design. In fact, if the design is uninspiring, unoriginal or just down-right bad then it's very likely I won't care for that particular creature. Charmeleon just looks awesome! His dark red colour combined with his stronger body and size makes him look like a formidable creature. He almost looks like a flaming dinosaur which is just plain awesome in addition to having more guile than his evolutionary brother as Charizard is quite large. His personality matches his look as Charmeleon tends to be quite fiery, arrogant and cocky. He's a very confident character which adds to his cool factor. His also quite strong both in his attack and spc attack making him the creature of choice for an all-out offensive strategy. For me personally Charmeleon is definitely one of the best designed Pokemon; I love all of the Pokemon in this particular evolution group actually! Each one is greatly designed and are strong, reliable fire Pokemon to use.

Thanks for reading my latest blog post everyone! Please let me know what your top 5 second evolution Pokemon are by either commenting or sending me a message via my email: craig1.0@outlook.com

Cheers all!

Stephensonite.